Chapter Eighteen
Faith and Marion are already under the tree when I arrive. Their shadowy figures are huddled together in the dark, but I recognize
the shape of the gossamer veil Faith wears over her long dark hair. It ruffles in the breeze gently behind her, making them
both look like phantoms.
The theme of tonight’s party was Arthurian legend, and Faith dressed as Isolde. Beside her, Marion is Tristan, in brown leather
riding boots and chain mail.
The drawstring pouch clutched in Faith’s hand catches the moonlight as she holds it up. “I’ve got everything Rhion asked for.”
She borrowed her shiny object, a pair of diamond earrings, from my wardrobe when we dressed for the revel together earlier
tonight.
Tucked in the pocket of my cloak is a gold button, a small lock of my hair tied with a ribbon, and a sapphire ring.
There’s a rustle in the dark blue shadows of the garden as more footsteps approach.
Lydia emerges, followed closely by Rhion, looking like a lost dog in her wake.
My sister’s medieval-style dress swishes behind her, and she looks so small against the acres of the garden my heart aches with the desire to protect her.
She joins us under the boughs of the tree and glances up at the double moons in the sky. “Emmett will be just a moment.”
“What’s he doing?” I ask.
Lydia casts her gaze to the toes of her silk slippers in the dirt. “Tying up some loose ends.”
Rhion has got a roll-top canvas pack slung on his back. He’s wearing a linen tunic with a lion on his chest, the Lancelot
to Lydia’s Guinevere.
We wait a few minutes in tense silence, jumping at every snapping twig and rustling branch, until Emmett’s shadow emerges
from the cool mist.
“Sorry for the wait,” he says as he approaches.
“Tying up loose ends?” Beneath my teasing is a genuine wish he’d tell me what he was doing. His life here is still almost
entirely a mystery, and I know there are things happening at court he isn’t telling me.
“Something like that,” he says airily. “Shall we?”
Rhion nods, and we follow him dutifully out of the back gates of the castle, and into the dark expanse of wilderness.
The air feels immediately thicker here, under the dense canopy of leaves. The trees in the old-growth forest are spaced a
few paces apart from each other, leaving gaps for shadows to dance like ghosts. I jump in fear and Emmett grabs my arm to
steady me, then lets it go just as quickly. I take the opportunity to look at his costume. He’s wearing a hooded chain-mail
shirt with a breast plate, inlaid with stars. “Who are you supposed to be?” I ask. He shrugs vaguely. “A knight, I think.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re the laziest fancy-dress party attendee I’ve ever met, did you know that?”
“What about you?” He waves his hand at my navy-blue gown, my silver diadem with little crystals that hang down over my forehead.
“I’m the Lady of the Lake,” I say indignantly.
“How long a journey will it be?” Lydia asks from up ahead.
Rhion tilts his head to the sky and takes a breath. “It depends on how kind the forest is feeling tonight.”
“And how do we get it to be kind to us?” Faith asks. She lays a pale hand on the trunk of the nearest tree. “Please be nice,
I’m already having quite a bad week.”
Rhion looks at her, aghast. “Stop that. The trees hate sarcasm.”
We walk in silence, our shoes crunching through the underbrush for what feels like ages.
Up ahead, the trees glow like something from a dream. It’s difficult to tell if they’re lit from within or if it’s a trick
of the light, and it sets my teeth on edge. “What is that?” Marion asks for all of us.
Rhion shoots a glare at Faith. “The seasons are changing. The trees are annoyed.”
“I didn’t realize they could hear me!” she protests.
“Hush, the both of you,” Lydia scolds. “The trees aren’t annoyed, they’re . . . concerned.”
As we approach, it’s like we’re stepping through time. In a blink, the dark, crisp autumn gives way to damp spring, ablaze
with midday light.
I shield my eyes from the sun, so disoriented it’s like the world has tipped beneath me.
Rhion is silent for a moment, like he’s listening to a message on the breeze. “It’s just a trick. We should carry on.”
Our moods are noticeably tenser as we continue. My slippers quickly grow damp with dew, rotting fruit, and crushed pink flower petals that litter the ground. The sun on the back of my neck is making me sweat. It plays over the leaves, casting patterns like light on water.
And then there’s the weight of Emmett’s gaze on me.
After an hour or so of walking, we come across a silver babbling brook, and above it, a quaint little bridge in the shape
of a crescent moon.
“We’ll go over one by one,” Rhion explains. “Does everyone have their button?”
I brush the cool metal where it rests in the pocket of my cloak. We all nod.
“Good,” Rhion says. “There’s a spirit who lives under the bridge. Drop the button into the water while you think of a memory
associated with it.”
“With the button?” Faith clarifies.
“Yes, the button.”
“How do we know it’s not a trick and you’re not just bargaining away our bones to the creature or something?” Emmett asks.
“Your bones?” Rhion asks, his blue eyes wide with disgust. “Emmett De Vere, you have a horrifying imagination.”
“But, like, just the bones?” Faith asks.
“We’d be gooey but otherwise unharmed?” Marion adds.
“Ew.” I swat Marion’s arm. “Don’t use the word gooey.”
“Floppy?” Marion asks.
“Nothing is going to happen to your bones!” Rhion shouts.
Lydia laughs.
“I’ll go first, how about that?” Rhion offers. “You’ll see that my bones and I are completely unharmed.”
Emmett bites the inside of his cheek. “We’ve come this far. I suppose that’s fair.”
The bridge looks as if it could have been constructed yesterday. The wood is shiny and free of rot. There are even two baskets
of fresh pansies hanging cheerily off its posts.
“Follow quickly,” Rhion instructs, and we all arrange ourselves into a single-file line behind him. “I don’t want you in this
part of the forest without me.”
With one last, longing glance at Lydia, he steps onto the bridge. His footsteps echo as he crosses the wooden planks, but
right as he reaches the crest, he disappears. Gone. Like he was never there at all.
“Rhion!” Lydia calls. She’s so panicked her voice cracks around his name. “Rhion!”
Emmett looks at her with shock, at this evidence she might actually care for Rhion in return.
“Follow, quickly!” Rhion’s voice is a few shades quieter, as if it’s coming from the rustling green leaves in the trees surrounding
us.
“I’ll go.” Faith plants a quick kiss on Marion’s lips and steps onto the bridge. Like Rhion, she vanishes a few paces in,
but this time, I listen close enough to hear a splash as her button hits the water.
Marion follows closely after, then Lydia, leaving Emmett and I alone.
The sun shifts and bends like candlelight, and the air clings thick and hot to my skin like a velvet cloak. The dappled light
of the trees dances over his dark hair as he looks at me.
“You go,” he says, his voice low and gravelly. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“You think I want to leave you here alone?” Despite everything, or perhaps because of it, it’s awful, unnatural, to be separated.
He reaches down and squeezes my hand. “Go on,” he urges, “I’ll see you on the other side.”
The quicker I go, the sooner it will be over with, so I gather my courage and step onto the bridge.
The hollow wood makes a dull thunk as my feet hit it, and then the whole world shifts.
An icy wind whips my cloak around me as the lights go dim, like the sun was snuffed out by a rolling thundercloud. Drifts
of snow flutter around my feet like phantoms, and the forest seems to spin around me like a top.
“What have you come to offer me?” The voice is young and old. Soft and screaming. It could belong to one person or one hundred,
and it’s coming from inside my own head.
I reach into my cloak and am relieved to find the comforting, smooth surface of the button. I tore it off a white coat I found
in my wardrobe late this evening before the revel. Marion and Faith have the other two.
“This.” My voice trembles.
I extend my hand, revealing the button resting in the center of my palm. Tiny shards of ice carried by the wind sting as they
pierce the delicate skin of my wrist.
“Mmmm.” The voice purrs, pleased. “And the memory?”
The memory, the memory . . . My brain scrambles, trying to find something. Rhion said a memory associated with the button, right? I cast my mind back
to my room, how I giggled with Marion and Faith as we ripped off the buttons and snipped small locks of our hair.
The voice in my head snarls like a cornered animal. Its claws scrape against some fundamental part of me and I shiver. “Not
that, that’s nothing.”
Nothing, nothing, nothing. The word clangs like a bell. I want to clap my hands over my ears, but I know that won’t make it stop.
“What about this?” I offer, fully panicking now. Through the drum kick of my heartbeat, I picture Emmett walking through the
forest beside me, the broad line of his shoulders, his perfect face lit up by beams of silver moonlight, how I ache for him,
even when he’s close enough to reach out and touch.
“This means nothing to you.” The voice in my head is disgusted. “You have insulted me.”
“No, no—” I protest, but the forest stops, then whirls counterclockwise around me. I blink and find myself suddenly somewhere
else.
I land hard enough to knock the wind from my chest, splayed out on cold, hard dirt.
I wheeze in and out for a few shaky breaths, and though my lungs eventually fill, it does little to calm my racing pulse.
“Emmett?” I call, but I hear nothing save for the far-off snapping of twigs and soft whisper of leaves in the dark. The air
is cool, layered with the sweet smell of autumn once more.
I push myself to my feet, and through the thick wall of brush in front of me, I see the glowing, faintly purple lights of
the castle.
I realize I’m right on the edge of the garden, where we began our journey. It seems my punishment from the bridge spirit was
being spat out of the forest entirely.
My heartbeat slows and I sigh in relief. There are far worse punishments than being sent back to my warm bed for the night.
The knife’s edge of anxiety still cuts me, but I have confidence Marion, Faith, Rhion, Lydia, and Emmett are more than capable
of finishing the journey on their own. Surely it doesn’t take more than five people to find one knife.
The gardens are quieter than they usually are on revel nights. Perhaps without Bram or Emmett here to encourage merrymaking, the court isn’t in their finest form tonight.
The doors to the castle swing open silently, and I’m surprised to find the great hall has changed colors. The walls were sage
green when I left this evening, but someone has magicked them to a pale purple. It’s a strange choice. It doesn’t particularly
match tonight’s Camelot theme and I can’t imagine Bram will be pleased to find his castle altered when he returns from England.
It’s not my problem. At least, it’s not my problem tonight. Exhaustion hits me like a physical object, like I’ve been awake
for days, and I look forward to flopping into my own bed and not moving until morning.
I’ve only climbed one stair when a gasp from behind startles me.
It’s Bram.
His face is one of shock. His full lips hang open, his brows knit together; even his hair looks strange. It’s shorter than
it was when I saw him last, just two days ago. It’s not like him to change it.
“Ivy?” He chokes out my name.
“Oh, darling!” I put on my cheeriest voice, but inside I’m terrified. I must distract him so he doesn’t notice the others
are gone. “You’ve returned so soon!”
He keeps standing there, frozen, his mouth agape like he’s seen a ghost.
The doors to the throne room open and an old man steps into the hall. He’s got a full head of snow-white hair and a closely
cropped beard to match. His face is lined with age, but he’s retained the height and straight posture of a much younger man.
I’m taken aback, realizing he’s the first elderly human I’ve seen in the Otherworld. It’s disorienting. He must have quite a story to have survived here for so long.
“Bram?” the old man asks, and I’m even more confused, wondering why he’s so familiar with the king.
But then he steps into the light, right at Bram’s side, and recognition hits me like an anvil to the heart. It’s as if I can
feel each one of my ribs snap in unison.
It’s the eyes.
Those clever hazel eyes are exactly the same.
“Ivy?” Emmett’s voice is hoarse with age, but I’d recognize it anywhere.
I’m sobbing now. Big heaving breaths I can’t catch. My lungs won’t expand fully. It’s like I’m drowning. I can hardly get
the words out.
“How long have I been gone?” I cry. The spirit under the bridge cast me out as a punishment, but I never imagined this.
I can’t look at Emmett’s wizened hands, the blue veins stark against the thin skin. Instead, I look at Bram. Ageless, perfect
Bram, forever eighteen.
I’ve missed it all. Emmett’s whole life, the life we could have shared together. I thought two years was agonizing, but this
is everything.
It’s over. It’s done. I’ve missed it.
Bram looks to Emmett, then back to me. I collapse, no longer able to support myself, and they both catch one arm before my
knees hit the stone stairs.
“Seventy years,” Emmett says in a pained whisper. “You disappeared seventy years ago.”