“Trees, you’re fuckin’ heavy.”
Ravyn’s neck flopped, his head dragging on snow, then stone floor. Hands caught it—yanked it up. Ravyn blinked, shadows dancing across his vision.
Petyr held him below his shoulders and walked backward, leading the others—Jon Thistle and Fenir and Morette—through the castle. “Don’t die on us,” he warned.
Hauth’s dagger was still in Ravyn’s side, jutting out of him like a dead, poisonous branch. His hand trembled over the hilt.
“Leave it,” Morette snapped, carrying the weight of his legs.
Ravyn tried to speak, but his jaw was an iron cage, his teeth gritted against pain. His words came out a muffled groan.
“Put him on the table,” Fenir said, heaving breaths.
Ravyn looked up at a ceiling. Vaulted, with stubborn spiderwebs in the corners. Castle Yew’s great hall.
All he could think was that he was bleeding on the table where his parents ate breakfast.
“Where does Filick keep his medical supplies?” Morette called.
“I’ll get them.” Jon Thistle knocked over chairs as he tumbled out of the great hall.
Ravyn’s siblings appeared at his side. Jespyr gasped when her eyes fell to his wound, her face losing whatever color it still held. “Oh no.”
Emory took a seat at the table—lay his head on Ravyn’s chest. “Not yet, Ravyn.” His breaths were slow, uneven. “Not yet.”
Ravyn closed his eyes, tears slipping out the corners.
Thistle returned, his booming voice echoing through the hall. “I’ve got linens and sutures and balms and—trees know what kind of tincture this is, it smells ripe.” He dropped the supplies on the table, the reverberation sending a shock of pain into Ravyn’s side.
Jespyr swore, her hands trembling as she unwrapped the linen. “What—what do we do? If we pull the knife—”
“He’ll bleed out in moments,” Morette answered, her voice hard.
They argued over how to save him. And while their voices grew louder, more panic-tipped, Ravyn weaved in and out of consciousness. He wanted to ask one of them to light the hearth. He was so terribly cold. But it hurt too much to speak—to breathe—to even blink. He kept his gaze fixed on the ceiling, and with each passing second, the great hall grew colder. Darker.
Shadows closed in around him, calling him by name.
Ravyn Yew.
Ravyn Yew.
“Ravyn Yew!”
Everyone went still. Again, the voice called, louder this time. “Ravyn Yew!”
The door to the great hall crashed open with enough violence to rip the wood off the top hinge. For a moment, Ravyn couldn’t see anything but a dark, menacing shape. The shape stepped forward—pushed Fenir aside—and bent over Ravyn.
Yellow eyes.
“Taxus,” Ravyn managed.
The Nightmare heaved a breath, nostrils flaring. “Still alive, then.”
“Just,” came Morette’s thinning voice.
“He’s lost too much blood,” Petyr whispered.
“He’s cold.” The Nightmare’s gaze flashed across the room. “Light a fire.”
Jespyr put a hand on Ravyn’s chest. “What are you going to do?”
The Nightmare ignored her. He was carrying on a separate conversation—with himself. “I’m aware, Elspeth. Shouting at me won’t help.” His eyes returned to Jespyr. “Did you lose your wits in the alderwood, Jespyr Yew? Light a fire.”
Jespyr dove for the hearth.
“You,” the Nightmare said, snapping his fingers at Jon Thistle. “Cut away his tunic.” He rolled up his sleeves. “I’m going to need the rest of you to help me hold him down.”
“What supplies do you need?”
“The only thing that can save him now is magic.”
Morette and Fenir exchanged a glance. “Ravyn can’t use most Providence Cards.”
“I’m very aware of that.”
“What magic, then?”
The Nightmare slammed his hands on the table, making Ravyn wince. “It’s hardly my fault, Elspeth,” he muttered under his breath, “that I am constantly surrounded by idiots.” He turned to Morette and Fenir. “Magic moves in families. You have two other children with the infection, do you not?”
Their gazes shot to Jespyr at the hearth.
“I don’t—” she stuttered, “I don’t know what magic I got in the alderwood.”
“You’re about to find out,” the Nightmare said.
A light chased away some of the shadows in the room. There was crackling wood, warmth. All the while, Thistle did his best not to touch Ravyn’s wound as he cut away the clothes above his waist.
Somehow, Ravyn’s hand found the Nightmare’s wrist. He looked up, firelight catching those eerie yellow eyes. “The Deck?”
The Nightmare’s face was unreadable. “We’ll know soon enough.”
“The fire is going,” Jespyr called from the hearth. “Now what?”
“Warm your hands. Then come stand by me.”
Jespyr hurried to the side of the table a moment later. “He’s so pale.”
“I’m going to wrench the knife out of him. And you, Tilly—” The Nightmare bit the inside of his cheek. “Jespyr. Put your hands on his open wound. The rest of you, hold him down. If a petty thing like a broken nose can make him thrash, this certainly will.”
Jespyr tensed at Ravyn’s side. “You want me to...put my hands on his wound?”
The shadows around Ravyn were deepening, despite the fire. He was cold again, shivering. More tired that he had ever felt.
“I can hear his heart stumbling,” Emory whispered, voice breaking. “He’s going.”
Ravyn made a low groan and flinched, sending a new wave of agony up his body. “I’m all right.”
“Trees, you stupid pretender.” The Nightmare gripped Jespyr’s wrists—brought her hands near the dagger in Ravyn’s side. His father and Thistle gripped Ravyn’s legs, and his mother and Petyr moved to his shoulders. “Ready,” Morette said.
“Ready,” Fenir and Thistle echoed.
The Nightmare’s gaze collided with Ravyn’s. “Elspeth says she’s utterly sick of you.”
His voice was weak. “She didn’t say that.”
“No. She didn’t.” The words slipped out of the Nightmare’s mouth on a fine thread. “Time to be strong, Ravyn Yew. Your ten minutes are up.”
He ripped the dagger out of Ravyn’s side, and Jespyr pressed her hands into his wound. A pain such as Ravyn had never known swept into him.
The world went black.
When Ravyn woke, he was no longer in the great hall but in his bedroom, sweating beneath several layers of quilted blankets. He tried to sit up, but a firm hand on his chest kept him down.
Ravyn raised his gaze and caught his breath, a lump rising in his throat. “Elm.”
His cousin looked down at him, auburn hair a tousled mess, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “Now who’s the one who looks terrible?”
Ravyn started to laugh, but pain shot up his body, cutting it short. He put a hand to his side. He was shirtless, his entire abdomen wrapped in thickly padded linen.
He sat up too fast. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Two days.”
“Is the Deck—has the mist—”