Let him out,she told the trees.Set him free.
A moan filled the air, coming from above. At her command, the elms untwisted themselves—slowly, slowly—until they no longer caged Hawthorne in. The trees bent, arching away from each other in a V, giving their prisoner enough space to escape through.
Her song fell silent as Emeline stumbled into the cage. Immediately, the forest spun around her. Exhaustion crashed like a wave onto her shoulders, making her collapse to her knees at his side.
Emeline felt like an old rag, all wrung out.
She tried to wrap her arms around him. Tried to pull him up. But the strength had gone out of her. “Hawthorne,” she whispered. “Hawthorne, wake up.”
Outside the cage, the wind sighed. The trees were quiet and calm, the starlight soft and twinkling.
But then the air turned sour, and the rot returned—fast, faster, spreading like spilled ink. Emeline felt the trees try to fight it, felt their panicked desperation. But the curse was too strong. It leached them of life, leaving them sickly white.
Emeline hadn’t saved them at all.
What did she expect? That just because she was the Song Mage’s daughter, she could counter the curse?
Wrapping her arms around Hawthorne’s torso, she gave a fierce cry andpulled,dragging him through the gap in the trees and out of the cage. As soon as his unconscious body was free, the opening closed behind them.
Emeline collapsed to the earth, utterly spent, then looked up.
Sable drew away from the Vile, whose eyes were darkening with rage. Her veins blackened like ichor beneath her skin as she stared down Emeline like she’d never seen a more loathsome thing.
“I thought so.” The Vile’s voice scraped like wintry branches on a frosted pane. Pointing a clawed finger at Hawthorne, she hissed to Sable, “Take him and leave!”
A black ember mare came out of the trees, muzzled and ready to ride. Sable paused, reluctant. She clearly had no desire to leave Emeline alone with a monster.
But Emeline needed answers only the Vile could give her.So she said, “Get him to safety.” When Sable still paused, Emeline forced herself to rise, despite her body feeling heavy as stone. “Either we all die here, or you escape and bring back help.”
Seeing the logic in this, Sable narrowed her eyes and said, “Promise me you’ll stay alive.”
Emeline nodded. Together they hoisted Hawthorne onto the horse. Sable climbed up after, holding him in place with one arm looped around his chest.
“Sable?” she heard Hawthorne’s slurred voice say. “Where are we?”
Sable looked back once before the horse stepped into the darkness beyond the clearing. And then they were gone.
The Vile started forward, examining Emeline like a meal she intended to eat.
Thinking of the cellar, Emeline started to sing in an attempt to fend her off. But the Vile seemed unaffected. She didn’t back away this time, or try to shake off the spell of Emeline’s voice. Only scowled.
“Song Mage spawn!” hissed the monster before her. “Hethought the poison in his voice was boundless too. But it wasn’t.”
The Vile lunged for her. Shakily, Emeline drew Sable’s knifefrom her hip—too late. The Vile batted it easily aside, moving in. One bony hand grabbed Emeline’s jaw, gripping her cheeks painfully, while the other wrapped around the wrist that held the knife and squeezed until Emeline dropped it.
The steel fell to the ground with athud.
“It’s why he locked me in that cellar. Toforceme to stay. Because whenever the venom in his voice dried up,I remembered.”
Emeline frowned, confused. The Vile was the prisoner in the Song Mage’s cellar?
The Vile’s pupils widened, swallowing up her irises until they were entirely black. Letting go of Emeline’s wrist, she dragged translucent fingers down Emeline’s cheeks, her touch rough as dried leaves, her sharp nails skimming dangerously against the skin.
“I could never leave him, he said. He loved me so much, you see.” Her slitted nostrils flared angrily. “So I killed him.”
The Vile was talking nonsense. The Song Mage loved Rose Lark, Emeline’s mother. Not this monster standing before her.
But if it was the Vile he imprisoned …
