EMELINE BIT BACK A multitude of questions and took Grace’s hand, leaving the table behind. Grace’s fingers tightened as she led them closer to the dancing.
“Stay away from Nettle,” she said sternly. “She’s a cat who likes to play with her prey before she kills it. She didn’t give you anything back there, did she? Like wine? Or whiskey?”
“No. Why?”
The air was much warmer here and the music beat loud, drowning out their voices. Grace slowed, leaning in closer so Emeline could hear her.
“It’s Nettle’s favorite game: she enchants her friends by spiking their drinks with spells. Last month she threw a party and everyone who attended fell in love with their worst enemy for a day.”
What? Emeline’s eyes widened. “She does that to her friends?”
They entered the crowd of clapping, stomping dancers. Many of the faces around them were like Nettle’s: Features too askew to be precisely human. Eyes too big—or too small—for the faces they were set in. Smiles full of serrated teeth. Hair hiding tufted ears.
Grace didn’t stop walking. Just dodged and sidestepped the shiftling dancers, moving through the circle and out the other side. Taking Emeline with her as she strode towards the exit.
The hedgemen in their hammered bronze armor and helmets shaped like seed pods stared straight ahead as Emeline and Grace walked between them and out into the hall. When they were free of the ballroom, Grace let go of Emeline’s hand and kept walking.
“You’re his new minstrel. Aren’t you?” Her copper-brown eyes were bright with concern. “Are you all right?”
“Am I all right?” Emeline spluttered. “What about you? What are you doing here?”
A confused wrinkle creased the skin between Grace’s eyebrows. “I was tithed last summer. Didn’t Maisie tell you?”
It’s what everyone in Edgewood told her—that Grace had been tithed. Emeline just hadn’t believed it. “I thought you ran away.”
Grace shook her head, sending her black curls bouncing. “Not … exactly. Anyways. That’s not important right now.” She turned sharply at a stone staircase, her feet hurrying down the steps. “This way. You need to see something.”
When they hit bottom, darkness seeped in and the temperature dropped. Emeline shivered and rubbed her arms, trying to stave off the chill. Up ahead, a large wooden door was illuminated by two brightly burning torches set into sconces on the wall. Lifting one of them, Grace pulled on the door’s iron ring, then stepped through the opening.
Emeline followed her.
It was black as pitch within. Their footsteps hushed against the stone floor, which was carved up into slabs, smooth with age, and imprinted with words. In the flickering light of Grace’s torch, Emeline caught names. Dates. Inscriptions.
Tombs, she thought. We’re in a crypt.
Emeline glanced around, slowing as the realization sank in. In the darkness, she could almost make out the shapes of statues carved from marble, and doorways leading into alcoves, holding the dead within.
Grace was several yards ahead now, standing before a white wall, the torch held high over her head. Emeline hurried to catch up, not wanting to be left in the dark.
“Why are we…”
The question died on her lips as she drew nearer to the wall Grace stood staring at. It only looked white, she realized, because of the rows and rows of human skulls. Hundreds of skulls. Teeth bared, sockets gaping. So many, they filled the wall from floor to ceiling, end to end.
“They’re the king’s singers … as well as their instructors.”
An icy chill seeped into Emeline.
It’s why I had to reach out to another court, Hawthorne had told her. Calliope has agreed to be your instructor at great risk to herself.
“Shit.” This was way worse than she thought. “Do any survive?”
Grace shook her head.
Between them and the wall was a marble podium that rose to the height of their chests. Upon it, a crimson velvet pouch sat untied and open. Nestled inside its red folds was one more skull.
Emeline stepped towards it, touching the words on the bronze plaque. “‘The Song Mage,’” she read.
“What’s left of him,” said Grace. “They say the witch who killed him delivered his head to the king in that pouch.”
Remembering what Hawthorne said about this same witch—who’d given Claw the Song Mage’s music to guard—Emeline wrinkled her nose at the thought of it: blood dripping through the fabric, leaving a smear of red across the palace’s polished floors. “She must have really hated him.”
“Apparently, she loved him. But he didn’t love her back.” Grace turned away from the wall of death. “So she killed him.”
Emeline’s eyebrows lifted in astonishment. “Seems reasonable.”
The corner of Grace’s mouth tipped upwards. But she quickly sobered, looking back to the skull. Emeline looked too, studying the remains of the king’s beloved singer. The small teeth, the yellowed bone, the shadowy gaps. “What was so special about you?” she asked it.
“He was originally from our world,” Grace said. “A human singer renowned for his captivating voice. But then he came here, to the King’s City, and didn’t want to leave. So he traded his voice in exchange for a place in the court.”
Emeline cocked her head in confusion. “How could he sing with no voice?”
Grace shook her head. “His voice beyond the woods. He could speak and sing here, but the moment he stepped back into our world, he fell mute.”
Emeline reached for her throat. To not be able to sing … “It would have ended his career.”
Grace nodded. “Beyond the woods, yes. But here, in this world, there’s magic in sacrifice. His gave him power. A lot of power. It transformed him from court minstrel to Song Mage—a man who used his magical voice for the betterment of the woods. The Wood King’s reign was prosperous when the Song Mage was the court minstrel. It was a golden age, or so people say.”
“And now that golden age is over,” said Emeline, “because the Song Mage is dead.”
“And the woods are cursed,” added Grace. “Which is why you can’t stay.”
Emeline remembered Claw’s last words to Hawthorne.
You will not live long, Tithe Collector. I’ve seen it: my mistress’s curse will swallow the King’s City and everything in it.
“Hawthorne says the curse is poisoning the woods.”
Turning away from the skulls, Grace nodded as she led Emeline back through the crypt.
“The curse has three parts,” she explained. “The first is the Stain. It’s rotting the woods from the inside out, gaining more ground every day, spreading its poison closer to the King’s City.
“With the Stain comes the shadow skins. Every week, there’s another attack in the woods, and more are crossing the tree line, wreaking havoc on Edgewood and the other borderlands. Feeding on people’s fears before feasting on their flesh.
“But worst of all: the curse turns everything back to its true form.”
Emeline jerked her eyes to Grace’s face, illuminated by the flame of the torch. “What does that mean? And why is it the worst?”
Grace nodded as if she, too, had once needed to have it explained to her.
“A shiftling, for example, has two forms. Rooke, Nettle, Sable … you know them as one thing. As human, or at least humanlike. But that’s not what they really are. Every day, the curse forces more and more of them into their true forms permanently, preventing them from ever turning back. Every month, the city grows emptier as the curse gets stronger.”
When they arrived at the door they’d come in through, Grace turned to Emeline.
“This is why you can’t be the king’s minstrel.” Grace’s eyes were bright, almost feverish in the light of the orange flame. “The curse grows more powerful every day. You need to escape this place before it devours us. You’re in too much danger here.”
Emeline’s brows lifted. “And you’re not?”
That small frown appeared on Grace’s forehead. “I—”
Whatever she was about to say was cut off by the crypt door swinging open.
They both jumped back, hearts hammering.
On the other side stood Sable, her eyes luminous in the dim light. “There you are.” Her lean shoulders sagged with relief at the sight of Grace. “I’ve been looking—”
At the sight of Emeline, though, Sable stiffened and stepped back.
“Emeline,” said Grace, “this is Sable. Sable, Emeline.”
Emeline nodded. “We’ve met.”
Grace glanced to Sable, her eyes darkening with confusion. Her mouth hardened into a line as a bright emotion flickered across her face. “You’ve met?”
Sable’s lips parted, as if to speak, but Grace cut her off, speaking once more to Emeline.
“Listen.” She handed her torch to Sable, then held the door open for Emeline to pass through. “There’s a pub in the city called The Acorn. Sable and I and a few others go every Friday night.” As Sable replaced the torch in its sconce, Grace and Emeline started up the steps. “Meet me there at sunset on Friday, okay? We can make a plan.”
“Sure,” said Emeline, despite the fact that she was going nowhere until her grandfather was safely out of the Wood King’s clutches.
“We’ll find a way to get you home.” At the top of the stairs, Grace paused, waiting for the golden-eyed shiftling trudging up the steps behind them. “Ready?”
Sable nodded.
To Emeline, Grace said, “See you Friday. Try to stay alive until then, okay?”
The two girls walked away, in the opposite direction of the ballroom, their hushed argument echoing back to Emeline: Grace’s raised voice, followed by Sable’s curt answers.
“You didn’t think I’d want to know?”
“I only found out last night.”
“And you couldn’t have found the time to tell me between then and now?”
When they turned a corner, the hall fell silent.