Prologue
Fairytales.
I’ve always loved them—stories about flowing-haired beauties—always good in nature and pure of heart, their heaving bosoms bursting with hope and love. Girls of pure innocence, who endured suffering at the hands of witches or evil stepmothers. Girls who seemed powerless and without a voice, demure and helpless, waiting around for the inevitable rescue, usually obediently sitting in a tower, singing to little rodents as they combed their long, beautiful golden hair.
How terrifyingly different childhood would have been if princesses weren’t so simplistic and lovely—if they didn’t need to wait to be saved.
What if fairytale princesses were more dangerous? What if these stories were full of clever maidens, fierce, truehearted princesses who knew precisely what they were doing—loving and living in such a way that haunted the evil in others.
How much more fun would it have been if sweet little Sleeping Beauty wasn’t really asleep, but lying in wait?
Those are the sort of fairytales I wish were read to me as a child. Stories of heroic women saving themselves, avenging all that had been done to them. Tales to give us hope, to build up our confidence, and make us believe that even the smallest, quietest, loneliest little mouse could stand up and have a voice that could be heard.
Chapter 1
Ilay with my eyes closed, the dismal glow of a white-flamed fire dancing behind my eyelids. I barely slept more than a few minutes without waking up and searching the shadows that invaded my new living quarters. If anyone were here with me, they hadn’t made themselves known.Yet.
The few moments I did sleep, I dreamt of my bare feet teetering on the sharp edge of a knife’s blade, the Hollow below me, a place thick with smoke and ash and skull-painted faces, the threshold of the afterlife calling me home. My dreams were mere echoes of my reality, an existence more extraordinary than any book I ever read.
And I had read an awful lot of books.
I was back in Ravenswood, the City of the Dead, my birthplace and my Hell. A land etched right out of Edgar Allan Poe’s nightmares, where no one’s heart beats but mine. A subterranean world that overflowed with dark whispers and despair, a place there was no turning back from once you found yourself there.Mostly because if you ended up there it meant you were probably dead.
My shoulders shivered with the biting air that lingered here. I sat up, tucking my legs against my chest to try to find warmth and stared into the deep shadows that hovered in the corners of the room. The darkness there could be hiding anything. “Mathias,” I whispered into the quiet of the room. “Mathias?”
Focusing on the darkest corner, I tried to distinguish each shadow to see what was there bristling the hairs on the back of my neck. I was positive someone was there—that sense—that absolute knowledge of something watching me crept icily over my skin. My heart thudded hard against my ribs.
Maybe it was just Ravenswood itself.
I wondered whether the flat-stoned walls and sharp thorns of this underground world understood me, would they speak to me if they could? Something vibrated within them, something that called to me like the soft tickle of a feather against my temple. Hallowed grounds that sighed stories I did not quite understand.Did they know where Mathias was?“Mathias?” I whispered again. “Maybe if I say your name enough times, my words will become like an enchantment, and I could bewitch you here.”
Nothing but silence answered me, thick and suffocating.
“Mathias? Where are you?”
My stomach muscles tightened as I pressed back against the bedframe, the decorative knobs digging into my back. I waited silently.
How long until someone came? Who would it be? What was going to happen?My pulse pounded harder. Sweat chilled my palms.
A fluttery, empty feeling flipped over and over in my stomach. What if Mathias didn’t come? What if someone else came?
What had I done? Why was I here?My heart raced faster, nearly exploding.
Something flickered in the corner of my vision.
I swallowed hard, clenching my jaw.
A chill, like sharp claws, tingled at the top of my scalp and spread over each strand of my hair.
Did I just hear something? Or was my mind playing tricks on me?
I thought I heard a small noise, something muted and muffled. A soft sound like a sigh or a whisper or a drawn breath. I sat up straight, listening, hands fisted into the bed sheets. “Who’s there?” I asked.
Whoever it was spoke no words, yet I saw in the darkness of the corner of the room, a shadow darker than the rest, drawn back, pressing close against the wall facing me. It wore a midnight cloak from shoulder to floor.
Please be Mathias. Please, please be Mathias.
I climbed off the bed in slow small motions and walked toward it. The icy stones of the floor felt like razors against the soles of my feet.
