It’s almost sunset when we reach home. Mother goes into the cottage, but Arien and I stay outside in the garden. The evening sky is cloudless, endless. Wind stirs through the branches of our orchard, and the air is heavy with lingering heat. I walk through the rows of summer plants, breathe the scent of sage and nettle as my skirts brush past the leaves. Arien follows me.
We go into the well house. It’s dim inside, lit only by faint palings of light that come through the cracks in the walls. I lift the heavy wooden cover and pull the bucket up from the water beneath. There’s always something eerie in this moment. That space between surface and water. The deep, silent well with the blur of ripples far below.
I wash my sweat-grimed face with a handful of water. Arien takes off the gloves and holds them, crumpled in his fist. He looks wrung out. His face is pale, and his eyes are circled with fatigue. I put my hand on the back of his neck, and he sighs as he leans against the cold of my palm.
“We could still leave.” My whisper echoes down through the darkness. The sound lingers. Leave. Leave. Leave.
He shakes his head, then scoops up some water and splashes it over his face. He wipes his hands against his trousers and pulls the gloves back on. “I told you to forget about it.”
I fill the bucket again with a sigh and unhook it from the rope so I can carry it to the kitchen. We walk back through the garden in silence, Arien ahead of me. He’s grown so much in the past few months. His shirt is tight across his shoulders though I only just let out the seams for him. He looks so much like our father did, tall and lean, while I’ve taken after our mother, curved and small.
A memory comes to me, blurred as the fading sunlight. Our father at work in the garden. His sleeves rolled to his elbows, his hands in the earth. Our mother with a basket of cut flowers in her arms. It’s the strangest feeling whenever I think of them like this: both a comfort and a hurt.
I close my eyes for a moment and let the image linger before I go into the house.
Inside the kitchen, Mother is standing behind the table. Her hands are curled tight over the back of a chair, as though she’s waiting for someone to sit down. Our eyes meet, and she grips the chair until her knuckles turn white. Her expression is wild with a mix of fear and anger. “Violeta. Arien. What happened in the village today?”
My boots catch on the floorboards as I come to a sharp, sudden stop. The bucket tilts. Water sloshes out and soaks my skirts. Arien takes it from me and sets it down carefully. We look at each other. He opens his mouth, but I answer quickly before he can speak. “Nothing. Nothing happened.”
“Really?” A voice comes from the other side of the room. A voice that is newly, terribly familiar. “That’s not how I remember it.”
Instinctively, I push Arien behind me. The monster stands against the far wall, out of reach from even the faint glow of the stovelight. Behind him, the altar with its unlit candles is thrown dark by his shadow. He’s just a silhouette, with his face hidden by the drawn-down hood of his cloak.
The monster is here.
“We didn’t do anything. I already told you—”
He holds up a hand. “Don’t bother to lie. I saw the two of you in the Vair Woods. I saw your brother with the shadows.”
The world seems to lurch until everything is off-kilter. He saw. He knows.
Mother looks at Arien, her eyes wide. “What have you done?” Her face blanches as she turns to the monster. “I’m sorry. I’ve tried to mend him. But there’s so much darkness in him. It’s too strong.”
“That’s why I’m here,” the monster says acidly. “I want him because of the darkness.”
“You want him to go with you, to Lakesedge Estate?” Mother’s voice wavers, more nervous than I’ve ever heard her sound.
“Yes.”
I dig my fingernails against my palms. “Arien is not going anywhere with you.”
Arien cuts a warning glance toward me. “Leta, he’s our lord.”
Anger rushes up, the same way it did in the village when the monster first saw Arien’s hands. Sparks dance across my vision. “You want him to go with you, to that place where you murdered your whole family?”
The monster lets out a terse growl. “Enough! Listen—I’ll make this plain. Either Arien comes with me, or I’ll go back to Greymere and report what I saw. By the time the sun sets, your whole village will know about him.”
Everyone will know. Cold sweat beads my skin as I picture Arien dragged before the altar in Greymere, the bank of candles all alight, his fingers held above the flames.
Arien looks down at his hands, at the gloves the monster gave him. He hadn’t done it out of kindness. He’d just wanted to give Arien time to get away from the crowded village, so he could make these threats where no one would hear. So he could claim him.
“You’ve hidden it for a long time, haven’t you?” The monster’s voice is a veiled blade. “You’ve been so frightened. You won’t have to hide, not with me. I can help you.”
Arien chews the edge of his mouth. There’s a crimson mark where his teeth have scraped his lip. “You’d help me? How?”
“He doesn’t need your help!” I scan the room for an escape, for anything that will stop this, but there’s no way out, nowhere for us to go. Even worse is the expression on Arien’s face. He’s afraid. But alongside that fear is the briefest flash of longing. There’s a part of him that wants this. That’s drawn by the monster’s offer of help.
Arien takes a deep breath, as though he’s gathering courage. “If I go with you, then what about Leta?”
Silence ticks by. When the monster finally answers, it sounds as though he’s bitten out each word. “I don’t want her. Only you.”
I take a step toward him, my hands clenched at my sides. I’m afraid, but I can’t let Arien face this alone. “He’s my brother. Where he goes, I go.”
He doesn’t move, but stays so still that I could almost believe him another shadow.
Here I am with my work-roughened hands and my dress soaked with well water. With nothing to offer and nothing to endear me. For a moment I wonder if I should be softer while I ask him for this. But there’s nothing soft about me—not the bluntness of my voice, not my hands that are still curled into fists.
I move forward. The monster turns his face away from me, the sharp edge of his mouth cut into a tight scowl. He wants to take Arien away, and he won’t even look at me. I grab hold of his cloak where it falls across his shoulder, knot the fabric around my fist and give it a hard pull.
“You ash-damned creature! I won’t let you do this!”
“Violeta!” Mother steps forward, her cheeks bright with fury. Arien pushes past, knocking the chair over with a clatter. He looks desperately between Mother and the monster. “No, please! Don’t hurt her!”
Roughly, the monster unpeels my fingers from his cloak. His hands circle tight around my wrists. We’re so close together that I can hear the unsteady rhythm of his breath.
I stare up into his dark eyes. “I want to go with you.”
“You are the absolute last person I want anywhere near me.”
Then he looks down at my arms, and goes quiet. My sleeves are rolled back, baring the bruises on my pale skin, smeared like they were painted with a brush. Some are fresh, blooming like dark petals. Others are faded, just the barest hints of fingers that dug and pinched.
His grip loosens, but he doesn’t let go of me. We stand together—both silent, my eyes pinned on his face. Take me with you.
The faint tap tap tap of the apple tree against the window is the only sound in the quiet room. The monster releases my wrists and brushes past me without a word, his footsteps heavy as he strides across the kitchen floor. He sweeps off his hood and leans down, so his face is level with Mother’s. She flinches.
“They’ll both come with me,” he says quietly, then straightens and turns his back to her. He tips his chin toward the doorway that leads to the rest of the house. “Go and pack your things. I’ll wait outside. Hurry up.”
Then he’s gone, his cloak a billow of midnight as he storms out through the back door. He slams it shut behind him, the heavy bang harsh and final. My heart is pounding, and everything is drowned out by the rush of blood in my ears.
Arien looks at me fearfully. “Leta, you shouldn’t have done that.”
A disbelieving laugh catches in my throat. “No, I shouldn’t have.”
Arien starts to twist at his sleeve. I put my hand over his, but his fingers still move anxiously. “I won’t let him hurt you, Arien. No matter what.”
Mother stalks toward us, the air carrying a whisper of linseed oil. I think of the way she took my hand and held Arien cradled in her arms. The way she brought us back here to the cottage. She had been kind at first, but her care for us has dwindled away, like a banked fire turned to gray ashes.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her.
She lifts a hand, as though she means to touch me. My knees throb, and for a single, hideous moment I think I’m going to cry.
Then her hand drops back, and her expression hardens.
“You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?” She glances at the closed door and smiles coldly. “That monster—he deserves you both. And you deserve him.”
Arien and I hurriedly pack our clothes into satchels, then go outside. The monster is waiting for us, but he isn’t alone—the silver-haired woman from the village is there as well, holding the reins of two horses.
She must work for him, that’s why she was in Greymere, helping to collect the tithes. I notice now that she wears a set of keys and a silver sparklight on a long chain around her neck. The same as our keeper does, in the village.
The monster stands beside her. The two of them are immersed in a hushed, urgent conversation, but when they notice Arien and me, they fall silent. The monster starts to pace a restless circle on the road, his boots scraping angrily through the dust.
The woman turns toward us slowly, her face knit into a frown. “Really? This is him? He’s just a kid.”
“I’m thirteen.” Arien folds his arms. “I’m not a kid.”
The monster pauses in his pacing and sighs. “Yes, Florence. This is him.”
He spreads his hands, as if challenging her to argue. She stays silent, but her eyes linger on Arien, and she shakes her head, clearly uncertain. Then she glances at me and looks even more confused. “What about her, then?”
I hitch the strap of my satchel higher up on my shoulder. They’re talking about Arien and me like we’re not even here. “I’m his sister.”
Her pale green eyes narrow. “Are you also—?”
The monster cuts in. “Never mind about her. She’s no one.” He goes over to one of the horses, unbuckles the pack strapped onto the saddle, and takes out another pair of gloves. He pulls them on, fastening them tight at his wrists. “Let’s go. I’ve wasted enough time here already.”
Florence puts her arm around Arien’s shoulders and guides him toward one of the horses. She helps him up before deftly climbing into the saddle behind him. Neither of us has ridden before, and Arien looks very small, so far up on the horse’s back.
Then Florence flicks the reins, and she and Arien are gone, a cloud of dust on the road that grows rapidly smaller. I’m left alone. Alone—with the monster. His sharp features twist as he looks me over. The way he described me—no one—still stings.
“I’m to ride with you?”
He shoves back the hood of his cloak, drags a gloved hand through his long hair. “Unless you’d prefer to stay behind.”
I shake my head quickly. I look up at the horse. It’s enormous, with immeasurably deep, liquid eyes. It shifts restlessly on silver-shod hooves. I can see the ends of the nails, where they’ve been driven through its feet to hold the shoes in place.
Shakily, I touch its side. Muscles and ribs and heat move against my fingers as it takes a long, hollow breath.
The monster looks at me pointedly. Dread creeps over me at the thought of the two of us, pressed close together as we ride. “You’ll have to help me up.”
He puts out a hand. I fold up my skirts and he looks disdainfully at my dirt-grimed boots. Beneath the cloak, his dark linen shirt doesn’t have a single crease. His own boots are polished to a dull gleam. I step hard against his hand as he helps me, hoping I smudge as much of the dust onto him as I can.
He looks at me askance, and then he laughs—a dark, incredulous sound. “Why are you wearing woolen stockings in the middle of Summerbloom?”
I grab for my skirts and pull the hem down to cover my knees. “Why are you wearing a winter cloak?”
He ignores my question, but he reaches absently for the collar of his cloak, adjusting the clasp where it ties at his shoulder. Then he gets onto the horse behind me. Clasping the reins in one hand, he wraps his arm around my waist. I suck in an involuntary breath and lean away from him as much as possible. He kicks the horse into motion. Grit from the road comes up, and I’m choked by the dust.
Each movement of the horse, each jolt and hoofbeat over the road, feels as though it will throw me loose. It’s only the monster’s arm, so tight around me, that holds me in place. I feel the dense heat of his chest against my back, his rough breath stirring my hair.
Trees flash by, streaked crimson as the sun sets. Twilight spreads through the forest with glowing brilliance and umber shadows. We round a bend in the road, and I can see Arien and Florence, far up ahead.
“What did you mean, that you could help my brother?” I ask the monster. “What do you want with him?”
I turn, trying to see his face, and flinch. His skin is washed red by the last flare of sunlight, as though he’s been drenched with blood.
“You really don’t know?” He waits, but I don’t answer. With a scowl, he goes on. “I want his shadows.”
“They’re not his. They’re only dreams. Arien has nothing for you.”
I won’t think of what happened in the village, in the woods, in the daylight. Everything Mother feared—that there’s darkness inside Arien, that the Lord Under has a claim on him—it can’t be true. It can’t be.
The monster shakes his head derisively. “Only dreams.”
And then, before I can stop myself, the question spills loose. “Is it true what they say about you, what you did to your family?”
I gasp as he twists my hair into a knot and leans closer, until his mouth is almost touching my ear.
“Yes.” His breath traces over my cheek. “Everything they say about me is true.”
A shudder runs through me. I open my mouth, but no sounds come out. All I can hear is the echo of his voice. He loosens his grip and my wind-tangled curls spill free. His arm tightens around my waist, and he urges the horse to go faster. I look to either side of us, scanning the sides of the road in search of a path, a house, anything. But there’s no escape. Only the forest and the sky and the night. The monster, holding me close.
We pass through a clearing, the earth on either side of the road barren except for a fallen tree. The roots are upturned, twisted against the empty air. Outlined by the sunset behind them, they look like claws.
I turn cold all over.
Finally, we reach a wayside, where a cottage is encircled by a grove of olive trees. It’s dark now, the night sky silvered by an almost-full moon.
The monster gathers up the reins and dismounts swiftly. “There’s still another full day of travel until we’re at Lakesedge. We’ll sleep here and start out again in the morning.”
I look at the cottage. It’s so small—only one room. I’ve been so caught up in worry for Arien that I haven’t even thought how we’ll have to spend the night so close to the monster. How we’ll be with him every night from now on, at the cursed estate.
He holds out a hand and I let him help me down from the horse. I stumble as my feet touch the ground and, without thinking, grab hold of his cloak to steady myself. He looks at me intently. I start to shiver, and his mouth tilts into a sharp smile. “Don’t tell me you’re cold, even with those woolen stockings?”
“I’m fine.” I shove him away and go quickly to where Arien stands, dazed, beside the other horse. I pull him into an embrace.
“Are you okay?” I touch his cheek; he’s pallid in the moonlight, tired and worried, but not hurt.
He nods, wincing as he rubs at a cramp in his thigh. “Everything aches.”
The wayside cottage is dark, the windows closed up and tightly shuttered. The roof is tangled with a wisteria vine and the heavy perfume from the flowers chokes the air.
I reach for Arien, take his hand, and hold it tightly as we step inside.