My executioner,she thought, unable to take her eyes off the cleaver. Hawthorne had warned her about this exact scenario. As had Grace.Will he lop off my head in one stroke? Or will it take several?
She nearly turned and ran.
Little good it would do her. She was completely surrounded. Instead, she started backing away from the man with the cleaver. Immediately, four hedgemen stepped out of their positions with steel-tipped spears pointed directly at her, corralling her back towards the executioner.
“Step away from her,” said a rough-soft voice.
Emeline looked to find Hawthorne wrestling his way through the circle of guards, with Rooke and Sable on his heels. Rooke’s dazzling smile was gone, and Sable’s mouth was curled in a snarl.
All three were armed. As if they’d expected trouble.
Hawthorne strode to Emeline’s side. Sable and Rooke positioned themselves behind her, like shields at her back.
Emeline glanced up at Hawthorne. “What are you doing?”
They were putting themselves at risk by coming to her aid.
“What does it look like?”
He stood strong and still and rooted beside her, his face hardened by fury as he stared at the executioner bearing down on them.
“He’ll only kill you too,” she said.
“There’s a curse coming for us all. We’re doomed either way.”
Before she could respond, Hawthorne drew the sword at his back. The steel scraped the scabbard,hushingas it came forth.
The executioner paused, suddenly uncertain.
“What is this?” the Wood King hissed from atop his throne, where he’d returned to watch the spectacle. As he rose sharply to his feet, the moths cloaking him scattered completely, taking to the air and fluttering off into the night. “This is how you repay me? After everything I’ve done for you?”
Emeline shot Hawthorne a look. What had the king done for him?
The king’s eyes were daggers, aimed at his tithe collector.
“With all due respect, sire: enough blood has been shed in this court. I cannot stand by and let more of it spill.”
“You think to stopme? I am king!” His voice scraped like dead branches across a window.“Seize them all.”
The circle of hedgemen constricted, armor clinking as they caged in their prey.
Emeline stepped closer to Hawthorne.Think!What could possibly save them? What did the Wood King want more than anything else?
To have his Song Mage back.
She couldn’t give him that. But in lieu of it …
Her version of the Mage’s waltz had enraged the king; he’d wanted his precious minstrel’s song, not hers. If she could somehow give him the dead man’s missing song, would it be enough to get them out of this mess?
She had to try.
“I know where the missing sheet music is,” she blurted out.
“Emeline!” Hawthorne hissed from beside her, sensing the lie.
Since his entire plan involved brandishing a sword and hoping their enemies—who vastly outnumbered them—backed off, she ignored him. Emeline stared down the Wood King, who’d wrenched his gaze from his tithe collector.
All she had now was her fear and her wits. She clung to them.
