AS THE DOOR TO the green room swung open and Emeline walked in, every member of The Perennials stopped laughing. Ashley—dressed in black skinny jeans and a red shirt stitched with a barbed-wire heart—sat up from where she sprawled across the couch, her bleached-blond ponytail swishing.
An electric energy pulsed through Emeline as she realized what she’d done. What she was still doing. Saying good-bye to my tour, and a record deal with Daybreak.
No. What she was saying good-bye to was spending three weeks with musicians who didn’t think she deserved to share a stage with them. She was saying good-bye to recording an album of songs that weren’t hers.
Emeline grabbed her bag, buckled her instruments into their cases, then shouldered the door to the green room open and stepped out into the hall.
When it swung shut behind her, Ashley’s muffled voice said, “Didn’t she just go out onstage?”
Emeline should have told them she was leaving. That she was sorry. That she’d find a replacement for tomorrow, even. But she remembered the ugly words they’d spewed about her and Chloe last night and kept walking.
Adieu, jerks.
In the hall, she started to run—past the merch table selling her EPs, past the fans in The Perennials tees loitering against the walls. She ran all the way to the entrance of the Nymph, where a line of rain-streaked cabs waited at the curb. The air was heavy and warm. The city shimmered like glass.
“Emeline!”
Joel’s voice.
She winced but didn’t turn as the rain came down, speckling her face and hair. Opening the back door of a cab, she tossed her guitar and ukulele cases inside, then ducked into the darkness of the back seat. “Rue Sainte-Catharine Est,” she told the driver above the thump of windshield wipers. “S’il vous plaît.”
She’d left Hawthorne’s ring at her apartment. Not only had she not wanted the reminder, but she never wore jewelry when she played—it only got in the way. Now that ring was her fastest way home.
A hand grabbed the door, stopping her from shutting it.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Emeline looked up to find Joel’s face contorted with anger. He gripped the door so hard, his knuckles were bone white.
“You walked offstage in the middle of your set!”
“I know,” she said, reaching for the door handle, thinking of the woods. We came to say good-bye. “There’s an emergency. I have to get home.”
He grabbed her wrist to stop her. “I kissed ass getting you this gig! And you’re just throwing it away?! What the hell is wrong with you!”
“I know. I…” Emeline tried to twist out of his tightening grip. “Stop it, Joel. You’re hurting me.”
From the front seat, the cabdriver turned and cussed him out in French.
Glancing to the driver, Joel hesitated. Emeline twisted free, but Joel still had the door in his grip. She couldn’t shut it without slamming his fingers.
“If you do this,” Joel said, nostrils flaring, “my dad will cut you loose. I can promise you that.”
Once, those words would have wrecked her. A few weeks ago, being dropped by her manager would have been one of the worst things that could happen. Now she simply nodded. “I know. Tell him I’m sorry. Really, I am.”
Joel’s mouth fell open. As his grip loosened on the door, Emeline grabbed the handle and slammed it shut. He withdrew his fingers just in time.
“Imbécile,” muttered the cabbie, putting on his blinker and pulling into the street. In the side-view mirror, Emeline glanced from Joel to the Nymph’s marquee boasting her name in bold black letters, watching it until it disappeared completely and all that was left was the beat of her heart, thudding in time with the wipers.
IT WAS FULL DARK when Emeline arrived back in Edgewood. The change was disorienting at first, stepping out of the stale air of her cramped apartment and into the crisp, cool breeze on Pa’s front lawn. She’d been thinking of Hawthorne when she put on the ring and therefore expected to find herself in the King’s City. But maybe the ring could only take you places beyond the woods.
She opened the door to Pa’s house, intending to cut through it.
Inside, a fire crackled in the woodstove, warming the room. Pa stood at the kitchen window in blue flannel pajamas and slippers. Maisie stood beside him. The two of them stared eerily towards the dark forest, mugs of cocoa cupped in their hands.
“Emeline,” said Maisie, her voice hushed. “Come and see.”
She stepped up next to them, looking where they did.
The sight set her heart to pounding.
Her tree.
The one Pa planted on the day she was born.
Illuminated by the house lights, she saw its knotted bark and twisting branches. Bloodred berries grew in clusters beneath its dark green leaves. It was rooted in place at the edge of the woods, right where it had always been.
“Your hawthorn,” said Pa.
Her stomach clenched like a fist.
That can’t be.
But there it was: her hawthorn.
The curse turns everything back to its true form.
Emeline didn’t realize she was moving, running, tearing out of the house and down towards the woods, until she stepped across the tree line, avoiding the hawthorn like a horrifying truth she didn’t want to face.
The second she stepped inside the forest, she felt the wrongness of it. The trees near the edge, which had always been healthy and strong, were rotting. The moonlight coming through the canopy was soupy and gray.
It no longer smelled like a forest; it smelled like decay.
The Stain had spread all the way here, to the tree line. If it spread this far …
Emeline ran. She ran until her lungs burned and her breath was loud and ragged in her ears, and then she kept running.
Emeline, the blighted trees rattled, reaching for her. You came back.…
Bog guarded the closest entry point into the city, so she went to it first. But when she arrived at its swamp, the stagnant water remained still.
“Bog!”
No muddy head rose up from its depths.
“Bog!”
Only the heavy silence of the Stain answered her.
If Bog had succumbed to the curse, was the entry point gone? Emeline searched for the boardwalk normally hidden beneath the water. But if it was there, it was entirely submerged. And without the entry point, it was a three-day walk to the gate.
From behind her, something cracked softly. Like a branch breaking beneath a footstep.
Emeline’s spine straightened. A cold sweat broke out over her skin. The knife Sable forged her was taken by the Vile. If this was a shadow skin, she had nothing to defend herself with.
Slowly, she turned around. But the thing waiting for her wasn’t a shadow; it was a horse. Her black coat gleamed in the moonlight and her golden eyes glowed like the twisting flames of a fire. The ember mare flicked her ears, staring at Emeline.
“Lament,” she breathed.
At the sound of her name, the horse started forward. Emeline reached her arms around Lament’s neck, pressing her cheek to that warm, soft coat.
“Can you take me to the city?”
Lament whuffed into her hair. As if to say, Get on.
THE ONCE-WHITE WALLS SURROUNDING the King’s City were cracked and blackened with mold. At the entrance, the copper gate twisted back on its hinges like a broken rib cage.
Emeline shivered as Lament took them through.
The streets beyond were dark and lifeless. A thin sheet of gray dust—like crumbled leaves—caked the cobbles. No hedgemen marched. No faces peeked out of windows.
The city was empty.
Emeline nudged Lament into a gallop.
They rode straight to Grace and Sable’s house. At the entrance, Emeline slowed the ember mare, then slid down her warm back. The gate was open, and the sight of the broken latch sent a chill creeping across Emeline’s skin.
Emeline didn’t bring Lament to the stable. She didn’t want the horse trapped, in case any shadow skins lurked nearby.
The night pressed in close as she warily approached the silent house. Lament watched, ears flicking nervously. No plume of smoke issued out of the chimney, and the once-beautiful willow in the yard was white and withered with rot. Taking the dust-covered steps quickly, Emeline knocked on the door. When no one answered, she reached for the crystal knob and turned, only to find it locked.
“Grace!”
No one answered.
She banged, her panic rising.
“It’s me! Emeline!”
She was about to bang again when chains clinked from inside and a bolt slid open.
When the door swung in, Emeline relaxed—only to feel the cold, honed tip of a sword pressed to her throat.
At the other end of the shimmering blade stood Grace, both hands clutching the pommel. Her thick black curls were a tangled cloud around her head, and her eyes were dark hollows.
“Move,” she said, “and I’ll kill you.”