Chapter Twenty-One
Bram and his courtiers gather around me moments later. Emmett stands near the back of the crowd, his face grim with worry.
Rhion extends a hand to steady me, but I refuse it and stumble, my legs as shaky as a newborn fawn’s.
“It’s done,” I whisper in his ear, and he gives me a single nod.
I pat the interior pocket of my cloak and find the comforting weight of Ferrinus there. Despite it all, we achieved what we
set out to do today. It should feel like victory, but I am hollow.
“How’d it go?” Bram asks cheerfully, his tone eagerly intent.
Back in Bath, while the others delighted in torturing humans at the revel, it seemed that Bram was mostly above it. I see
now that he enjoys the carnage just as much as the rest of them; his tastes just lean more personal. What good is pain when
it’s inflicted on a stranger? Up close, when it’s me or Lydia or Emmett or his mother, it must be so much sweeter for him.
Perhaps that’s why he let his court run so wild back home in England. My distress wasn’t an unfortunate aftereffect, it was
the point entirely.
I do my best not to recoil from him as my eyes meet his. There is glee glinting in his silver irises.
“It was horrible,” I answer honestly. The sour taste of vomit lingers in the back of my mouth.
Bram slings a heavy arm around my shoulder and grins down at me. There’s that single dimple, the one that used to make my
heart stutter in my chest. “Good.”
Unlike the last trial, I do not retreat into the carriages. I cross to the circle of silk settees around the roaring bonfire
and I have a drink. I paste a smile on my face and do my best to look gracious at all the congratulations flung my way.
I can’t bear to look at Emmett.
I feel the weight of his eyes on me across the roaring fire, but every time I glance back, I see him saying I do.
He’s been married this whole time. The betrayal stings like a slap across the face, but deep down, I just feel so stupid for
thinking I knew him better than this.
You really think my love is that fickle?
No matter the reasons he had for marrying her, he should have told me.
And Lydia kept his secrets for him, which is another blow.
The sun sinks low in the sky, casting the cliffside party in long shadows.
Without the sun, the breeze coming in from the roiling sea is properly bitter, and I am shivering despite my heavy cloak.
“Let’s take this back to the castle!” Bram announces, and everyone shouts in agreement.
Emmett brushes by me on our way to the carriages. “Are you all right?” he asks under his breath.
I push past him without answering. I don’t know what to say.
The hours-long ride back to the castle is a new kind of torture. I tremble with cold as the images of Emmett come back to me in a torrent.
Married.
Emmett is married.
He’s been some other girl’s husband this whole time.
I jump out of my carriage before it has come to a full stop and don’t stop moving until I’m back up in my room, alone, with
the thick curtains drawn.
I pull Ferrinus from my cloak and examine it in the light. It’s nearly identical to the drawing we looked at in Lydia’s room.
A rough piece of metal, closer to a rock than a blade, has been sharpened to a crude point and bound to a golden hilt. From
end to end it’s smaller than my forearm.
I weigh it in my palm, finding comfort in it and praying I don’t have to use it. Then I shove it under my mattress. I’ll give
it to Lydia later, per our agreement, but I don’t have the strength to face her right now.
I pull the velvet cord to ring the bell and Eloree appears.
With gentle hands she plaits my hair into a long braid that falls down the center of my back and helps me into a silky nightdress.
“Eloree?” I ask when she’s nearly out the door.
She pauses. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Where are Lady Thalia’s quarters?”
Her brows furrow. “Why would you want to go there? She’s so . . .” She struggles to find the words.
“Horrible?” I offer.
“Cruel,” Eloree answers.
I know, I don’t say aloud.
“Please, where does she live?”
Eloree sighs. “Her quarters are with the rest of the lords, in the east wing of the castle, past the central courtyard.”
“Thank you.”
She nods and closes the door behind her.
I sink down into my bed alone. Every time I shut my eyes, I see Emmett against the wall, Emmett in bed, Emmett vowing to love
someone else.
After what feels like ages, I can bear it no longer and push myself up out of bed.
I crack open my door and find the hallway still and empty, though the revel below buzzes through the walls and up the stairs.
I knock on the door at the end of the hall first, but know I will find it empty. I understand now why there was no bed. He
never slept there.
I pass throngs of partygoers on my way to the east wing. Tonight, they’re dressed in shades of gold. Somewhere within the
throne room, I have no doubt Bram is in costume as Midas.
A few try to press cups or sweets into my hand as I pass, but I push through them and out into the cold air of the courtyard.
It’s damp tonight. Not quite raining, but misting like the sky can’t make up its mind. It clings to my skin and hair, so by
the time I enter the foyer of the east wing, I’m shivering.
There’s a servant girl tending to the entryway fire and I ask her the way to Lady Thalia’s rooms.
“Second floor, last door on the left,” she instructs.
The door is unlocked, which surprises me, but maybe after hundreds of years of living together, the faeries in Bram’s court
don’t bother with locks.
The room is draped in greens so dark they’re almost black. In the middle of the space looms the massive canopy bed from the visions in the cave. The sight of it makes my eyes water. I didn’t doubt what the cave showed me, but here is further confirmation that it was real.
I take a seat in the hard wooden desk chair and wait.
It doesn’t take long before the door creaks open, Emmett’s tall form silhouetted in the entrance. I was ready to confront
Lady Thalia, but I’m glad it’s him.
He jumps as he sees me. “Ivy?”
“Tell me the truth.” I’m desperate for my voice to sound cold instead of brokenhearted.
“What are you doing here?” he asks urgently. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Tell me, Emmett. Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“You know what!” My voice breaks. “You’ve been married all this time and you never thought to tell me. Married, Emmett!”
His face crumples. “Ivy, please. I never meant for you to find out.”
“That’s worse!” I shout. “You do see how that’s worse, don’t you?” I turn, ready to leave. All I needed was confirmation.
“Ivy, wait,” he calls.
This emotion, this need to run when things get hard, is so familiar it startles me. I have a vision of myself this spring, running to Queen Mor and asking
her to make me forget Emmett. I felt just like this then, a trapped animal, and in making that bargain, I hurt Emmett more
than I ever could have anticipated.
I don’t want to be the kind of person who runs. I want to stand and face things.
I take a steadying breath and face him.
His face is so beautiful, it’s heartbreaking. He’s looking at me, wide open and full of grief.
“Can we just talk, please?” His voice is barely a whisper. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“You haven’t just hurt me, you’ve made me a fool.”
“How did you find out?” His voice is barely a whisper.
“The caves. It was emotional pain, as it turns out.” I blink and there it is again: Emmett in that candlelit chapel, vowing
his life to someone who isn’t me.
He lets out a long breath. “Then you know I only did it because I was trying to protect Lydia and because I believed you to
be dead. You have to believe me. I never would have done this if I thought you were still alive. I would have clung to the hope of you until my dying breath.”
I throw up my hands, feeling half-crazed. “That’s not fair. You were always going to move on, and you should have, that’s
your right.”
“That’s not true,” Emmett says.
“I’m not upset about the marriage—” I pause. “Well, I am, of course I am, but I don’t have a leg to stand on there. I’m heartbroken
that you’ve been lying to me. You let me look foolish in front of everyone, in front of Lydia,” I argue.
He presses the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and lets out a breath. “I never meant to hurt you.”
“I want to believe that,” I reply. “But does it matter what we feel? It’s happened. It’s done.” There’s a swooping sensation
in my stomach like I’m falling from a great height. It’s like the illusion from the bridge spirit, when I saw Emmett as an
old man. The future I imagined for us in tatters.
Emmett pulls away from me, the air between us suddenly as cold as ice.
“I understand,” he says flatly, his gaze pinned somewhere above my head.
“It’s just—” I struggle to find the words. “You’re married. I don’t see how we overcome that.”
“So are you.” He looks at me, bewildered.
“But I never lied to you about it! Every moment I’ve been in the Otherworld, you’ve been lying to me.”
“To protect you!”
“Or because I’m as disposable to you as the rest of them?” It’s my worst fear, finally voiced aloud: that I am simply one
in a long line of Emmett De Vere’s girls. Another naive debutante who fell under his spell and let him make me believe I was
special.
The words strike him. His voice is a whisper now, anger evident in every word. “Accuse me of anything you wish—you’re right,
I’ve ruined everything—but don’t accuse me of indifference.”
It physically hurts to look at his face. I can’t stand another rejection. I’m simply not strong enough.
“She doesn’t even care about me.” Emmett’s voice is louder now. “She was one of Bram’s lovers before he married you and Lydia
and she’s jealous and petty and out for revenge. She married me to hurt him.”
“I saw you with her, in that bed!” I point to where it looms in the middle of the dark room. “Why were you with her after I arrived here? I can understand
when you thought I was dead, but I was alive. I’d just kissed you.”