Chapter Nineteen
I pull back from the kiss, dizzy and disoriented. I cling to Emmett’s broad shoulders for purchase, and gasp when I see him
fully.
“What happened?” I ask. Every part of him is covered in blood. It’s crusted in his hair, running in streaks down his face
and splattered over his chain-mail shirt.
My head spins. Just a moment ago, I was in the castle, sobbing on the stairs, and now I’m here.
“What happened to you?” Emmett asks, his hazel eyes full of concern and focused solely on me.
“The bridge spirit didn’t accept my button and sent me back to the castle, and you were there but—” I swallow a sob as the
image crashes back to me. “You said I’d been missing for seventy years, that I was too late.”
Emmett plucks a dried leaf from where it’s stuck in my hair and flicks it to the ground. “And then what?” he asks softly.
“And then I blinked and you were here, covered in blood.” His hazel eyes are nearly green in contrast to the crimson rivulets
that have dried down his face. It’s a shocking sight, but I’m just so relieved to see him looking like himself again.
“It was a trick,” Rhion says from behind Emmett. “A cruel trick, but nothing more than a nasty dream.”
My heart slows but the tears don’t stop coming. Emmett pulls me tightly to his chest. “Shh, it’s all right.”
“They’re happy tears.” How do I begin to explain the depth of my relief? The new clarity?
I glance at their empty hands. “I take it you didn’t get the knife?”
Emmett helps me to my feet, and we walk through the icy gardens back to the castle. They tell me of their bloody encounter
with the Redcaps.
The six of us cut through the revel up to Rhion’s private quarters, which strongly resemble his house in Bath. I have to duck
to avoid the fishing net adorned with forks strung up over his doorway.
“It looks just like your house in England,” I remark, thinking of his strange group of fawning humans. “Sans all your . . .
friends.”
Rhion pauses and glances to Lydia, then back to me. “I hope they think of me as a friend. I was trying to save them from Bram
and the rest of the court. I attempted to get that poor girl in the deer mask to come inside, too, but she refused me.”
I regret my petty comment and am reminded of all we have to lose if we don’t succeed. “That was kind of you, Rhion.”
We move papers and books and silk shoes to find surfaces on which to sit. Emmett and I end up folded together on an armchair
near the fire, with Marion, Faith, and Rhion all perched on the edge of his bed. Lydia chooses to stay standing and spends
more of her time looking through the titles on his bookcase than at us.
“So they threw Ferrinus in these caves?” I clarify, still playing catch-up. My eyes keep lingering on Emmett, young and whole,
beside me. My heartbeat has yet to return to its normal speed.
“That’s what he said.” Rhion sighs and lies back onto a beaded pillow, his dark hair a fan around him.
“So why not go get it? I’ll bring a better button next time, I promise.”
Emmett cuts me off. “The caves are forbidden for obvious reasons. Cursed a millennium ago. No one goes near them.”
“Cursed?” I ask. “Cursed how?”
This time, it’s Lydia who answers. “No one quite knows. The only thing the legends say is that what exists in the caves is
pain, pure pain.”
“But the Redcaps went?”
Emmett shakes his head. “No, they likely just stood at the mouth and tossed the knife into its depths to be rid of it. I’m
sure it made them squeamish.”
Marion snorts. “They seemed plenty comfortable with sharp objects to me.”
“They say the blade is cursed. Its existence makes everyone uncomfortable. Regicide isn’t exactly a dinner table conversation.
Not even for Redcaps,” Rhion replies. “No one wants to think about what it takes to kill the unkillable.”
“But we’re not going to kill him,” Lydia adds sharply from over at the bookcase. She’s thumbing through a volume bound in
sky-blue leather, but I can tell she’s not reading a single word.
“Someone will have to rule after him,” Faith says. “Are we putting Mor back on the throne?”
Rhion chews on the inside of his cheek. “Perhaps, if we could guarantee she wouldn’t use her power to come back to England.
If not her, there are other candidates, a few lords I don’t completely despise. Lady Thalia. Emmett.”
Emmett stiffens. “Or you.”
“I don’t have a taste for it,” Rhion replies. “What about you?”
Emmett sinks his teeth into his bottom lip. “I’m unsuited to rule.”
“What if the land won’t accept anyone but Mor?” Lydia says.
“The land?” I’m confused again.
“Do you remember when I explained to you how the door between worlds works?” Rhion asks. “How the magic between the regent
and the Otherworld itself are deeply intertwined? It means the land must approve of the new ruler. Ferrinus may pierce Bram’s
heart, but unless the land feels we have a worthy replacement, we will be left without a ruler and chaos will reign.”
“But that almost definitely won’t happen,” Emmett assures me.
“And we’re not going to stab him in the heart, Rhion,” Lydia scolds. “He’ll abdicate once we present him with his options.”
“A figure of speech!”
Lydia keeps scowling. I’m terrified to ask her what comes after. What if she plans to stay with him?
“None of this works if we don’t have the blade,” I say instead. “Send me to the caves.”
“It’s not possible,” Rhion says. “The caves are a full day’s journey, and Bram will be back any moment now—and not leave for
several more weeks, months even. He’ll notice you’re gone.”
The idea hits me like lightning. I bite back a smile. “Then we’ll bring Bram with us.”
I catch Lydia’s eye from across the room and she nods almost imperceptibly, but we’re sisters, which means I can read her
mind.
“Convince Bram to make it the second trial. Send us both in.”
It’s not quite dawn when I find Emmett at my door. Daylight is only a vague promise, a pencil-thin outline of orange along
the mountains in the distance.
I’m bleary-eyed in a white nightdress, and Emmett looks like something from a dream. In the soft light, he looks so perfect I still find it difficult to believe he’s real.
“What are you doing?” My voice is gravelly with disuse.
“Looking at you,” Emmett says softly as he leans against my doorjamb. His hazel eyes are heavy-lidded with sleep, his mouth
full, his tan neck exposed by the open collar of his shirt.
“Then come in and do it properly.”
If this were six months ago, he would have made a joke, said something like Oh, Lady Ivy, what about your reputation? Or Are you that eager to be ravished by me?
But this new Emmett is as impossible to grasp on to as wisps of smoke. Something haunts him, and his easy jokes have evaporated
on the wind.
Plus, he already had me, in the dark of his room in Kensington Palace, when we did something together we can’t ever take back.
My room is dim with only the flickering in the fireplace for light. The fires never seem to need extra fuel here; they just
keep on burning.
I suppose it’s a little like how I feel for Emmett. He could give me nothing in return, but the desire I feel for him never
lessens.
I crawl back into bed and motion for him to follow. The anxiety over what I might face today in the caves is like a physical
weight around my neck, dragging me down.
It wasn’t difficult to convince Bram to make the caves the second trial. Rhion needed only to make Bram think it was his idea.
It took a few days of mentioning the caves during dinners and revels before Bram announced his brilliant new idea to court.
It took just two days to organize after that. We’ll leave this afternoon, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified, but
I’ll be glad to have it over with.
Yesterday, Emmett pulled every book from the library, and still, the only information we could find was What lies within the Isern Caves is pain. Pure, unadulterated pain.
It’s as if any additional details have been intentionally struck from the record.
I don’t relish the idea of feeling pain, but I know it will be temporary. I will take this gladly over another creature suffering
on my behalf.
Emmett stands now at the edge of my bed. “Get in.” I pat the mattress.
He slides in without protest. The heat of him next to me is such a relief, my eyes prickle with tears. I’ve been trying to
get him alone for days, but he insists spending too much time together at revels, or even walking around the grounds together,
is too risky. He’s always glancing behind, like he’s terrified someone is watching him.
“I’m sick about today,” he starts quietly. “I want to run to Nan and Fennick’s and hide you in their attic, or wrench the
door back to England open and take you as far from this place as possible.”
But he knows I wouldn’t let him. He knows, because he’s the same as me.
“That wouldn’t solve anything,” I reply gently. “You have to trust I’ll be strong enough to take it.”
Emmett reaches for my hand under the duvet. “You’re the strongest person I know. I just wish you didn’t have to be.”
His knuckles are still split and bruised after the fight with the Redcaps. I bring them to my mouth and press my lips to each
one.
Emmett captures my chin in his hand and tips my mouth to his.
The kiss is long and slow, like we’re not on borrowed time.
He’s methodical as he slips his tongue between the seam of my lips, then pulls back to trail down the column of my throat.
I shiver as the cold metal of his earring brushes my bare shoulder.
I could confront him about the push and pull he’s put me through, ask him why he won’t just let me in, but instead I choose
to take what he’ll give me.
“I don’t want to let you go,” he whispers.
“Don’t be afraid.” I smile against his mouth. “I’m not.”
He does us both a favor and lets me lie to him.
Emmett holds my hand until first light, then slips out of my room, ready to play his part for the day, as Bram’s devoted regent
and loyal brother. I know it will hurt him.
“Check on Lydia, please,” I say as he walks away. I have the distinct feeling that he knows how to care for her better than
I do.
He turns back and nods gravely.
By noon, I’m in a carriage, hurtling through the countryside into the unknown.
I’m awake this time. I assured Bram I wouldn’t fight, and I won’t.
The journey takes nearly a day, just as Rhion warned. We stop periodically for breaks to rest and eat and water the horses,
and although we’re in a caravan with dozens of other carriages, I never interact with anyone but castle guards, who refuse
to speak to me. By the time we arrive at the caves, I’ve cycled through all the stages of fear and acceptance twice over.
The carriage finally comes to a halt and a guard swings open the back door. I hop down, ignoring his hand.
Next to me, Lydia steps down from her carriage gingerly, gracefully accepting help.
The space where our eyes meet is pained, and I know we’re both thinking of the unicorn.
I want to hug her, to tell her it’s all going to be all right, that we’ll find a way out of this, but before I can, a pair of rough hands shoves me forward.
I whip my head around. “There’s no need for that!” I snap. “I’ll go willingly.”
It’s the smell that hits me first. The salty brine of the sea is picked up on a rough breeze, where it intermingles with the
fresh, bitter scent of pine.
The caves are a yawning mouth on an expanse of cliffs that fall directly into a dark, writhing ocean. The sun reflects on
its churning surface thousands of feet below. I shudder to think what kinds of creatures live within its depths.
The cave itself is unremarkable, which makes it all the more terrifying. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t
this.
The mouth reaches perhaps fifteen feet high, large enough to drive a carriage through.
Standing at the entrance, we can see a few feet inside, just a dirt floor and jagged walls. Then it disappears into darkness.
Lydia walks over to me, no sense of fear in her. Her shoulders are square, her head held high. Her cloak is snow-white, and
she wears the hood over her blond curls. I peek around it to take a look at her face, which is stony.
Behind her, more carriages pull up and nobles stream out of them. There are colorful poufs set on the ground, and a long table
where castle staff are setting up a noontime feast. Someone has pulled out a fiddle, and a cheery tune fills the stark cliffside.
“How do we win?” Lydia asks Bram. He’s distracted, getting his cup filled by a servant, while the rest of court settles in
for the party.
Bram grins. “Whoever lasts the longest.”