Page 54

Chapter 54

Rahk

The frightened woman with the curly black hair doesn’t see me before I’ve crept up behind her. She hides just off the lit road, clinging to the shadows. In one swift motion, I have one hand around her upper arm and the other smothering her scream.

“Tell me where the Ivy Mask is, and I will spare you,” I growl into her ear.

She trembles violently in my grip. I let go of her mouth.

“I don’t know,” she replies, the words coming out in shakes and stutters. “She went to find the others.”

She.

All this time, and I’ve never realized my quarry was a woman. Kat springs to mind at once. The memory of how she felt curled up against me this morning, her lips pressed against my throat in a long, unintentional kiss, returns to me unbidden with a painful ache. I sweep all thoughts of her aside immediately.

“The other slaves?” I demand.

She nods. The motion makes her hair fall into her face. I take stock of her quickly, and my entire body responds with pulsating shock when I see a familiar object clutched tight in her hand.

An ollea jar.

She doesn’t fight when I take it. Without releasing her, I hold the jar up to the light. Not a single drop remains. So this is how the Ivy Mask has been evading me so long. I never realized ollea could be used like this.

I think of the girl I found in my Nothril quarters so long ago. The mute slave who shouldn’t have been in my room. The one I considered was working for the Ivy Mask.

She wasn’t working for the Ivy Mask. She was the Ivy mask.

And she was in my room stealing this.

I picture the girl. She was slender, wearing an oversized uniform, with bits of black hair visible between patches of gauze covering her face. I think of her brown eyes, her straight nose. Again, Kat assaults my thoughts. She has a similar build and height to the Ivy Mask.

Stop thinking about Kat, I tell myself. You’ve got to focus.

I cast around, looking for what I need. I drag the woman after me, away from her hiding spot, until I find a loose stone on the edge of the road. I lift it, testing its weight in my palm. A spell like this is only effective if created outside the Wood. I run my fingers over its smooth surface, muttering under my breath. “Alathar illutrum o pomith sylithica pir bonrus.”

The stone begins glowing a soft purple. I hand it to the woman, who glances between me and it uncertainly.

“Take that and follow it through the forest—purple means you are heading in the right direction, red means you have turned the wrong way. It will lead you safely to the human lands. You will not be lost in the Wood.”

“I can—I can leave? You’re not going to kill me?” asks the woman, her hands in a knot at her throat.

“Not if you move fast and leave at once,” I reply darkly. She obeys, tripping in her haste to run away. I retrace my steps to where I found her. Is the Ivy Mask nearby?

That is when I catch movement near the edge of the forest. Up the slope, just on the edge of the Wood, is a rider mounted on a horse. A horse .

That is her. That is the Ivy Mask.

Her cloak billows behind her, her mask of green ivy tightly against her face. She looks back at me. It gives me a full view of the sad face on her mask. Her clothes are dark, nondescript, and her form is slender. But what else I see turns my blood to ice.

The Ivy Mask’s hair flies out behind her just before she pulls her hood to cover it.

Dark and cropped short.

Suddenly, it is not the nameless Ivy Mask that rides that horse—the horse that I strain and fail to get a clear glimpse of in the shadows—but Kat. My wife.

Great Kings, please let it be anyone else. I have never prayed in my life, but I pray now. Desperately. Please don’t let it be her. My whole body shakes as I release the glamours of my wings and soar through the air to the edge of the forest. I curse that I cannot fly through the Wood without losing my Path, tuck my wings in close, and run harder than I’ve ever run before.

It’s not Kat. It’s not Kat. It’s not Kat.

I pound my way through the Wood, nearly running off the Path several times in my haste. At long last, I burst across the border into Harbright. I ignore the screams of the busy farming people. I ignore the troll bellows and the clang of violence. I leap into the air and let my wings carry me as fast as I can across the fields.

My estate looms before me as I fly low to the ground and drop out of the air, landing in a crouch. I don’t go for the door but run straight for the window of our bedroom.

She’s going to be there, I tell myself frantically. She’s going to be asleep in bed and you’re going to feel terrible for waking her up. You’ll laugh at the idiocy of your own suspicion.

None of those assurances calm me down. I shove open the window and leap inside, feet first.

The bed is empty. The sheets on her side are mussed, but I don’t see her. A quick sniff of the room, and I know she’s not here. Still, I march to her old servant’s room and throw open the door. Nothing. I check the washroom.

Nothing.

My blood boils. My hands tremble violently. I throw open the bedroom door. It smashes into the wall, the handle going straight through the plaster.

“Where is Kat?” I bellow. I don’t care if it’s late and everyone is asleep. I need answers. Now. “Where is my wife?”

I storm down the hallway, throwing open every door I come to. Every room is empty. The dining room. My study. The guest quarters that we’ve never used except when Kat was hurt. The parlor. The library. All the other rooms. With each empty room, my panic builds.

“Katherine Vandermore!” I roar into the emptiness as I throw open the door to the kitchen.

And there she is.

Her eyes are wide with fright, her hair wrapped up in a cloth like she recently bathed, a soft white nightgown clinging to her form. The pleasant perfume of her scent fills my awareness. She has a broken mug in one hand, and a puddle of what smells like hot chocolate dripping over the edge of the counter. Mary sits across from her, clutching her own mug, staring at me with Kat’s mirrored fright. Their gazes shift from me to the swords strapped to my back.

“Rahk!” Kat cries, her voice shaking as she gets up. “What’s the matter? You frightened me near to death!”

Mary sets to work cleaning up the mess of the spilled drink. Kat immediately goes to help her. I’m still staring at her, dumbfounded. My mind tries to make sense of what I saw and what I see now. The scent of her is so unmistakably fresh and feminine—not at all what she should smell like if she’d just ridden across miles of field and forest.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” I demand. I grab either side of the doorframe, leaning forward and back for any sign of a clock. There is one in the kitchen. “It’s well after midnight!”

“Do I have a curfew?” Kat shoots back, frustration and irritation overtaking her fright. “I couldn’t sleep! Mary made us hot chocolate and we’ve been sitting here talking.”

Charity, Mrs. Banks, and Cliffored barrel into the kitchen just then, in an array of nightcaps and candles and nightclothes.

“What is wrong?” demands Mrs. Banks. “What has happened?”

I look between them and Kat. Kat, who clearly wasn’t just invading the Fae realm at her whims. Kat, who isn’t the Ivy Mask. I let out a deep exhalation, running my shaking hand down my face. I could collapse onto the floor in relief. “Nothing has happened. I returned late and found my bedroom empty. I thought something had happened to Kat and I panicked. Please accept my apologies for waking you all up.”

Everyone disperses. Kat’s hand trembles as a mirror of my own as she disposes of the broken mug. I curse myself for scaring her so badly. It just looked so much like her. I know her so well by now—her personality, her form, her face.

But it wasn’t her.

It wasn’t her.

I turn around, trying to pull myself together. I am usually not so easily shaken.

One way or another, this woman will be my undoing.

I breathe deeply into my gut until I am composed enough to speak. Still, I don’t turn around. The sounds of her and Mary bustling around the kitchen have gone quiet, as though they stand waiting for me. “Kat,” I say at last. “Please come to bed.”

I leave before she gives an answer, marching to our room.