The soldiers started to leave, but one of them paused at the door, talking to someone outside of Lynet’s view. And then he opened the door wider to let the huntsman step through, shutting Lynet inside the room with him.
All that had happened to her since she’d run from Whitespring was gone in an instant, and she was once again lying in the snow, looking up at a man with empty eyes who wanted to kill her. The huntsman stepped toward her, and she started backing away until she hit the boarded-up window. Cornered again, just like last time. Just like last time …
Had Mina sent him?
The huntsman was shaking his head, holding out his hands, but his hands were weapons themselves, so Lynet wasn’t reassured. She swept her eyes around the room, looking for something she could use as a weapon, wondering if she should call to the snow.…
“I won’t hurt you. I’ll go outside, if you’d prefer. We can talk through the door, but I must speak with you,” the huntsman was saying. “I must ask your forgiveness.”
His words finally caught Lynet’s attention, and she tried to push her panic aside as she took in the huntsman’s appearance. After her first terror had passed, she noticed a change in him, subtle but undeniable. He seemed … substantial in a way he hadn’t before, not the looming specter she had always feared. There were worry lines on his forehead that made him look older than she had ever seen him. And his eyes—she saw nothing of herself in them as he pleaded with her now.
It seemed wrong to be alone with him here, where she had once stood with Nadia—wrong to see his face softened by the moonlight instead of Nadia’s face. She wanted to turn away from him and refuse to speak until he gave up and left her alone, but instead, she drew herself up as tall as she could and said, “What do you want with me?” He had only ever seen her as a scared little girl. Now, she decided, he would see her as a queen.
He bowed his head, breathing deeply, and then he said, “I did nothing to stop your father’s accident. I didn’t care if he died. I chased after you, nearly killed you. I let you run away, hoping you would die on your own.” When he finished his string of confessions, he looked up at her, his eyes red and brimming with tears. “I feel such remorse,” he exhaled, “and I don’t know what to do.”
Lynet watched him, trying to make sense of his changed demeanor. “What happened to you?” she said softly, taking a careful step forward.
“Do you know what I am?” he said, pushing back his sleeve to reveal his scarred forearm.
The night Lynet had run away, she had guessed, but now she was certain. “Mina made you out of glass.”
He nodded. “She made me to be hers, but that night, when I let you go … I thought I was betraying her. I assumed she would want you dead, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to kill you.” He looked down at his hands, as though he didn’t recognize them. “I acted from my own will instead of hers, and that changed me somehow. The only power she has over me now is what power I choose to give her.”
Lynet tried to understand what he was saying, but one part kept repeating in her mind. “You said you assumed she wanted me dead. Tell me—did Mina ask you to kill me that night?”
He shook his head. “She wanted me to bring you back. I would have made a terrible mistake if I had killed you. I thought it would be easier for her if you were dead, but I didn’t understand…” He clutched his heart. “There was so much I didn’t understand.”
Lynet almost wanted to throw her arms around him. Mina hadn’t wanted her dead. Mina hadn’t ordered him to kill her. “I’m so glad you came here,” she said to the huntsman without thinking.
His pained expression softened, and his eyes turned hopeful. “Then you do forgive me?”
Lynet frowned. For a moment, she had been somewhere else—Mina’s room, sitting in front of the mirror as Mina combed through her hair. At the huntsman’s words, however, she was pulled back into the tower, standing in front of the man who had nearly killed her and who had let her father die.
Was he the same man, really? The man in the chapel who had confessed to Mina had showed none of the remorse he showed now. He’d had no conscience of his own—he only wanted Mina’s forgiveness, Mina’s blessing. And even then, he had still let Lynet run away rather than kill her.
Lynet shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “Even if I forgive you for what you’ve done to me, how can I forgive you for what you did to my father? I think … I think if I forgave you now, it would be a betrayal to him.” She turned to the window, thinking of the crypt below them.
“I’ll wait,” the huntsman said from behind her. “I’ll wait until you can forgive me.”
Lynet turned. “That might be never,” she said softly.
He shook his head. “That doesn’t matter. I’ll do whatever I can for you. Even if it isn’t enough to make up for what I’ve taken from you, I’ll try. I … I don’t know how to live otherwise.”
She walked over to him, thinking. “You’ll do anything for me?”
He hesitated. “I can’t let you escape again. Mina doesn’t trust me as she used to. The guards are still waiting outside.”
“I had something simpler in mind,” Lynet said. “When the soldiers brought me here, one of them took a sheet of paper from me. A letter. I need you to find that letter and make sure that Mina reads it.”
His face fell before he looked away from her. “I have no influence over Mina. She hears nothing that she doesn’t want to hear.”
“You have to try anyway,” Lynet said. “That’s all we can do for her. Just find the letter and give it to her.”
“It won’t … it won’t harm her in any way to read it?”
Lynet shook her head. “I don’t think so. I think it would only do her good.”
He nodded. “I’ll do what I can,” he said. “I promise you.” He left then, and she heard the sound of the door locking.
Lynet went to the window and clutched the stone of the windowsill, fiddled with her hair, twisted her skirt in her hands—anything to make her forget that she was empty-handed. That she had nothing to offer Mina now except her own heart.
31
MINA
As soon as the soldiers had left for the woods to find Lynet, Mina had gone to the empty council room with a candle to wait and look over the latest report about the Summer Castle. But not even her work could distract her from the thoughts running through her head. Had they found Lynet yet? Were they bringing her back even now? Would Lynet try to fight them, to use her newfound power over the snow, or would she be too defeated, knowing that the only ally she thought she had betrayed her?
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Mina jumped at the sound of her father’s voice. He was leaning against the doorframe, hidden in shadow. When he stepped forward into the light of the candle, she could tell from the way his veins stood out at his temple that he knew what she had done—what she had failed to do.
She had been leaning over the table, but she straightened now. “I know what I’m doing,” she said softly.