JUST BEFORE MIDNIGHT, PA escorted Emeline to her demonstration. She kept close, in case he teetered, her arm tucked inside his elbow. As they walked, he hummed the tune of “Goodnight, Irene,” transporting her back to a time when he would play this song on his accordion while she did homework by the fireplace.
Emeline held on tighter.
Soon, they stepped into the king’s grove. The night sky was clouded overhead, and the giant birches were leafless around them. She helped Pa to one of the empty tables, where courtiers gathered.
He squeezed her hand before she walked away.
The hard earth crunched beneath Emeline as she moved to face the king. She’d worn a knit shawl to ward off the night’s cold bite, but it was mild in the grove. The air shimmered as she walked, making Emeline wonder if the king enchanted it to stay warm.
Finally, she stood before the Wood King. He was clothed in moths tonight. Thousands of them crowded his body, their creamy wings folding and unfolding, like hundreds of blinking eyes. Behind him, black mold speckled his white throne, and the grass at his feet was gray and dying.
The smell of magic hung thick in the air here, making her dizzy.
The king leaned forward on his throne. “Are you ready, singer?”
“Yes, sire.”
“Then let me hear the songs.”
It was difficult at first, with the full intensity of the king’s gaze fixed on her face. She was used to being blinded by lights, unable to see her audience. But so long as she focused on the song instead of her surroundings, the king and the courtiers and the grove faded away.
The Song Mage’s music was the only thing that mattered tonight, and she soon found her rhythm. Her body hummed with warmth as her heel tapped out a beat on the ground, and the lyrics spilled from her lips: Odes to a woman marked by the moon. Songs that immortalized her midnight hair and cobalt eyes.
As Emeline sang, a familiar longing swelled within her.
I miss this.
The raw energy of a room. The way every crowd was different. The way it kept her on her toes, wanting to please them.
It made her come alive.
She yearned to be on tour, going from city to city, stage to stage. A new audience every night. Her name in bold letters, lit up by bright white marquees.
Soon, she thought. Soon I’ll be home, and this will be my life again.
The king smiled as he listened. Tipping his head back, he closed his eyes, falling under the spell of Emeline’s voice.
At the sight of it—their king, soothed—the watching courtiers relaxed, sinking into the songs. Nodding along to the beat. Tapping their toes.
She’d done it.
She’d pleased the king of the wood.
Emeline grinned, happy. Her face warmed as she sang on, and her hairline beaded with cool sweat. Soon there was only one more song to sing, and then Pa would be free.
She started the last one. Her song. The one she’d written to the tune of the Song Mage’s waltz.
“Breathing slow and steady
Sleep has settled in
I trace the pathways, midnight blue
That run beneath your skin”
When the song began, the king was clear-eyed and quiet. As she continued, though, his soft edges began to change.
Or maybe she was imagining it.
“Some spirit I have lost somewhere
I search for it in vain
Some beauty I’ve forgotten
Since you forgot my name”
By the time she finished the second verse, the king’s eyes had narrowed to slits and his bark-like hands curled into claws.
Fear nipped at her.
The king is getting increasingly unstable, Hawthorne had said. I’m worried about what he’ll do tonight.…
As she waded into the third verse, the king rose to his feet, his face full of fire. The moths clothing him opened and closed their wings erratically. Some flew off and darted into the shadows.
“You dare defy me again, singer?” His voice was harsh, like the caw of a crow.
A chill swept through Emeline.
“I rewrote it,” she explained, backing up as he stalked like a wolf towards her. “There were pages missing. I wouldn’t be able to sing it otherwise.”
“Seize her.”
“But I—”
Hands clamped down on her arms.
This was going all wrong. So completely wrong.
Had she really underestimated him again?
“You have greatly displeased me, Emeline Lark.” The king stood over her, the smell of him enveloping her like dirt and rot. Like he was decaying from the inside out. “I asked for my Mage’s songs. Not yours. You think your music, your talent, could possibly compare to his?”
Her throat stung at the insult. It was nothing she hadn’t heard before—her songs weren’t good enough; she wasn’t good enough—but it still hurt. It always hurt.
His black gaze fixed on her like a viper waiting to strike. “As punishment for your defiance, you will be executed. Tonight.”
Emeline’s blood turned to ice. “What?”
At the edge of her vision, she saw movement in the crowd of courtiers. She looked for Pa, but the crowd was blocked by a row of hedgemen moving into formation, trapping Emeline inside the clearing.
When she turned back to the king, she found instead the biggest, burliest man she’d ever seen stepping into the circle with her. He wore the same helmet and livery as the other hedgemen, but instead of a spear, his hand gripped a massive cleaver. Moonlight glinted off the blade.
Emeline’s palms grew damp.
My executioner, she thought, unable to take her eyes off the cleaver. Hawthorne had warned her about this exact scenario. As had Grace. Will he lop off my head in one stroke? Or will it take several?
She nearly turned and ran.
Little good it would do her. She was completely surrounded by guards. Instead, she started backing away from the man with the cleaver. Immediately, four hedgemen stepped out of their positions with steel-tipped spears pointed directly at her, corralling her back towards the executioner.
“Step away from her,” said a rough-soft voice.
Emeline looked to find Hawthorne wrestling his way through the circle of guards, with Rooke and Sable on his heels. Rooke’s dazzling smile was gone, and Sable’s mouth was curled in a snarl.
All three were armed. As if they’d expected trouble.
Hawthorne strode to Emeline’s side. Sable and Rooke positioned themselves behind her, like shields at her back.
Emeline glanced up at Hawthorne. “What are you doing?”
They were putting themselves at risk by coming to her aid.
“What does it look like?”
He stood strong and still and rooted beside her, his face hardened by fury as he stared at the executioner bearing down on them.
“He’ll only kill you too,” she said.
“There’s a curse coming for us all. We’re doomed either way.”
Before she could respond, Hawthorne drew the sword at his back. The steel scraped the scabbard, hushing as it came forth.
The executioner paused, suddenly uncertain.
“What is this?” the Wood King hissed from atop his throne, where he’d returned to watch the spectacle. As he rose sharply to his feet, the moths cloaking him scattered completely, taking to the air and fluttering off into the night. “This is how you repay me? After everything I’ve done for you?”
Emeline shot Hawthorne a look. What had the king done for him?
The king’s eyes were daggers, aimed at his tithe collector.
“With all due respect, sire: enough blood has been shed in this court. I cannot stand by and let more of it spill.”
“You think to stop me? I am king!” His voice scraped like dead branches across a sidewalk. “Seize them all.”
The circle of hedgemen constricted, armor clinking as they caged in their prey.
Emeline stepped closer to Hawthorne. Think! What could possibly save them? What did the Wood King want more than anything else?
To have his Song Mage back.
She couldn’t give him that. But in lieu of it …
Her version of the Mage’s waltz had enraged the king; he’d wanted his precious minstrel’s song, not hers. If she could somehow give him the dead man’s missing song, would it be enough to get them out of this mess?
She had to try.
“I know where the missing sheet music is,” she blurted out.
“Emeline!” Hawthorne hissed from beside her, sensing the lie.
Since his entire plan involved brandishing a sword and hoping their enemies—who vastly outnumbered them—backed off, she ignored him. Emeline stared down the Wood King, who’d wrenched his gaze from his tithe collector.
All she had now was her fear and her wits. She clung to them.
“Let me fetch the missing music for you,” her voice rang out, strong and clear as a bell. “Give me one more chance. If I succeed, you’ll have every last one of your beloved Mage’s songs. Then, if I displease you again, your next minstrel can sing them for you.”
“Tell me where the music is,” said the king, hunger in his gaze.
“In the borderlands,” she lied. “Let me go, and I’ll bring it back to you.”
The king narrowed his eyes. “Tell me where they are, and my tithe collector will fetch them.”
She shook her head. “Only I can find the sheets.”
“You think me a fool? That I trust you to return of your own free will?”
“Then compel her to return,” said Hawthorne. She glanced up at him, surprised. “Let me stand surety for her.”
Surety?
The king fell silent, considering the two of them. Some of the moths that had flown off earlier returned to tentatively resettle on his shoulders and head, opening and closing their wings once more.
“So be it.” The king’s voice had taken on a deadly edge. To Emeline, he said, “I will allow you to fetch the sheet music from the borderlands. And if you do not return”—he glared viciously at Hawthorne—“your surety will pay the price for your defiance.”
Pay the price? “What does that mean?”
“Just agree, Emeline,” said Hawthorne from beside her.
Annoyance rippled through her. No. She needed to know exactly what she was getting into, in case there was some trick.
“What price will Hawthorne pay if I don’t return?”
The king smiled. “If you don’t return, Hawthorne will be killed in your place.”
Her stomach bottomed out. Killed in my place?
She shook her head. “No. No way.” She didn’t even know where the sheet music was! There would be no bringing it back in time to save him.
“What other choice do you have?” said Hawthorne. “Either we all die here tonight, or you take this offer.” She glanced over her shoulder to where Sable and Rooke were also surrounded. They’d valiantly come to her defense tonight. She couldn’t let them die here.
But she refused to let Hawthorne die in her stead, and if she didn’t know where the sheet music was, that meant she’d have to return and take the punishment herself.
She swallowed, then glanced to the crowd of courtiers again, searching for her grandfather. There was still one more person she needed to save.
“Fine. I agree.” Her gaze found Pa, staring at her from behind the line of hedgemen. “But only if my grandfather comes with me.” She turned back to the king. “And once he’s free of the woods, I want your promise that you’ll never touch him again.”
The Wood King’s eyes sparked like black fire. But whatever anger she provoked, he kept it coiled. “Very well. It will be done. You have three days, Emeline Lark. If you are not back through my gate by sunset on the third day, your sentence will be carried out with Hawthorne standing in for you.”
He motioned to two guards, who started towards Hawthorne. Seeing them, Hawthorne sheathed his sword, unbuckled it, and handed it over. The two men forced him to turn, then bound his hands behind his back.
“Emeline…”
She nodded. “Sunset in three days. I know. I’ll be back before then.”
“No.” The word was firm, compelling her to look up at him. “If you have any sense, you’ll be far, far away by then.”
Emeline frowned. Was he telling her to run and let him perish?
“I’m not leaving you here to die.”
He looked down to the grass between them. “I’m too valuable to the king. He won’t let me come to harm.”
But the king was cursed and unstable—Hawthorne had said so himself. And if the king’s behavior tonight wasn’t proof, there was the wall of skulls in the crypt, bearing witness. Emeline had no doubt the king would come through on his threat.
Hawthorne was lying in order to save her.
Angry that he would try to trick her again, this time at the cost of his own life, she gritted her teeth and stepped closer. “One of these days, your lies are going to catch up to you, Hawthorne Fell.”
His mismatched eyes lifted to hers, taking her in. “Trust me, darling. They already have.”
When the guards yanked him back, tearing him away from her, Hawthorne didn’t take his eyes off Emeline. There was something sorrowful in his gaze. Something that reminded her of the way she looked at Pa, on his worst days.
It was an odd thought to have as they marched him away. Yet it lodged like a leaden weight in her rib cage.
IT WAS ALMOST DAWN by the time Lament delivered Emeline and Pa to the tree line. The sky lightened above them as Emeline dismounted. After she helped Pa down from the saddle, they turned towards the farmhouse together.
She almost didn’t believe it.
Emeline breathed in the smell of the farm, letting its calm wash over her. The sun hadn’t quite risen yet, and there was a glow in the air, like a promise. Her heart hummed with it.
Home.
And yet it was a bittersweet sight. Instead of feeling free of the Wood King’s court, she felt as if invisible shackles had locked around her ankles, the chains of which led all the way back to the king.
She’d lied to him. She had no idea where the missing music was and doubted completely that it was here beyond the woods. Now, if she didn’t return in three days with the music in hand, Hawthorne would be executed.
Her heart twisted.
At least I set Pa free, she thought, watching her grandfather cross the tree line and move towards the house.
But if in three days she was dead, who would make sure he was taken care of?
She started to follow her grandfather when Lament bit her sweater, preventing her from moving forward.
Emeline frowned up at the horse. “What is it?”
Letting go, Lament nudged a small saddlebag with her nose. As if to say, Open it.
Emeline undid the brass buckles and reached into the leather bag, pulling out a small bundle wrapped in midnight-blue silk and tied with a gold ribbon. Curious, Emeline untied the ribbon. The silk fell away to reveal a small, sheathed knife. The same size as the utility knife Pa once carried on his belt while working on the farm.
Emeline’s fingers curled around the leather sheath, which had been oiled and stitched with care, then drew out the knife.
The handle was carved out of a ruddy wood—cherry, maybe—with a knot left in at the base, giving it an elegant strangeness. But it was the blade that held her attention longest. The surface glimmered in the same way as Hawthorne’s sword. As if it contained some spell.
With it was a folded piece of paper. Unfolding it, Emeline read the shaky script:
Normal steel can’t cut through shadow skins, but this can. Keep it close.
—Sable
Emeline thought of the golden-eyed shiftling and quickly glanced back into the trees, which were only just starting to lighten. But there was no one there.
Feeling unworthy of such a gift, she said to Lament, “If you see her, thank her for me.”
The ember mare snorted in response.
With that, Emeline turned and left the woods.