Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Two
THE NIGHTMARE
Be wary the dark,
Be wary the fright.
Be wary the voice that comes in the night.
It twists and it calls,
Through shadowy halls.
Be wary the voice that comes in the night.
T he room was dark when I woke, dawn still shy on the horizon. I stared at nothing, a dull ache throbbing behind my eyes.
I recognized the ceiling first. There were knots in the wood that, if my eyes remained unfocused, transformed into strange, grotesque faces that stared down at me.
Before I’d any true concept of monsters, I used to imagine the shapes in the wood were creatures watching over me, neither benevolent nor evil.
But that was a long time ago.
I sat up in my childhood bed and scanned the room, pain thumping in the back of my skull. The room was exactly how I remembered it—the chest full of dresses, the wooden dollhouse. The pile of blankets, whose colors were now faded, moth-eaten, sat where I’d left them eleven years ago.
Nothing had moved, the room stilled, as if frozen.
The only thing out of place was the tall wooden chair and the man seated upon it, pulled from its home in the corner and placed beside my bed.
Ravyn was bent in sleep, his head bowed—as if praying. His face was smooth, all the strain and austerity washed away by sleep. In his pocket glowed the familiar violet and burgundy lights of his Cards, unblinking.
I watched him for some time, the light in my window growing brighter. I wondered how he’d gotten me up here, to the top of the house. I wondered how they’d cured me from the Chalice’s poison.
Most of all, I wondered—my stomach dropping—if after last night, Ravyn Yew had irrevocably changed his mind about me.
A quiet hand rapped three times on my door. I closed my eyes, feigning sleep.
Ravyn jolted awake, jumping to his feet. “Who is it?”
“Elm.”
I heard the latch release and the door squeak open, Elm’s steps hurried as he came into the room and shut the door behind him. “How is she?”
“Still asleep,” Ravyn muttered. “Filick left a few hours ago.”
“Any more blood?”
“No.”
“I could kill Hauth,” Elm seethed.
“What’s more alarming is why he wanted to use a Chalice in the first place,” Ravyn said. “Your brother suspects it was us in the wood that night. He has no proof, but he suspects.”
“We need to be careful, Ravyn.”
“I’m well aware.”
“Did you sleep?”
Ravyn’s yawn was answer enough.
“Sit back down before you fall over,” Elm said.
The chair creaked under Ravyn’s weight. I kept my eyes closed, uncertain if or when I should speak.
Ravyn’s voice lowered. “I used the Nightmare on her last night.”
My muscles tensed.
Elm was quiet a moment. “You used it to help her—to talk her through the game. Just as you did me.”
“I told her at the start I wouldn’t use it on her. I gave her my word.”
Elm snorted. “Last night was an extenuating circumstance, I’d say.”
“I doubt she’ll see it that way.”
“Why not?”
Ravyn paused. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, doubtful.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” he said.
“It wasn’t like anyone’s head I’d ever been in before.
I felt as if I’d been thrust beneath seawater.
It was dark and shifting—a storm. When I spoke to her I could hear her voice, but it was far away.
” He paused, the sound of his palms rough against his face.
“I don’t know what happened, Elm. I must be losing my mind. ”
Are you going to let him suffer like this? the Nightmare whispered.
I shut my eyes tighter. What will he think of me?
Does it matter?
Of course it matters. He matters.
So don’t lie to him.
My breath rattled in my chest. I opened my eyes, turning to Ravyn and Elm.
“Elspeth,” Ravyn said, pulling his chair closer to my bedside. He reached for my hand. “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible,” I admitted. “What happened?”
“After you spit up a lake of blood,” Elm said, leaning against my bedpost, “Filick was able to get an antidote in you. You’ll be weak for some time.”
I rubbed my head, my eyes finding Ravyn’s. “I asked you not to use your Nightmare Card on me,” I said, my voice no more than a whisper.
Shame darkened the Captain’s handsome face. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I thought I was helping.” Then, as if fighting the words, he let out a sharp exhale. “What the hell happened, Elspeth? What was that voice?”
“Voice?” Elm said.
“A voice spoke to me,” Ravyn said. “Like it was within the walls of my head. I heard it clear as day.”
“What did it say to you?”
Ravyn looked at me, his gray eyes sharp. “It told me to get out of her head.”
Tears fell from my eyes, betraying me as they washed down my cheeks. Ravyn reached for my face. “Elspeth,” he said, my name a rose on his tongue. “Whatever it is, I’ll help you. Just tell me.”
I shook my head. “You can’t help me, Ravyn.”
“I can try, can’t I?”
But I hadn’t said the words—not in eleven years. I’d buried the truth so deep and for so long that I did not know how to dig it up.
I pointed to the burgundy light in his pocket. “Better if I show you.”
Ravyn tapped his Nightmare Card three times, his eyes never leaving my face. The intrusion into my mind was just as abrasive as it had been last night—as if I’d been dunked beneath icy salt water. Behind my eyes, the Nightmare waited.
Be kind to him , I whispered.
It was strange, seeing Ravyn in front of me and feeling his presence in my mind at the same time. Ravyn , I said.
Elspeth.
The Nightmare’s voice dripped like oil. Ravyn Yew , he said. At least this time, you come invited .
Ravyn jerked back, his eyes wide.
“What is it?” Elm said, placing a hand on his cousin’s shoulder.
“There’s something there,” Ravyn gasped. “Someone else.”
“Another person?”
“Not a person. I—I don’t know.” He searched my face. “What is it?”
I nodded to the Card in his hand. On its face, just below the burgundy velvet, a creature was drawn. A beast of darkness…
A Nightmare.
Ravyn blinked. “That,” he said, holding the Card out between us. “That thing is in your head?”
Elm’s face went pale, his green eyes glassy, his fingers a vise on Ravyn’s shoulder.
Who are you? Ravyn demanded, shouting into the blackness.
The Nightmare was untouched by his distress. The shepherd of the shadow. The phantom of the fright. The demon in the daydream. The nightmare in the night.
Why are you in Elspeth’s head?
My thoughts twisted before my eyes. Suddenly I was back in my uncle’s library, the Nightmare Card splayed out on the cherrywood desk. I stared down at the monster on the Card. Yellow eyes—vicious claws—the slope of coarse fur trailing up his spine as he sat hunched, staring up at me.
I saw my small hands reaching for it, the library suddenly encased in the smell of salt.
Everything went black.
Across from me, Ravyn’s face had turned to stone, terror visible only in his eyes. “I don’t understand,” he said. “How did he get in your mind?”
“I touched my uncle’s Nightmare Card,” I said. I glanced at Elm. “It’s my ability—my magic. The moment a Providence Card touches my skin, I absorb whatever it was the Shepherd King paid to create it.”
Elm choked on his words. “What do you mean, ‘paid’?”
I gritted my teeth. “When the Shepherd King made the Deck, the Spirit required payment. So he bartered for each Card, paying in objects, animals—”
Elm shook his head. “Not the whole bedtime story, Spindle, the essentials , if you please.”
“Let her talk,” Ravyn growled.
I swallowed, the words sticky in my throat. “When the Shepherd King made the Nightmare Card, he bartered a part of himself.” I closed my eyes.
Ravyn’s voice was paper-thin. “His soul.”
I nodded. “That is what I absorbed when I touched my uncle’s Nightmare Card.”
Ravyn and Elm stared at me, their eyes wide, as if they had never truly seen me. “But if he bartered his soul,” Elm whispered, his eyes lowering to Ravyn’s Nightmare Card, “and you absorbed it, then the voice in your head…”
The Nightmare’s laughter filled my mind, making Ravyn flinch.
I looked up, the truth finally torn from me, piece by piece. “He’s the Shepherd King.”
There was not enough room in all of Spindle House to carry the burden of silence weighted over us. Elm looked as if he might scream, a hand on his mouth, his green eyes wide, his brow twisted by shock.
But Ravyn’s reaction frightened me more. Stillness—his entire face frozen, as if made of stone. “What about other Providence Cards?” he said. “Can you really see them by color?”
I looked away. “I can’t. But he can.”
“Are you saying that creature,” Elm said, pointing to the Card in Ravyn’s hand, “is the Shepherd King? That he’s been the one telling us where all the Cards are?”
“He doesn’t speak for me.” I bit my cheek. “Not often.”
“But he does help you,” Elm said. The Prince’s voice grew stronger.
“That’s why you can fight—why you’re strong, fast. How else could you have survived your father’s attack that night on the road?
” He turned to Ravyn, his shoulders tall with vindication.
“It’s how she injured Hauth—how she maimed Linden. He did it for her.”
I didn’t bother denying it. “He doesn’t give me his strength unless I ask for it.”
“Ethical, is he?” Elm snorted. “This just gets better and better. I suppose those are his yellow eyes we’ve all been seeing these last few weeks?”
I clenched my jaw, the ache in my head suddenly nothing to the overwhelming despair pooling in my chest. I wanted to cry—to fall back on the pillows and sleep for a hundred years—the pain of their scrutiny and the fear etched into Ravyn’s face more than I could take.
Ravyn slid his hand up my arm. “Give us a moment, Elm.”
The Prince balked. “This just confirms everything I told you about her. That she’s been lying to us the entire time!”
Ravyn cast his cousin a sidelong glance. “Please. Go.”
Elm’s brow darkened. He turned from us, his shoulders low but his jaw tight. Beneath the shadow of his frown, I saw glass in his narrowed green eyes.