Nightweaver #1

Chapter Eighteen

The first wolf stalks closer, flanked by two others, snarling and snapping their jaws. I reach for the flintlock strapped to my shin, but Henry doesn’t seem concerned. He only sighs, motioning for me to be still.

A sweet, soothing voice rings throughout the clearing. “That will be all.” At the sound of it, the wolves turn docile and retreat into the undergrowth once more.

Lady Isabelle stands over Henry and me, her hands folded. “You’ve heard quite enough,” she says, lifting a brow. “You might as well come in.”

Henry follows her into the conservatory like a scolded puppy, but I hesitate at the door. The last time I was here, among the perfume of the flowers and the blinking, colorful orbs of the pixies, Will told me he was leaving. Despite the small crowd gathered among the roses, Will’s absence gives the garden a cold, lifeless quality. The petals have wilted, and the pixies aren’t as joyful as they always were when he was near.

“Speak of the shadow,” Killian says, his voice as soft and steady as his sister’s. He lounges on a low-hanging branch of the old oak, one ankle resting on his knee, a cigar perched between his fingers. Liv lazes on his shoulder, kicking her feet, but as I enter, the pixie darts across the garden to greet me, touching her forehead to my nose.

“It seems you’re no stranger here,” Baron Rencourt says, his expression somewhat sour.

Liv stands on my shoulder, her hands on her hips. She sticks her tongue out at the old baron, and a faint smile tugs at my lips. “It seems you are,” I say smoothly.

He screws up his face, his brow cocked. “ This is the girl?” he mutters, flicking a sidelong glance at Lord Bludgrave.

Lady Isabelle smiles sweetly, but there’s a hint of a warning in the way she flashes her brilliant teeth at him. “This is Aster,” she says, placing a light touch on my elbow as she angles herself between Baron Rencourt and me, forming a motherly barricade.

Baron Rencourt’s puffy lips purse with distaste.

“Miss Oberon.” George Birtwistle approaches, his shoulders hunched under an invisible weight, his hands knitting neurotically, as if his thoughts were set to rights by the constant weaving of his fingers. “Surely you’ve heard rumors from friends about the Order of Hildegarde?”

“Don’t have friends,” I reply, crossing my arms.

Henry snorts.

“Wouldn’t matter if she did,” Killian says. “The Order is merely a whisper throughout the Eerie. Any human—or Nightweaver, for that matter—who values their life wouldn’t dare speak too loudly of what took place in Thorn.”

Thorn —the day we were brought ashore and taken to the hearing in the town square, one of the Nightweavers who captured us mentioned something about that place.

“What happened in Thorn?” I ask, but every head turns to watch as the door to the conservatory opens.

At the sight of the strange group entering the garden, I feel as though I’m thumbing through the pictures of Elsie’s book of Myths, my eyes wide, mouth agape as the creatures leap from the pages and materialize before me. A half woman, half fawn trots in on four hooves, followed by a young man with the legs and horns of a goat, and behind them, a bespectacled badger in a brocade waistcoat adjusts his bow tie in what appears to be a nervous fit.

When the humans fled to the sea, the Myths did not. I thought they were hunted to extinction, but it seems they’re even better at hiding than we are. And they’re here—in Will’s conservatory. Standing in front of me. Living, breathing Myths .

But even more shocking than the two-foot-tall man with a long white beard and rosy red cheeks who shuffles in after the well-dressed badger, is the last to enter.

“Jack?” I gasp as the stable boy closes the door behind him.

“Aster?” He looks from me, to Henry, to me, his eyes wide. “What are you doing here?” he babbles.

“Why don’t you tell me?” I cut my eyes at the woman with a crown of antlers poking through shimmering waves of long green hair. A cervitaur , I remember, with a flush of satisfaction. I think, for a moment, Elsie would be proud.

Jack fidgets with the cuffs of his shirt, brushes dirt from his shoulder. “I—uh—”

“It’s all right, Jack,” Lady Isabelle says, turning toward me. “Aster, dear, for the past century, humans, Nightweavers, and Myths have been fighting alongside one another to bring about change in this world. This”—she gestures around the conservatory—“is only a small part of a much larger coalition.”

“ The Order of Hildegarde …” I fix my gaze on a single rose, its bright red petals unfazed by Will’s departure. “You want my family—you want me —to join in your rebellion?”

“Perhaps rebellion isn’t the right word.” Lord Bludgrave steps forward, his hands clasped behind his back. His eyes flit anxiously to the Myths. “We’re biding our time, you see. If we can go through the proper channels—”

“We’ve been through all the proper channels, Silas,” Killian interrupts, an edge to his soft voice I haven’t heard before. His use of Lord Bludgrave’s first name is jarring, and it’s only then that I realize I haven’t heard anyone call him that before—not even his own wife.

“The Anteres bloodline has enslaved humans since the Fall,” Killian continues. “Along with the rest of the Known World, they have benefited from the humans’ labor, their inventions, their military service; but they have never—they will never —give them their freedom.” He turns to me then, his expression softening. “Our kind was sent here to protect humans from the Underlings, not rule over them. Until the balance is corrected and Nightweavers and humans join forces to fight as equals against the Underlings, they will continue to plague this world.”

He puffs on his cigar, enshrouding himself in a cloud of smoke as he addresses the assembly once more. “Now, the Kingdom of Hellion has promised to side with the Order so long as when the time comes and the Anteres have been brought to justice, their princess will assume the throne. Until then, we must continue to ensure our prince’s safety long enough for him to wed the princess of Hellion this coming winter.” He turns to Baron Rencourt. “Are your men keeping a close eye on him?”

The baron scoffs. “As close as they can. He’s a slippery little bastard.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I thought myself to be alone in my goal to bring the prince to justice, but this coalition—this Order of Hildegarde —is working toward the same end.

“The Guild of Shadows won’t rest until the prince and princess are both dead,” Birtwistle croaks. “Whatever Hellion has promised the Order, it stands only if the princess is kept safe. For now, she’s well guarded within the walls of Castle Grim. But once the marriage is official, what’s to keep the prince from murdering his own bride if he finds out what we’ve planned? If she dies, we’ll have made an enemy out of Hellion.”

I agree with Birtwistle. I’m wondering what the prince might do to the princess if he were to discover the Order’s plot against his own father—their plans to have Hellion seize control of the Eerie—when Killian responds to Birtwistle.

“Hellion is our enemy.” Killian sends a pointed look at Lord Bludgrave. “But they are a means to an end. A useful one. Once the prince and princess are wed, she’ll have access to the wards that surround Castle Grim, here in the Eerie. She’ll be able to lower the king’s defenses. With Hellion’s armies at our aid, we have a chance to do something more meaningful than host dinner parties and play secret society in the woods.”

“You’re a cynic,” Lord Bludgrave argues. “You’ve always been a cynic.”

“Maybe if you had fought on the front, you’d be a cynic, too.” Killian shifts, planting both feet on the ground. “What happened in Thorn—their open rebellion, the king’s swift punishment—is only the beginning. Our inaction—”

“Inaction!” Lord Bludgrave huffs. “I have put my own family at risk to—”

The woman with the green hair clears her throat.

“When the rebels of Thorn called for assistance, it was Myths who came to the aid of the humans,” she says, her voice clear. “Not Nightweavers. Isn’t that right, Tollith?”

The badger—Tollith—raises his paw, adjusts his spectacles. “Elatha speaks the truth,” he squeaks in a human voice, and I bite my bottom lip to keep my mouth from falling open.

Lord Bludgrave’s face reddens, and he takes to inspecting his buttonholes. “We did not gather here tonight to place blame.” He exhales deeply and addresses the man with the bottom half of a goat. “Bronmir. You bring news from the Cutthroat Coast?”

The man does a sort of half bow, his expression austere. There is an exhaustion in his black eyes that I know all too well—the mark of a life lived on the run. A life like that takes a physical toll, and I note every line in his young face, marred by the years added by isolation and fear.

“The number of Gore attacks has doubled since we last met.” Bronmir’s low, gravelly voice has a gentle quality, nearly soporific. “More humans defect to the Underlings’ army every day. The Guild of Shadows is promising safety from the Underling regime and freedom from the Nightweavers—once and for all.”

“Those in Thorn are not as lucky,” Tollith adds, fidgeting with his waistcoat.

“Tollith has been inside the facilities the king’s Bloodknights built to detain the rebels there,” Elatha says, and I mark the way the Myths refuse to add Lord Bludgrave’s title when addressing him.

“Bloodknights?”

This time, every head turns to me.

“The king’s private guard,” Jack explains, his expression sympathetic. “Deadly brutes.”

Tollith nods, adjusting his spectacles again. “They show no discretion toward young nor old.” His voice trembles, and the short, bearded man places a supportive hand on his shoulder. “The conditions are—” He breaks off, shaking his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Every day, they dig new pits to dump the bodies.”

“And what say you of these facilities, Grendwin?” Killian asks the little old man—a dwarf, I realize.

The dwarf rubs his rounded, cherry-red nose and spits. “Death to the king,” he says in a thick, lilting accent.

Baron Rencourt grins wickedly. “A worthy sentiment.”

My heart quickens. They speak of treason as if it were commonplace. They aren’t fleeing from the king—they’re facing him head-on. And with the Nightweavers among the rebels, they’re able to invade his ranks—dismantle their systems from the inside, just as Will told me all those weeks ago.

“Did you learn anything else?” Birtwistle asks.

“They…” The badger hesitates, casting me a sidelong glance.

Lady Isabelle gestures encouragingly. “Go ahead, Tollith.”

Tollith nods. “I don’t yet have proof,” he whispers, his voice thick, “but it’s suspected they’re harvesting Manan .”

“Maker of All,” Jack spits, his face pale. “But the law—”

“When has any king or queen ever lived by their own decrees?” Baron Rencourt sneers. “I knew it! They intend to keep the Bloodroses of Castle Grim all to themselves and force the rest of us to consume what has been forbidden by the True King!”

A conversation I once had with Will surfaces in my memory, about human blood being a possible resource for the Nightweavers. “ An extremely valuable one ,” he said. But he told me the law forbade it—nothing more. He certainly never mentioned that the king had built facilities in Thorn to detain humans who rebelled against the Crown and drain them of their blood.

I can’t help wondering if the Manan the Castors use to imbue their cloaks and gloves came from one of these… facilities . I thought everything I heard about the Nightweavers treating humans as livestock was false. But now… if the Nightweavers are desperate enough to break their own laws—to defy the True King, whom they claim to serve—then things are worse than I previously thought.

I refuse to let Elsie and Albert grow up in a world that sees them as no more than sheep for the slaughter. Not if I can do something about it.

“I want to join you.”

Again, every head turns to find me.

Lady Isabelle raises her brows. “And your family?”

I hesitate, thinking about Margaret, probably drooling onto her beloved pillow as we speak. “They’ve been fighting for their lives for as long as they’ve had breath in their lungs. They’re finally at peace. I want them to stay that way.”

She dips her head. “Very well.”

“You’re prepared to take the oath?” Killian strides toward me, looking more like an admiral than Will’s playful uncle.

“Pirates don’t take oaths,” I say, pulling back my shoulders, looking him square in the eye.

He smirks, and for a moment, I feel as if I’m looking at Will. “I thought you might say that.”

Baron Rencourt sputters, “If she doesn’t take the oath—”

“I’ll vouch for her.” Killian rolls up his shirtsleeve to reveal a tattoo on his inner forearm—a winged dagger and the roughly carved ancient words nivim derai . It fades before my eyes, then reappears as if at will. He holds out his hand expectantly.

“I said no oaths,” I protest.

“This is how we distinguish friend from foe.” He points to the ancient words. “ In time of need ,” he translates. “It’s merely an enchantment, visible only to those who possess a mark of their own—unless we choose to reveal it. If you are disloyal to the cause, your mark will reveal your intentions.”

I glance at Jack, and he rolls up his shirtsleeve, revealing his own winged dagger. Behind him, Lord Bludgrave watches me carefully, his eyes narrow.

My hand curls into a fist. Everything that’s happened since the moment Owen died—our capture, our new lives as servants—has been out of my control. I promised him I would not let them take me. I broke that promise. I promised myself that for the sake of my family I would try to move on. But I can’t. Despite my ability to see the shadows, I’ve come no closer to finding the Sylk, and now, with the Guild sending Shifters to torment me, I have no option but to seek aid from those with the resources I lack.

No oaths , I remind myself. I am not bound to the Order of Hildegarde. I will use them as the Guild intended to use me. I will work with Killian to hunt down the Shifter, and through the Order, I’ll take down the king and his entire line. For Elsie and Albert. For Mother and Father. For Margaret, and Charlie, and Lewis. For others like us.

For Owen.

I roll up my shirtsleeve, revealing the band of braided leather, and extend my arm to Killian. “Death to the king.”