Emeline remembered what Nettle told her the night they met: that someone in Hawthorne’s past broke his heart. She remembered the girl Hawthorne had mentioned the night he walked her home.
Where did she go?
Away from me.
“You loved someone, and she betrayed you.” Emeline’s voice sounded raw. “Is that what this is about?”Because whoever she was, I’m not her.
“Yes.” His eyes turned to stone. “And no. There are things you don’t know.”
She crossed her arms. “Then fill me in.”
He ran his hands raggedly over his face. He looked everywhere but at her.
“She didn’t betray me.” He paused for a long moment. When he finally raised his eyes to hers, he said, very quietly, “I betrayed her.”
THIRTY-ONE
EMELINE STARED ACROSS THEspace between them. “What do you mean, you betrayedher?”
Before he could answer, the door burst open. A gust of wind howled into the house, sending the sheet music blowing across the room. Emeline quickly did up the last of her buttons as the door swung on its hinges, slamming into the wall with abang!
Sable stepped inside, with Rooke on her heels.
They were both out of breath.
“Shadow skins,” Sable managed, her chest rising and falling in heaving gasps. Her russet hair was tangled and wild.“Inside the city.”
Hawthorne crossed to them in three easy strides, his argument with Emeline swept away by the wind whistling through the house. “Are you certain?”
It was Rooke who answered, pushing his hair off his face. “There’s no mistake. The entire city has been ordered to lock their doors and arm themselves as best they can.”
“But that’s impossible.” Hawthorne was already pulling on his boots. “The city walls have never been breached. The king’s magic—”
“We’ve always known the curse is getting stronger,” saidRooke, his dark brown eyes almost black. “The king can’t hold it off forever.”
“I slew three in the street on the way here.” Hawthorne’s sheathed sword was gripped in Sable’s hands—the same sword the hedgemen took from him when he offered himself up as Emeline’s surety. She handed it over. “There’s no time to waste.”
He buckled it on.
“I’ll come with you,” said Emeline, moving towards where they gathered by the door. “Maybe I can help.”
She still had Sable’s knife at her hip. And she’d killed one shadow skin today already.
“You’re injured.” Hawthorne stared down at her bandaged heel. “It will slow you and us down.”
“So I’m just supposed to wait here?”
“Go with Rooke to the palace. Once you’re safely inside, stay there.”
Emeline was about to argue, except Hawthorne was already following Sable outside. The moment they passed through the door, it shut in Emeline’s face.
The tarnished brass knob winked at her and Rooke. The house fell silent around them.
Her hands curled into fists.
He’s right,said a voice deep inside her.What can you do? All you have is one little knife against a forest full of monsters.
BACK IN THE PALACE, as the silver moon rose in a velvet black sky, Emeline paced, trying to distract herself with “Rose’s Waltz.” The last thing the Song Mage wrote for her mother.Again and again, she read the lyrics, but the words slipped through her mind like sand through a sieve.
