Most of all, though: Pa was still a prisoner.
Calm down. You can handle this.
It didn’t make sense that Hawthorne would endanger her. He’d saved her from a shadow skin, then put her on his horse to prevent her from being trampled by ember mares. Today, he’d givenherthe rope and caught her when she fell.
She was sure he didn’t want to harm her.
But he had deceived her. And he clearly didn’t want her here, in the Wood King’s domain. Perhaps that’s the type of betrayal Claw meant—one that would sabotage her ability to come through on her deal. One that would prevent her from bringing Pa home.
Emeline watched the tithe collector press his hand to the stable wall, wincing at whatever pain Claw had inflicted.
One thing was certain: if Hawthorne was planning to betray her, she needed to be ready for it.
THAT EVENING, AS THEmoon rose in a black sky, Emeline’s attendants swarmed her as she stepped out of her bath. She was too tired to fight them off.
Her body ached.She never rode horses. Riding one for a whole day—not to mention scaling up and down a rocky cliff—had taken its toll. Muscles she didn’t even realize she had screamed at her.
But her sore body was the least of her concerns.
Now that she’d obtained the Song Mage’s music, she had a week to prove herself to the king and, after Pa went free, find a way to escape. If she didn’t escape, she’d miss her tour.
She remembered the schedule sitting in her inbox. The one Joel had told her to review and send back to his dad.
Emeline grabbed her cell phone from where it lay on the dressing table, amidst combs and pins and ribbons, but there were no bars.
She tightened her grip on the phone. Of course. She was trapped in a strange, fey world with no cell towers or wireless internet. But if a week went by and neither her manager nor Joel heard from her, they would do any number of things: they would think her missing; Joel would come looking for her; her manager would cancel her tour—he’d have to.
The thought gave her heart palpitations.
It was her first major tour, and she’d worked her ass off to get it. To cancel now was to say good-bye to all of the exposure, sales, and income from each show. She would tarnish her reputation as a professional musician, and worst of all …
They want to see how you handle a bigger audience,Joel had told her. They’re coming to watch you at your first tour stop.
If she wasn’t at that first stop, Daybreakdefinitelywouldn’t offer her a contract.
Emeline had worked too hard for too long to make it this far. She couldn’t let it all fall apart now. If she could somehow tell her manager she was fine, that she’d be back soon—if shecould tell him not to cancel her tour—maybe her career would still be intact when she got back.
Except how was she supposed to tell him all that from here?
A pang of homesickness pierced her. She wanted her life back. The ordinary, familiar one where dragons didn’t want to eat her and men weren’t waiting to betray her and the only strangeness in her life was the woods appearing at inopportune times.
She missed the lights and sounds of Montreal. She missed her late-night gigs. She even missed her cramped apartment.
Emeline’s attendants fluttered like moths as they dressed her, oblivious to her unhappiness. They helped her into a midnight-blue gown with two glittering cicada wings stitched down the back in gold thread, cascading from the middle of her shoulder blades to the tops of her thighs. The attendants undid her braid, then brushed out her hair. As they tugged at the knots, a knock sounded at the door, breaking up her thoughts.
“Be right there.”
Finished with their fussing, her attendants removed themselves, opening the door as they fled.
Rooke stood in the frame, sidestepping the women. He looked tall and slender in a midnight-black overcoat that came to his knees, and over his heart a silver feather brooch winked in the light.
“I’ve been charged with escorting you to dinner.” He gave a roguish grin as he held his arm out to her. “Hurry now. Else we’ll be late.”
With her hand tucked into his elbow, Rooke led Emeline down halls awash in the golden hues of sunset. Vases bordering the windows sprouted green pine boughs and branches of bright red sumac. As Emeline quickened her pace to match his long strides, the fabric of her dress whispered against the floor.
“I must say,” said Rooke as they passed window after windowlooking out over the dusk-drenched city, “it’s a pleasure to see you’re still alive.”
Emeline shot him a look, remembering what Hawthorne said—about her predecessors and their untimely deaths.
