Page 13

“Thank you for the demonstration.” I picked a berry and dropped it on the ground instead of in the basket. “Oh!” I slapped my forehead. “I’m such a foolish, stupid girl!” Despite Rook’s fierce glare, I offered him the basket. “Can you show me again? I think I’ll get it this time.”

The muscle along Rook’s jaw twitched. “I’d appreciate it”—his throat bobbed—“if you lost the attitude.”

Wouldn’t have one if you weren’t such a fuckhead.

“Of course.” I smiled. “Apologies.”

Rook muttered, “Stay where I can see you,” and headed to a grove of trees farther on. Watching Rook walk away, I wanted to run, to flee somewhere he might never see me again.

As my father used to say, the Hollow is no place for a coward.

So, I picked the berries.

When my basket was full, I ate a handful of blackberries and headed to find Rook. Wandering into an apple orchard, I peered around a tree…

“Look at this one,” Rook said, appearing from nowhere, and nearly stopping my heart.

A suspender slid off his shoulder, he readjusted it and held up an apple the size of his palm.

Rook rubbed the fruit along his shirt until it shone.

He devoured it with his eyes and murmured, “You’ll enjoy it.

” Rook placed the apple in a basket, already filled to the brim with both apples and pears.

It sat next to a sack packed with hazelnuts.

I waved between the baskets. “Surely, this is enough?”

Rook’s brows furrowed; he disagreed.

“How much do you think I eat?”

“I don’t know,” Rook grumbled. “I could easily eat all this.”

“Well, you’re going to have to. This is too much for me.”

Rook frowned. “I can’t eat this.”

Without thinking, I asked, “What do you eat?” Rook didn’t answer.

He turned away, but not before his eyes drifted to my throat.

That one, subtle glance reminded me that this was not an ordinary day.

And that, despite how he presented himself, Rook was not an ordinary man.

Rook loaded the baskets onto a carrying pole and heaved it over his shoulders.

He turned and walked back to the castle.

Like it was a ripe blackberry, I plucked out every ounce of courage from within.

I was going to need it.

***

After I ate—a pitiful amount, owing to stress and Rook’s unblinking stare—Rook showed me around our prison, starting with a room in the cellars.

From the diagrams on the walls and the various bottles and experiments littered about, I gathered it was a physician’s office.

I examined some fruit decaying beneath glass domes.

Each dome had a hastily scribbled date beneath it.

Wait.

The experiment in front of me bore this year’s date, but one across the table was dated fifty years ago.

The numbers were all scribbled in the same rough penmanship.

“Hold on,” I said, and pointed to the label.

“Did you date these?” After leaning over to look, Rook nodded. “How long have you been trapped here?”

“The day I stumbled into the castle…”—Rook’s face scrunched, calculating—“that was seventy-five years ago.”

My jaw dropped and I blurted, “You can’t die?”

Rook’s eyes narrowed.

Don’t sound so disappointed, you fool!

“You’re immortal?” I asked, with enthusiasm.

Whether he believed my enthusiasm or not, Rook said, “I don’t age, on account of my…

affliction.” Affliction was an interesting word choice.

Pneumonia, leprosy—those were afflictions.

Turning into a flesh-eating beast? That was an affront to humanity.

“Though,” Rook continued, “I’ve had enough brushes with death to know I’m not immortal.

I heal quicker than humans, but I will die one day.

” He wiped a bit of dust from the table and muttered, “Killed, most likely.”

Whew.

I inspected an intricate diagram of a hand. “If you’re a physician, why’d you let me stitch you up?” I pointed to the sketch. “It looks like you know a lot more than I do.”

“Decades have come and gone since I’ve felt another’s touch.

” A lively spark quirked Rook’s cheek. “And you were quite forceful.” An unwelcome blush came over me, and I looked away.

Appalled at my own reaction, I left Rook’s words hanging in the air, unacknowledged.

Instead, I pretended to examine a rotting melon, fuzzy and white with mold.

“Anyway,” Rook continued. “These sketches… They’re remnants of a time before me.

I’m no physician.” He gestured to the empty room. “If I can’t mend myself, who will?”

I suppose he had point.

Rook said, “I was a woodcutter before…well, before .” Rook waited for me to tell him what I did; I ignored the expectation, instead examining more rotten fruits.

Rook stooped below a table, drawing up a leather bag.

Inside were medical instruments of all sorts.

Rook withdrew a pair of forceps and clacked them together.

“These objects, they’re imbued with memories for procedures and recipes.

” Rook shoved the bag forward. “See for yourself.” I rummaged in the bag and found something that looked like a sewing needle with a sort of plunger on the end.

The needle tingled, like a heatless flame crackling against my fingers.

“Close your eyes,” Rook began, “invite the memory in.” He closed his eyes in another unnecessary demonstration, and I considered throwing the needle at him while he wasn’t looking. Instead, I took a deep breath, and let the needle speak to me.

Rook fell away, and the room came alive. Women rushed around, passing through me as if I weren’t there at all. A fair-haired, freckled woman barked orders while filling the very needle I held. She flicked the needle, and droplets dislodged from the tip.

“Hold him firm,” she ordered.

A nurse, a strapping fellow, did as he was told. Everyone descended on a man lying on the table that held Rook’s experiments. The woman in charge plunged the needle into a festering wound along the man’s neck. He hardly reacted. Sweat poured from his forehead; his eyes lulled.

He wore the same waxen look as Lysander.

I snapped out of the memory and steadied myself against the table.

The room, absent of rushing women, suddenly felt empty.

“They used these methods to treat the person in that memory.” Rook nodded at the needle and ran his hands along the domed fruits.

“I used to think I could make something from these—cure my affliction.”

I could think of only one cure for Rook’s affliction.

I kept it to myself.

“But that was a long time ago,” Rook muttered. “I keep these going out of habit, rather than a belief they’ll benefit me.” A fresh gloom set over Rook as he slid the bag beneath the table. “I suppose my efforts are wasted on such trivial pursuits.”

For a fleeting moment, Rook reminded me of my own mother.

Though my father was long dead, she still lit the back lanterns every night.

He’d tripped once, when we were young, twisted his ankle on the back path.

Every night after, my mother rushed home to light the lanterns.

And every night still. It was a painful reminder that our minds are clever, and they lose hope easily— but our bodies, where our hearts beat strong, do not so readily forget.

We find ourselves lighting lanterns for someone long lost.

“I’ll show you the rest of the castle,” Rook mumbled.

We left the office, but as Rook climbed the stairs, something caught my eye.

Off the main hall, a door sat slightly ajar.

Curiosity slowed my steps, and I leaned to peer inside.

The hurried scuffing of boots startled me.

Rook, who’d abandoned stealth, snapped, “Don’t go in there! ” and yanked the door closed.

“Why not?”

“Because I said so!” He pointed up the stairs. “After you.”

The door had no lock. Though I smiled, I made a note to return later.

Upstairs, dread filled my belly as Rook headed to the door beneath the stairs. I had no mind to be in the presence of the great tree again. Thankfully, Rook stopped at the door, his palm raised. He didn’t touch it, as if whatever lay beyond might leech through the wood and wound him.

Without so much as a blink, he said, “If any of my warnings stick, let it be this one: Through this door is the most dangerous part of the castle.” My gaze drifted to the door. Though it remained closed, I could still see all the way to the courtyard. See the tree poised in the centre.

Did the branches reach for me?

“You believe I’m the worst thing in this castle,” Rook said, tapping his chest. “I’m not—it’s that fucking tree.” Pointing at the door, he added, “This prison is poison, and that’s the centre of it.” Phantom pain flared in my hands, where the fruit had burned my fingers.

What if I’d eaten it?

I saw a vision of myself, lying at the tree’s roots, with eyes like glass and a trickle of foam spilling from my mouth. Or worse, decaying while I lived, like the rotting raven, who’d likely feasted on the fruit.

Rook licked his lips, a nervous gesture I sometimes noticed from Lysander.

“I know you’ll want to, specifically because it was me who told you not to, but don’t go in here—and don’t ever touch that tree.

” Even if I knew nothing of Rook’s character, I knew fear.

If the Hound was frightened of what lay behind that door, so was I.

I nodded.

Rook wiped his palm along his shirt and headed for the stairs, completely ignoring the library. Truly, this was the only room I was interested in, and I blurted, “You’re not going to show me the library?”

“I don’t go in there,” Rook said, and scowled at the library with nearly as much disdain as he did the door below the stairs.

“Why not?” I asked, immediately going in there. Despite his distaste, Rook trailed me. I plucked a book from the shelf and opened it. I cradled the spine like it was a newborn.

Rook snatched the book and uttered a shocked, “You can read?!”