66. Chapter 66
Chapter 66
Kat
My knees hit the cold, unforgiving black slate floor. The force rattles my bones and yanks a muffled groan through my gag. The cold seeps into the light frock I’m wearing. My hands are bound behind me, greatly reducing my mobility.
Which really is the mildest of my problems, I decide as I lift my eyes.
Lord and Lady Nothril sit on their thrones, resplendent in both awe and terror. I thought their greatness overwhelmed me at Mirror Tide, but, bound at their feet, the instinct to keep my gaze from lifting to their towering beauty nearly overwhelms me.
Nearly , but not quite.
They look at me with such condescension. As though I am an insect beneath the heel of their shoe.
“Behold,” Pelarusa announces, a smirk in her voice, “the Ivy Mask.”
Lady Nothril does not reply. Her face is carved from ice, and I get the distinct sense of displeasure. Lord Nothril’s mouth draws in a thin line. “Excellent job.”
It hits me then: they are angry with Rahk. He should have been the one to bring me in.
When Lady Nothril drags her gaze to me, pure hatred flashes in their depths. I clench my jaw and hold her gaze. She may be great and terrible, and I may be nothing, but I will not shrink before her.
Pavi sits on a smaller throne to one side, one of three, and her shoulders cave in on themselves as our eyes lock.
“Where is Prince Rahk?” demands Lord Nothril. “Why is he not with you?”
“He succumbed to her charms and was dragging his feet about bringing her. But look! I have brought some slaves to replace the ones you lost.”
My mind stutters. The grand doors behind us swing open. A rush of cold air and a familiar shriek assault me. I try to turn but Pelarusa grips my head and keeps me faced forward. Surely I didn’t hear what I thought I—
“Let me go you monster!” cries Agatha. “I have done nothing! Nothing, I tell you!”
“If you don’t hush, you are going to get us all killed!” hisses Lord Oliver.
My vision turns white with panic. What are Agatha and Oliver doing here? And why did Oliver say all of us—as though to imply there were others taken? Who was taken? What is happening?
I yank my neck free of Pelarusa’s hold, taking advantage of the distraction, and whirl enough to catch a glimpse of a sight that sends my blood curdling.
Agatha is shoved to her knees behind me, her fine gown muddied and torn. Lord Oliver is next, his clothes in a similar state. He stares at me in shock and concern, but that concern quickly shifts to Mary, who is shoved hard to her knees beside him. Her red hair, always carefully pinned, sticks out in every direction.
Then, last of all, little Becky is added to the row.
That is it.
I thrash against my bonds, tearing into the gag with my teeth. I am going to murder Pelarusa. I am going to shred her to tiny pieces, and then I am going to burn this entire Court to the ground.
Lord Nothril glides past me, straight to the captives. I watch, helplessly, as he stops in front of Mary. Oliver’s eyes widen, glancing between the two of them. Bound as he is, he scoots himself partially in front of her. As though he can defend her. As though Lord Nothril cannot wipe him out with half a thought.
Lord Nothril grabs Mary’s chin. She does not look at him, not even when he tilts her face this way and that.
“I need a new slave girl,” he muses. “I’ve certainly had worse than this one. She might be half decent after some work.”
I am going to rip his fingers from the hand that touches my sister. I try to throw myself toward them, but Pelarusa drags me backward.
“Put the Ivy Mask in the dungeon,” orders Lady Nothril. “If Prince Rahk has truly succumbed , then he will arrive shortly.”
I try to shout through my gag. I try to fight. I try to swear via eye contact that I will get all four of them out of this.
But I am dragged away by a pair of guards, deep into the darkest part of the vast cave that is the Nothril palace.
They toss me in a frigid cell and slam the door shut. It echoes through what sounds like another large cavern. I give a frustrated, muffled scream and throw myself against the iron bars. If they touch Mary or Becky—if they hurt any of them—I am going to kill everything in this palace. I will destroy all of Faerie.
“Kat? Is that you?”
“Tailor!” I try to gasp through my gag.
“Come here,” he urges, standing at the grate between our cells. “I’ll remove your bonds.”
Gratefully, I get to my feet and press my back against the grate. His fingers are cold as he works the rope at my wrists. It falls off. I sigh in relief and unknot my gag before spitting it out.
“Are you alright?” I ask, clasping his hands through the narrow space. I blink against the darkness, trying to see him, to discover if he is alright. I cannot see a thing.
“I’m fine. Did our targets make it?”
“Yes, they did.” I say the words, believing that they are true even though I have no confirmation. “They made it out.”
“What happened? Did Prince Rahk catch you?”
I summarize what happened as we sit down, back-to-back on either side of the grate. A distant drip is the only sound aside from our breathing and the occasional shifting on the floor.
“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” I ask.
I can feel him nodding. “We are. Though your friends may have their lives. As slaves.”
Maybe this would all be easier to swallow if those people hadn’t been dragged into this situation. My heart breaks thinking of Charity, who must be losing her mind with fright and grief. My worry extends even to Agatha. She would never survive long as a slave. And neither will Oliver if he continues standing up to the fae on behalf of others.
And Mary.
I never, ever wanted something so terrible to ever befall her.
I was so desperate to save those eleven, I got three of the best people I know destined for a fate worse than death. And Agatha too. The weight of guilt presses me into the ground.
“I hope I’ll get to see Phillipa and Sunny again.”
I tilt my head, craning my neck to look at him. “Who are they?”
“My wife and daughter.”
I blink. “I didn’t know you were married. Or that you had a child.”
“I did. Once upon a time. They died at the hand of their fae master in Valehaven. I had been trying to get them out . . . but it was too late.” He says it all very calmly.
“That’s . . . awful,” I say.
“It was tragic, yes. I found that life doesn’t end when tragedy strikes. It keeps on going and going and going. You can either resist it, or embrace it. I’ve done my best to embrace it. Still, I want to be reunited with them. It has been a long separation.”
“That was why you began your own work,” I whisper.
He turns and smiles at me. “And why I took such a liking to you.”
I lean my head back against the cold grate. “What do you think will happen to our work? Once we’re gone?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “It will continue. It won’t be us anymore, but where there is a need, people rise to fill it. I believe that one day, this power struggle between our people and the fae will end. It may start as a whisper, but it will end in a flood.”
“I don’t know how that is possible,” I reply.
“Not as our world is currently arranged,” he agrees. “But you have heard of the Veil, have you not?”
“I have heard of it. I am not familiar with it, however.”
“It is the great divider of the fae worlds. Only very, very strong magic can breach the Veil.”
“You think we should create a new Veil. One between the human world and Faerieland.”
“Someday, I think it will happen,” he says softly.
The distant drip grows louder in the silence.
“If we’re going to die,” I whisper, “then I want to know your name. Your real name.”
He lets out a sigh. “My name is Jacob Everfells.”
“Jacob,” I whisper. “I’m glad our paths crossed.”
“I’m glad for it, too.”
Heavy footsteps echo through the cavern. Guards—coming.
I stiffen. We each get to our feet. I look at him and see only the light of his eyes as he gives me a swift nod. Goodbye.
They go to his cell first and drag him out. I watch, horrified, clinging to the cold iron bars, until the sound of him being taken away dies into nothing. The memory of Agatha, Oliver, Mary, and Becky in that throne room returns with a frantic fervor that is no longer deadened by the tailor’s calming presence.
He is going to die. They are all going to die. Because of me.
“Oh saints,” I breathe, shoving my knuckles between my teeth and biting down hard as the panic settles in. Suddenly, I don’t feel so resigned to death. I don’t want Jacob to die, and I don’t want to die either.
But I know in my twisted gut that this is the last time I’ll see the tailor of Valehaven.
“You’ll see Mama again,” I whisper, trying to calm the frantic beat of my heart. “You’ll see Father again. You’ll see Jacob, too.”
I won’t see Mary. Or any of the house staff that is more like family to me. Or Bartholomew. How will Bartholomew ever be alright? She will keep expecting me to come to her. She won’t understand.
I won’t see Rahk either. And that feels like the greatest loss of all.
I’ve spent my life reacting to the great losses I’ve experienced, not realizing how much more I had to lose.
You’ve got to be brave, Kat, I tell myself, trying to fortify my spine. You cannot shrink before these cursed fae.
But now that I am alone in this dungeon, in the dreadful, unending silence, there is nothing to do but doubt that I have enough strength to meet a torturous end. My arm aches from the wound and its stitches. Still, the pain feels so minor compared to what I am about to face.
“I don’t know what I am going to do,” I whisper in the darkness. For all that my rage demands violence against Lord and Lady Nothril, I have no power over them. I am a prisoner in their dungeon. “This is all my fault. If I had just not gotten too close to the Wood. None of this would have happened.”
All those years of trying to make up for the way I’d destroyed my own life by being a careless child—all those years of trying to free slaves as if that would ever absolve the guilt I bear that I ruined Mama and Father—they come crashing around me with a force that nearly sends my bones splintering. How could I have ever thought such a thing could make up for the curse I am to those who care about me?
Unbidden, faces flash before me from the Mirror. I think of those children with their own masks that mimicked mine. They never would have existed if not for what I did to free their father. But what are those children to me? Distant faces that might have been a lie in the Mirror. They are simply an idea. Now Mary is imprisoned because of me, and if I cannot get her out, she will be ruined like Elizabeth was.
But Elizabeth wasn’t ruined , a tiny voice whispers.
I saw so little of her in the Mirror. She might have nightmares from her time in Faerie. She might be suffering endlessly from the abuse she bore.
Still, somehow, she landed on her feet.
I lean my head back against the cold grate. What if . . . what if all of this is so much bigger than me? What if Jacob was right, and the moment he and I are killed, others will rise up in our place? What if they are able to do more than I ever could? What if the little we did is just the beginning, and that after us, will truly come a flood? What if it is Mary, Becky, Oliver, and Agatha that start the new wave? What if they have their own story beyond being a captive here?
And if that is possibly true, what if my mistake of wandering too close to the Wood as a child . . . could lead to something? If I had not done that, I would not have become the Ivy Mask. And if I had never become the Ivy Mask, so many people would never have been free.
I never would have met Rahk.
Part of me softens as memories return, of our Fool’s Circle games, of making him laugh, of dancing with him without a clue he knew I was a woman, of how good he was to me. Try as I might, I cannot regret knowing him. I cannot regret loving him.
You never would have met him if you had not wandered close to the Wood that day.
I close my eyes and warm tears stream down my cheeks. There are hundreds of things I can berate myself for. There are hundreds of people I can take responsibility for—those that I saved, those I didn’t save, and those who were hurt because of me. I made every rescue and every failure about me. But I see it now.
All of this is so much bigger than just me. It always has been.
My part in this story has come to an end. A bitter, bitter end.
Now, it is time for me to let go. To fully surrender to forces and stories greater than me. I have done what I can. It is time to trust that, just as the suffering and adversity in my life made me stronger, it will do the same in others’ lives. Even the lives of those I love most and wish most dearly to protect.
I have to let it all go.
In this cold, dark, empty part of the world, a strange calmness like I’ve never known falls around my shoulders. My burden is not gone, my fear for my friends has not left me––but for the first time, I feel strong enough to bear it.
A great clang followed by shuffling sounds from somewhere above me.
So, they have come for me.
I get to my feet and walk to the front of my cell.
I will not be afraid, I tell myself, forcing my wobbly legs to stand firm and not retreat as they open my cell. I will not be afraid. I will not be afraid.
The guards tower over me as they clamp iron grips on my arms and drag me out.
I will not be afraid, I think as they haul me into the strange low light of the palace. I will not be afraid, I think when they push open the throne room doors and drag me before Lord and Lady Nothril once again.
I will not be afraid.
The first person I notice in that throne room is not Lord or Lady Nothril, or Pelarusa, or anyone else. It is Pavi—who sits at Lady Nothril’s feet in a gown of pale blue, her tear-streaked face turned away.
I will not be afraid.
My four friends kneel where I left them. Agatha shudders and shivers, a bruise blossoming on her face. Mary’s face is hard like flint as she stares at the floor. Becky has scooted into Oliver, who has twisted his body to wrap what he can of his elbow around her small body. He whispers something to her that looks like, “Keep your eyes closed.”
A dozen fae guards flank the thrones, ready to obliterate any opposition within seconds.
Pelarusa stands in the midst of the throne room. Her slender arm bears a long, wicked blade dripping with blood. And at her feet are the mangled, bloodied remains of Jacob Everfells. A pair of crushed spectacles lay nearby.
My crudely propped courage crumbles. My knees give out, and my guards have to hold me upright as they deposit me in a heap next to Jacob’s corpse. I refuse to look, to imagine the pain he experienced—and that I will soon experience too. Rahk is not here to kill me quickly. Pelarusa will make me suffer.
And Mary and Becky will have to watch.
“So this is it,” Lady Nothril declares with a grand sweep of her hand, indicating me. “ This little thing is what caused all that trouble for all those years.”
“And evaded Rahk for two moons?” spits Lord Nothril.
A chortle erupts from Pelarusa. She leans down to grab my hair and yank my head back to expose my neck. “He even bonded with her!”
It’s Pavi’s sweet, trembling voice that breaks the silence. “If he bonded with her, does that mean he loves her?”
“You spend too much time with your nose in tales of romance,” Pelarusa chides her. “Love is irrelevant to the situation.”
“Where is Rahk anyway?” Lord Nothril snarls. “I will have his head! He is no son of mine.”
The throne room doors bang open.
“I am here.”
I twist. There is Rahk, marching into the scene, arrayed in full armor, both of his long blades in his hands. His face is a thundercloud, and icy vengeance swirls around him.
“I have come for my wife. If anyone has laid a finger on her, I will raze this entire Court to dust.”