THE THRONE ROOM WAS SO SWAMPED WITH SOLDIERS AND GENERALS, SO
packed with commotion as they awaited the return of their king, I could hardly hear over the din. I gripped Mari by her elbow and tugged her into a shadowed alcove. The wrought-iron candelabra above us
cast her curled hair and soft freckles in quiet illumination. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to talk about it really.” “That’s very disturbing, coming from you.”
Mari didn’t smile—also alarming—but took a shuddering inhale. “I can’t seem to do magic anymore.”
The chatter and clanging of armor that bloated the throne room fell away to the single pinprick of Mari’s words. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think I mean?” The fiery retort relaxed me some. That was the Mari I was used to. “I haven’t been able to since I woke up.”
“Did you tell Briar?”
She shook her head. I should have known. Mari was not one to ask for help readily.
“Mari, do you think—”
“That I was right? That the amulet was the only reason I could do anything and now I’m back to being a magicless witch like I was before we stole it from Kane’s study? Yes, I do.”
“You knew it was helping you all along.” I shook my head. “I never should have doubted you.”
Mari offered me a begrudging smile. “So you believe me now . . . What changed?”
“Briar said you rigged the amulet magically to bolster your power. I knew you hadn’t, though. Which means the only way it could have given you power, and made you ill, was if you were from her lineage, and able to use it because she crafted it. Kane said her coven hasn’t been seen or heard from in hundreds of years, but maybe . . . somehow . . .”
“My mother . . .”
“Did you tell anyone else?” Mari made a face. “No, but . . .” “But what?”
“You’re going to laugh.”
“For some reason I doubt that.”
“I was going to tell Griffin. I thought that he might be able to help. Or just listen, I don’t know.”
“But?”
“But he has been such a prick to me since I awoke. Ignoring me, walking away mid-sentence when I ask him to please put his pack next to the other ones in order of weight and not height because clearly that makes no sense, how does ordering them by height make anything easier—”
“Mari.”
“Sorry.” She sighed. “I just thought, back in Peridot, that we were becoming friends. Good friends. Or maybe even something more than that . . . And that’s hard for me. I never had a lot of luck in that arena growing up in Shadowhold. Mostly, the boys here were really cruel. But Griffin . . . Well, it’s pointless now, isn’t it? I guess helping me walk down a single flight of stairs at Briar’s was enough to make him hate me all over again. Stones forbid he do one damned thing for someone else.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Arwen, he practically dropped me like a lit match as soon as he could.”
“Griffin sat by your bedside for days on end without eating or drinking. He read to you. Slept beside you. He let Kane travel to Crag’s Hollow without him so he could stay with you.”
“So he’s loyal, like a good dog.”
I missed her so much and also I was going to strangle her. “He couldn’t bear to leave your side! He couldn’t hold you as you walked down some stairs probably because he was this close to vomiting out the words I love you, please order me around for the rest of eternity. And it scares him almost as much as it scares you.”
Mari’s eyes widened. “I do not order people around!”
I glared at her, but couldn’t help a half smile. “First things first.” I sighed. “You need to tell Briar about your magic. If anyone can help you get it back, it’s her.”
“Maybe this is a blessing. I was all right before magic. I’ll be all right again. Maybe there’s something in my lineage that shouldn’t be touched.” The look in her eyes told me there was more to that theory, but she moved past it. “Please tell me you’ve been faring even a little better?”
I exhaled with an audible whoosh. “I have a lot to catch you up on.” “I feel like this happens to us far too often.”
“Maybe one day our lives will be boring.”
Her brows rose quickly before lowering as she schooled her face. But I knew what surprised her. It had been a long while since I’d spoken about the future as if I might still have one.
“Go find Leigh and Ryder, and we can show them Shadowhold together. Last night I told Leigh about Kane’s art collection and promised I’d show her my favorite paintings in the castle. Did you know she can really draw?”
“Yes.” I smiled at the colorful memories. “Our house back in Abbington was full of her art.”
“After, you and I can go to the great hall, drink too much birchwine, and tackle everything I missed.” Her eyes had brightened a bit, and my heart was starting to re-form from the mangled shape it had contorted into at her confession. She would survive this. I would help her to. “Starting with you and Fedrik. He’s been asking about you nonstop.”
Bleeding Stones, Fedrik. I had almost forgotten. “And speaking of, look who it is.”
I whirled to see Fedrik walk into the throne room, followed by Griffin, Kane, and a handful of Onyx generals. I waved brightly at Barney and Dagan among them, which earned only a nod from Dagan—an obvious sign of his deep and steadfast love—and a full, ear-to-ear grin from Barney, welcoming me home.
Home.
I had barely luxuriated in how good it felt to refer to Shadowhold as such when Fedrik cut away from the group and directly toward me. He looked radiant, as if filled with sunbeams, despite the dark, rich stone walls and obsidian thorns of Kane’s throne behind him.
“Arwen,” he said brightly. “How was your trip?” “It was . . . informative.”
“Kane tells me you found the seer but her clues on the blade were a bit ambiguous.”
“Yes, but at least we have a lead now. It’s here in Onyx. And we got a few other helpful pieces of information we can hopefully tie together, too.”
“Good to hear. Mari, do you mind giving us a moment?”
Mari couldn’t hide her sly smile as her eyes locked on mine. “Not at all. I’m going to go find the other two Valondales and teach them a bit about fine art. It’s been a while since I felt like a snob.”
Fedrik drew closer once Mari had left us. “I’m sorry I left Briar’s abruptly. Griffin said you’d be back last night.”
“We got caught in a storm.”
His blue eyes flared. “I’m sure you did. Have you made a decision regarding my offer? I’m sailing back to Azurine today.”
“Fedrik—”
“What offer?” Kane asked behind me, his voice like lightning across a desolate sky.
I spun to face him, my eyes pleading. Not now.
Fedrik only smiled. “Well, you were going to find out eventually.” He stood a bit taller, still at least half a foot beneath Kane. “I asked Arwen to come back to Azurine with me. At least until you’ve found the blade and prepared for battle. It’ll be safer for her, and frankly”—he looked around at
the dark drapery and flickering, wrought-iron candelabras—“a little more scenic.”
“A generous offer,” Kane said, his voice dry, “if Arwen wasn’t our key to finding the weapon.”
“She already told me it’s here in your own kingdom. For all we know you’ve had it all along and are just delaying the inevitable.”
Kane stepped toward him with intent. “Mind your tongue, or I’ll sever it from your mouth.”
“Kane.” I leveled a glare at him.
“And there he goes,” Fedrik drawled. “Hostile and threatening once again.”
Griffin strode over to stand beside his king. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so aggressive, Fedrik. Didn’t get your beauty sleep?”
But it was Kane who loosed a dark and venomous chuckle. “He’s angry.
He wants her and knows she’ll never be his.”
There was that predictable Kane cruelty. And to the very person we needed to vouch for him to Citrine. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.” I pulled Fedrik away from the prying eyes of the throne room by the arm. “Come on.”
Kane called to our backs, “Enjoy the soaked kingdom.”
“Is that the kind of brute you always imagined yourself with?” Fedrik asked as we passed Kane’s sentries and roamed out into the hall.
“Not particularly,” I admitted once we were alone.
“Let me show you a better life. Maybe not with me, but surely not with him.”
“Fedrik, I can’t come with you.”
“I’m not trying to sweep you off your feet, Arwen. But you haven’t even
—”
“I’m in love with him.”
The quiet hall was already a reprieve from the teeming throne room, but there was a peaceful calm in my mind as well as soon as I spoke the words aloud.
A serene, steadfast resolve solidifying around that singular truth.
Of course I loved him.
I had been falling in love with Kane since the day we raced in the woods. Maybe even since he had given me his fox fur when I’d been so close to breaking. He never let me, though. Not then, not after Siren’s Bay, and not now.
Denying it for so long—it had been a cruelty to both him and myself. Saying the words—even to Fedrik—felt like walking through those enormous ornate doors to Shadowhold. It felt like coming home.
Fedrik’s brows knit inward. “I can’t say I’m happy for you two.”
“You don’t have to. I don’t think it would be fair to him to be together.” “That’s a load. He’s utterly devoted to you.”
I said nothing. I understood his anger.
“If he made you think . . . He is such a fool.” Fedrik shook his head. “Always has been.”
I smiled weakly as a handful of soldiers with masks like skulls and sleek leather armor passed by us and into the bustling throne room. “What will you tell your parents?”
“Some version of the truth.” “Which is?”
Fedrik’s face gave nothing away. “I’m not sure yet. Look, if you change your mind, I’m just a sea away.”
I nodded, and once he had strolled back into the throne room, I sagged against the cool stone wall.
Maybe Fedrik was right. Maybe we were both fools.
Was it not foolish to know we loved each other and not act on it? Not try to be together, in whatever way we could?
Or was it foolish to confess my love to Kane knowing I might be ripped from his grasp any day now? Knowing how many he’d already lost. Remembering how pained he looked when he’d admitted his love . . .
I wasn’t hiding from what might tether me to this life anymore. I wasn’t concealing my feelings for my own benefit—I was doing it for his.
Was that foolish? Or a mercy?
I stared across the bustling castle, gloomy and shadowed as ever— Stones, I had missed this place. The candles flickering in the summer wind that slipped through wide-open stained-glass windows. The fireflies drifting around in drowsy late-afternoon air. I knew fall would be here soon, and all the trees would turn the maple color of my childhood.
I wondered if I’d be here to see it. What it might feel like to blend my old home and my new. What I might look like, wrapped in my familiar fox fur, my new boots stomping through the crisp, fallen leaves all over the courtyard. The children I might treat in the apothecary, knees scraped from hay and hands blistered from carving gourds.
Did Kane love the rusted red and sunflower yellow of the leaves when they grew here in his bountiful keep? Or still loathe them as much as he did back in Amber? If he did, I would have to convince him otherwise. If we were both still here then, I would drag him, grumbling and rolling his eyes, into the gloomy woods and force him to jump in the leaves with me like schoolchildren. To brew cider with me, as rich as the one from Mariner’s Pub—mulled and sweet and spiced. I’d show him all the reasons autumn was spellbinding and gorgeously melancholy. Why even as a citizen of Onyx, it would always be a part of me.
“Arwen?” Mari rounded out of the throne room with Ryder and Leigh in tow, shaking me from my hopes.
Hope.
That’s what that felt like.
Leigh flew into me with racehorse speed. The stone floor of the hallway was cold on my knees as I sank to the ground and held her, blonde hair filling my vision. Ryder joined us on the floor, making the hug smell of tobacco.
“You’ve been smoking,” I whispered into them. “I would never,” Leigh swore against my back.
“Not you.” I grinned, pulling on one of her curls. “How are you both?” Leigh withdrew and spoke first. “You’re in love with Kane?”
My eyes widened. “Eavesdropping?” Ryder blanched. “I wasn’t, just her.”
“You love him, but you’re not going to tell him?” Leigh’s face was grave.
“Leigh, this has nothing to do with you.” “When will you stop treating me like a kid?”
My heart sank. We were already fighting. “Why are you so angry with me these days?”
“I’ll let you two talk,” Ryder offered. Torchlight glinted along his hair as he ambled down the stone hallway back toward Mari.
“I’m not angry with you,” Leigh said.
“Yes, you are. You’ve been furious with me since the day we left for Citrine, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why.”
“I’m not angry,” she conceded, and with more maturity than I had seen from her before, said, “I’m afraid.”
For a moment, I couldn’t fathom an adequate response. Of course she was afraid. How had I been so blind?
“Me, too,” I admitted, taking her hand in my own. “Of Lazarus, of this war. But what do your fears have to do with me and Kane?”
“No, that’s the problem,” she said, yanking her hand from mine. “You can’t be scared, too. One of us has to be brave.”
“Leigh . . .” I started, her words a vise around my heart. “I wish I knew what to say to make everything feel safe again.”
“I know there isn’t anything.”
“Maybe not. But you know what? When I was most scared, there was one thing that helped me.”
“Running?”
“No.” I grinned. “Even better.” Her eyes lit with curiosity.
“Dagan taught me here in this very keep how to protect myself with a sword. It made me feel strong and powerful. Like I could face things bigger and more frightening than me. Like maybe one day I could be the frightening one. I’d like to teach you, too.”
Leigh held my eyes as she considered the offer. “I’ll never be as strong as you, though. I’m not Fae.”
It was shocking to see myself, however briefly, through Leigh’s eyes. As the brave one, the resilient one, her full-blooded Fae sister. No wonder my childish avoidance of Kane had upset her so. She was looking to me all along to be strong. For us. For her.
In the place of our mother.
“You don’t need to be Fae. You can harness power only you have.
Bravery comes from in here.” I pointed to her heart.
Her eyes stayed fixed on me as I stood. “So, what are you going to do?” “Help Kane track down the blade. Find a way to save the realms and my
own life. And figure out the love story if we make it that far?” Leigh’s lips cut a flat line. “I hate that plan.”
I slumped against the stone wall behind me once more. “Yeah, me, too.” “You two ready to explore?” Mari called from around the corner, Ryder
behind her like an eager pet.
“Let’s do it.” I grinned back at them. I’d help Mari with her magic block later tonight. Figure out what in the world to do about Kane later, too. For now, it was enough to spend the afternoon with the people I had missed so much. I’d tell them what I’d learned about my mother, about Powell. I’d share with them my fears, and my hopes, my faith in the future.
What I should have done weeks ago I could do now. And that would have to be enough.
“I found the painter you were looking for,” Mari said to Leigh as we started down the hall. “His abstract work is in the north wing gallery below the vault and above the . . .” She trailed off, cringing.
Leigh swallowed. “Above the what?”
“The . . . torture chamber.” Mari grimaced. “But! This place really isn’t as scary as you might think. Most castles have a torture chamber, it’s not just us!”
Leigh did not look pleased.
“It’s actually pretty interesting, Leigh,” Ryder added. “One of the most prolific thieves of all time was held in there. I read all about it last night in the library.”
I might have made a comment about Ryder suddenly being interested in books now that they had been given to him by Mari, but the words dried up on my tongue.
“Who?” I asked.
“Drake Alcott,” Ryder said, barely able to contain his pride in knowing the answer.
The vault that had housed the blade for forty-five years was only two floors above the torture annex. Where notorious, world-renowned thief and con man Drake Alcott had been kept. Hadn’t Niclas said he had been sent away five years ago? The same time the blade went missing . . . And to Hemlock Isle. An island here, in Onyx.
I stilled. “Ryder . . . you’re a genius.” “Stones, don’t sound so surprised.”
But I was already moving. Ignoring their calls as I ran back into the throne room, past those sentries once more, searching for Kane—but he was nowhere to be found. I turned to Griffin and Barney and the herd of Onyx soldiers that surrounded them.
“Where’s Kane?”
“Not sure,” Griffin said coolly. “But he thinks you’re leaving for Citrine with Fedrik.”
Bleeding Stones.
“I need to find him. Right this moment.”
“I think he’s in the gardens, Lady Arwen,” Barney supplied. “Thank you.”
I raced for the castle garden as fast as a bird in flight.
