Chapter Eight
Rhion slams the door behind me, and with a click, it’s vanished, like it never existed at all. I reach out for it, but find nothing but the sweetly perfumed air of the Otherworld.
I tilt my head back and breathe, attempting to slow my rapid heartbeat. I’m going to need to have my wits about me and it’s
much too early to panic.
Birds chirp serenely as crisp fall leaves rustle in the gentle breeze.
My slippers sink into grass a slightly different shade of green than I’m used to, but the sky is the same blue-gray as it
is in England.
I’m in an open meadow, surrounded on three sides by a sparse forest. Ahead of me, far off among the rolling hills, a castle
juts up from the landscape.
It’s grander than even Buckingham Palace, constructed of a strange opalescent material that shimmers in the sunlight.
It reaches up into the sky, marked by spires and turrets as sharp as canine teeth.
I hike up my skirts and head for the castle on the hill.
The landscape is bucolic. I half expect to find a serene herd of English sheep grazing on the soft grass, but the only other life I see is a man riding in an open cart pulled by one horse.
Neither the man nor his overlarge horse pays me any mind.
My thoughts race as I walk toward the castle. I’ll find my sister, she will know where Emmett is, and then, together, the
three of us will solve how to banish Bram forever.
Soon, I promise myself, I won’t feel so alone anymore.
I can’t let myself think of the other possibilities: that I might not find Lydia, that I might be taken prisoner, that there
might be nothing left of my sister and Emmett to save.
I look down at my slippered feet and put one foot in front of the other. It’s the only thing I have power over.
But even with my head so full, I can’t help but marvel at the landscape around me. I wish I could grab my eight-year-old self
by her chubby cheeks and tell her we did it.
The castle sits atop a hill, and at its base, I reach a small market town.
One short man shoves an overripe, unfamiliar fruit into my hand as I pass. I drop it the next street over, and it splatters
on the ground, spilling seeds that look like tiny jewels and leaving my hands sticky and smelling of rot. Other stalls display
sparkling cases of crystal figurines, little jars of tonics, books that rattle as if something lives within their pages.
The streets themselves are narrow, lined with crooked buildings plastered in bone white, or dreamlike pastels of robin’s egg
blue or blush pink, all framed by dark wooden beams. The top floors are wider than the base of the buildings and hang over
the street, which is constructed of loose cobblestones with soft clover growing between the gaps.
At first, the Others pay me little mind, but the closer I get to the castle gates, the more eyes I feel on me.
Conversations stop and transactions are paused, coins in hand, as I walk by. My revel dress doesn’t look much different from
the clothes they all wear, more ornately beaded perhaps, but similar enough. My hair is in a style similar to that of the
women, loose around my shoulders with three small braids sweeping my curls off my face on each side, attached by a jeweled
comb in the back. Faerie women wear their hair long, and so it’s become the fashion in my court as well. My hair reaches nearly
to my waist now. Viscountess Bolingbroke would faint if she could see me. But despite my faerie fashion, there is no mistaking
me for what I truly am: too weak, too small, too soft to be anything other than a human.
I reach the castle gates, but no guards stand at attention like at Kensington.
The metal is cool under my palms. All it takes is a soft push and the gates swing open noiselessly, as if welcoming me with
open arms.
When I was a little girl and I imagined entering the Otherworld, trumpeters heralded my arrival and confetti rained down on
me from a rainbow canopy of strange new trees. Reality is a dim comparison.
I tread anxiously along one of the snaking paths, nearly overgrown with snaking vines, dotted with purple flowers with sharp,
thorny petals like thistle.
Then I see it—a row of hedges encircling neat garden boxes. Half of the hedges are trimmed back and wrapped for winter. Lydia’s
work. I’m sure of it. I recall hours of sitting with her and Mama in our garden planting bulbs and cutting back growth until
our fingers were frozen and caked in dirt.
I can’t help myself; I hike up my skirts and run down the winding path, as quickly as my exhausted legs will carry me.
The wind is knocked from me. I don’t even realize I’m on the ground until I blink up and realize the blurry gray taking up
my entire field of vision is the sky.
I wheeze and place a hand on my aching ribs, then roll over to try to push myself up off the gravel.
Two pairs of strong arms scoop me off of my knees and drag me toward the castle.
“Lydia!” I rasp, but there’s so little air in my lungs my voice doesn’t travel. “Lydia!”
The faerie guards are silent as they haul me away, too strong to fight against, but it doesn’t stop me from trying. I kick
and scream and bite and scratch with all the might I can muster.
The doors to the castle swing open for them as if enchanted, and they drag me through the halls wailing like an angry cat.
If Bram is going to kill or imprison me, I’m not going down without a fight. I’m sure Emmett and Lydia fought, too. There’s
comfort in that, a connection to them.
The guards stop in front of a pair of double doors, snow-white and reaching at least three stories high. In place of handles
are two massive stag’s antlers, but the guards don’t bother using them. With the heels of their heavy boots, they kick the
doors open, then toss me to the floor like a pile of rubbish.
My knees strike the stone hard as the doors slam behind me. The music that had been raging whines to a sudden halt.
The silence weighs heavy, like the air after a crackle of lightning, before thunder erupts.
Still on my hands and knees, I raise my head slowly. My tangled hair hangs limp in front of my face and my mouth is full of metallic blood from where I bit my tongue when I hit the floor.
I look up and find myself in the middle of a faerie revel. On all sides are hundreds of courtiers, but they’ve scattered to
the edges of the enormous ballroom, leaving a perfect aisle from me to the two thrones at the front.
I hear a soft gasp, and even in the tiniest of noises, I recognize her.
My sister, looking more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her. Atop her luminous blond curls sits a crown of diamond-encrusted
branches. Her black gown is so long it sweeps past the throne she sits on and down the stairs of the dais, trailing beads
like raindrops. In one hand dangles a bejeweled goblet, and her full lips are the bitten-red of faerie wine.
It’s more difficult to see the figure in the throne next to her, as there are half a dozen exquisitely beautiful faerie girls
gathered around it.
One with a manicured hand laid on his shoulder. Another standing behind him, her fingers wound through his hair. There’s a
girl lounging at his feet, her arm resting along his calf, and one perched on the armrest of his throne, a slit in her gown
showing a scandalously long swath of leg.
But the one I can’t stop staring at is sitting in his lap. She’s got masses of long dark hair, and her gown is low cut enough
to see how deeply her pale skin is flushed.
She’s got one hand on his chest and the other in his mouth.
Globs of golden honey drip from her fingers, across his lips and down his chin. She pumps them in and out and he sucks softly,
his eyes fluttering closed, his head tipped back. He, too, wears a crown. It’s askew atop his dark hair, and his doublet—beaded
black to match Lydia’s—hangs open at his throat.
I gasp, and it must awaken something in him.
His eyes open and his gaze snaps not to me, but to Lydia. In that single glance, there is aching intimacy, pulled as tight
as a bowstring.
Gently, my sister reaches for him and lays a comforting hand on his arm. Something glints in the torchlight—a wedding band
encircling her third finger.
The sight of it is sickening, shattering.
His eyes land on mine.
I mutter only one word. “Emmett?”
It’s as if a spell is broken. The whole party comes back to life suddenly, in uproarious, hysterical laughter—and it’s me
they’re laughing at.