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The dark figure steps out of the gloom. He’s tall, dressed in black, with long, stringy hair that falls into clumps around his narrow face.
But it’s not the Boogie Man. The Boogie Man is muscular with huge wings. This person is the same height but looks like he might drift away in a breeze.
I take a step back toward the door and ready myself to bolt.
Norbert flicks his hair off his face, revealing an incision mark across his neck stitched together with heavy thread. His features are no longer sallow—they’re completely devoid of color.
He leers down at me, his dark eyes glowing silver in the light of the moon, and says, “How about that goodnight kiss?”
ChapterTwenty-Nine
HENRY
Overgrown plants loom over the clearing like crooked spires. They bend and twist to the will of the Barghest.
With one blast of my magic, my shadows stretch across the circle to reform the mushrooms. The stalks straighten as my power raises the broken caps from the ground and settles them at awkward angles.
Every marking on my chest burns like acid, setting the surrounding skin alight.
“Stop,” the Barghest roars. “Stop before your body crumbles.”
He is more concerned about losing his investment. Without the body he gave me, he cannot obtain my soul. Without my soul, he can never generate the magic required to rule England.
Even if I lose what’s left of my humanity, my place is beside Alienor.
Every mushroom in the circle rises from the ground, bringing up clouds of dirt. They glow in the eternal moonlight from their caps to their stalks to the tiny threads still attached to the earth.
Spores break off from the mushrooms’ gills like faerie dust, creating thick clouds of silver.
“Henry Curtmantle,” the Barghest roars. “Cease this foolishness or perish.”
Magic crackles across the surface of my wings, filling my nostrils with the scent of burning flesh.
“It is too late, old friend,” I say as their leathery membranes crumble to dust.
“Our bargain—”
Magic implodes in my ears, and the world falls silent.
Even the silver clouds dim as my vision blinks in and out of existence. The Barghest was right. This circle of broken mushrooms is tearing me apart, but he left me with no alternative.
It’s impossible to tell if I will emerge in the human realm as a man, a hound, a shadow, or as wisps of a king who should have remained dead.
I inhale a deep breath only to find I have no lungs. When I exhale it’s as though what’s left of me scatters across the wind. My body is everywhere at once, even though my mind remains intact.
If I don’t concentrate, I will forever exist as a disembodied soul.
Alienor.
The thought of her lying in a pool of blood, sliced open by shards, makes me ache with sorrow. Guilt plucks at my heartstrings at having caused her so much pain.
If I hadn’t been so blinded by rage and lust and sexual frustration, I would have known she was innocent. If I hadn’t lied to and threatened that sweet maiden, she might have offered me love.
The ache in my heart spreads across my chest, and I groan, exhausted, spent, and tangled within thick branches.
When I open my eyes, I’m gazing out across a moonlit garden of chamomile flowers bordered by an orchard. I cannot yet move my head from side to side. It’s hard to tell if I am back to myself again or have merged with the tree.
Magic thrums around my consciousness. Little by little, sensation returns to my limbs. Even the chamomile flowers beneath me sway with encouragement.
