24. Ouroboros
Ouroboros
Rumor Malefic
The skeleton wiggled its hips, swishing the white dress.
Horror held my throat. This wasn’t happening. This mockery, this reenactment of my darkest hour. I sat frozen in panic and rage as the show played on.
“I’m sure a witch sang a tune as the crowd eagerly awaited their viewing of such a profound profession of love.
To put one’s dainty little back to the enchanted forest was no small feat!
” He twirled and pointed to a skeleton on the ground, wearing a black wig.
“But big sister, Rumor the Rat, was there to make sure everything went smoothly. Isn’t that right? ”
Frozen to my chair, my arms went numb. The scene unfolded, played out by skeletons, symbols of death and decay. The perfect portrayal of my failure.
Spade folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in his seat, watching me instead of the act.
My pain was his show, wasn’t it?
Is that why he’d seemed happy to be here?
Sick fucker.
“But alas! Prism’s beau did not show… and out of the forest stomps the big… bad… wither.”
Two paper cutouts of dark arms with long claws reached from behind the table. Skeleton-Prism put her bone hands to her cheeks and screamed.
Tears burned behind my eyelids, forming into drops I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold back for long.
The caw of a raven startled me. Spade’s raven glided into the room, landing in practiced form onto his keeper’s broad shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, the bird tilted its beak to Spade’s ear, and the Blackthorne boy’s gaze shot to me with fury.
Just then, the skeleton with the long black wig stumbled through the crowd, jumping over bones and reaching for her sister.
“Try as the rat might, her sweet, innocent little sister was gone. Taken by the monster,” Riot narrated, just as the paper cutout of arms yanked the skeleton behind a curtain.
A hot tear dropped down my cheek, landing in my lap, leaving behind a circle of wet on my dress.
Riot smirked, wobbling over to the table, obviously drunk or otherwise inebriated. “Moving performance, isn’t it?”
The clanking of bones sounded as the skeletal crew clapped. Before I could push through the knot in my throat and answer, Spade stood. “That’s enough.”
“Brother,” Riot slurred, sauntering over and picking up a wine bottle and taking a long gulp. “Not even my favorite brother, if I’m honest. But you went and scared the other one away, didn’t you? Did you not enjoy the show? You hate the rat. I thought you’d love it.”
In a quick moment of speed and strength, Spade knocked the bottle from Riot’s grip, and it shattered on the ground.
He grabbed the white-haired Blackthorne by the cuff and lifted him in the air.
Riot pushed back, though, off balance due to his drunken state, and threw a punch. “You don’t even like her.”
“Get the fuck out of my sight before I fucking kill you,” Spade growled, and suddenly, every candle in the dining hall extinguished. The air grew dark and cold, and the thrum of magic pulled at my bones and scraped at my skin.
The fighting was horrifying in a way an impending storm made me want to flee for the safety of the indoors, I knew I needed to get away from them so as not to become collateral damage.
In a strange way, I was thankful for the dark, because it concealed the tears that now freely streaked my cheeks.
The fight gave the brothers the distraction I needed to escape the room unnoticed.
Dishes clattered to the ground.
Wood broke.
Fists met faces.
Glasses shattered.
And as I shut the door behind me, something exploded, and the whole room shook. Bracing my back against the door of the dining room, my breath caught in my chest. They were going to kill each other. Then who would help me get my sister back?
The door rattled as white light flashed behind the cracks.
Forcing my legs to move, I ran down a dark hall, towards what looked like moonlight.
A glass door with wrought iron detail stood ajar to a hedge maze of thorns.
Heat burned my lungs as I held my skirt and bolted for the maze.
My flat, silk shoes felt every rough stone as I halfway stumbled down mossy stairs and took a sharp right through foliage and twisted thorns.
After a few more turns, I reached a clearing and rested my palms on my knees, heaving and fighting to catch my breath.
Above the moss stood a white marble statue of a goddess holding a fawn.
Water dripped over her head like a veil, and she looked down at me with curiosity, tilting her head.
The fawn’s stone ear twitched. They were beautiful.
Prism was beautiful like that.
Gorgeous in all her pure kindness.
Dropping to my knees, I held my head in my hands and let the sobs choke through me. All the pain I’d buried with hate, and tasks, and anger, erupted and watered the dry grass with my sorrowful tears. My body shook and wrung ounces of pain and loss from my soul.
What if I never saw her again?
Something hard landed on my shoulder, and I half expected to look up and see the goddess statue, but what I beheld was much less expected and stranger.
Spade Blackthorne offered me his hand.
Rumor from two hours ago would have slapped his offering away and told him to eat dirt. The Rumor now, though, was knee deep in soggy grass, lost in a hedge maze of grief and despair.
Sometimes the hand you want isn’t the hand you get, but it’s a warm thing, nonetheless.
Accepting his silent gesture, he pulled me to stand with such an abundance of ease, I thought for a moment I was floating to my feet. I barely came up to his ribs, so small and helpless beneath this thunderous being. Craning my neck, I looked up at him.
Spade said lowly, “Riot should not have done that.”
“No, he shouldn’t have,” I replied, drying my eyes with my palm.
Spade took out the small black handkerchief from his breast pocket and handed it to me.
“We are similar but opposing monsters, my brother and I. Grown from the same soil, yet yielding different harvests. I fear the time we’ve spent behind the bars of this cage have ushered Riot into madness.
It is no excuse, and let it be known, I kicked his ass just now. ”
Despite myself, I let out a small giggle. The wine and tears had lowered my defenses. Spade had defended me, seen me cry, and had come to find me in the maze. With slight hesitation, I allowed myself a small moment of humanity with him, remembering he had been just as cruel and mad as his brother.
Spade offered me his elbow.
I declined.
Putting his hands behind his back, he strolled around the statue to another path in the maze. I walked beside him, matching his slow, nowhere-to-be pace. After a moment, I whispered on a hoarse breath. “I’m not lying about what happened to my sister.”
With a twitch in his steely jaw, Spade answered. “I know.”
Shock splashed my awareness like icy water. “You—you believe me?”
“I do.”
“How? Why all of a sudden?”
Letting out a breath, he halted, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Never showed me.”
“Never?”
“My raven, my familiar.”
“He… showed you?”
“ She , actually, but yes. I am able to see what she sees, but only when she shows me. I send her to… look over Willowspire.”
I didn’t know whether to question his forthcomingness or exploit it for all its worth for the short and rare time he was offering it to me. Spade had never spoken more than a few hateful words to me—and now he finds me in the maze and says he believes me? Was this some sort of horrible trick?
“Wait, so you do watch over the town?”
Spade pressed his lips together. Okay, knowledge access denied. “When was the last time Never saw her? Does she know where she is? Is—is she alive?”
The questions poured from my lips. Begging, I was begging for more, shamelessly. I’d already humiliated myself enough by crying, why not add desperation into the mix?
“Your sister is alive. Withers do not kill the maidens they abduct. Though it is a problem, and a violation of our agreement with them. They’ve broken their vow by taking her.”
“She’s alive?” I swallowed the tears, sounding smaller than I would have liked.
Spade’s gaze softened and he stepped toward me, but stopped himself, as if he wanted to reach for me but refrained. “Yes, she’s alive.”
“Will you help me get her back?”
“No,” he answered plainly.
Fury dampened my sorrow for a blessed moment. “Then why did you come out here? Go away. I’d rather be lost in here alone than anywhere near you. Coward.”
Strolling ahead, past a thicket of thorns that formed an arched canopy beneath the moonlight, he turned on his heel and walked backwards. “Guess you’ll have to hex me extra hard, then.”
“You can count on it,” I replied, hating how the corner lift of his lips made him appear devilishly handsome in the night air.
A howl pierced through the night, and I gasped, involuntarily jumping next to Spade and bumping into his arm. “What was that?”
His smile grew ever so slightly, but he didn’t tease me, only offered his elbow again—which I declined… again. “Follow me, I’ll show you.”
“Definitely sounds like something I’ll regret.”
“Are those not often the best things? Our regrets, our bittersweet tales?” Staying close, careful not to bump him again, Spade led me to a giant crypt in what looked like the center of the maze. “There’s a ladder over here.” He gestured for me to climb.
“I’m in a dress.” I crossed my arms in protest.
“I noticed.”
Why, oh, why did my heart spin in circles when he said that?
“Fine,” I agreed, breezing past him quickly, hoping he didn’t notice the flush of my cheeks.
Holding my skirt, I carefully climbed the ladder to the roof of the giant stone crypt.
Spade joined me, and we sat beneath the stars, looking out over the thorned maze and rolling hills of gravestones beyond.
“It’s dreadful and beautiful all at once.” I awed.
Spade stared at me as he answered, “It is.”