And then I see it—the gate he’s pulling me toward. I know it even before I read the letters curling across the arch in iron script.
THE BLEEDING COURT
The frame is black wrought iron, twisted into cruel spikes and spirals. Blood-red roses climb the bars, their petals lush and heavy, their scent coppery and sweet. The thorns are long as knives, gleaming as if dipped in fresh blood. And in fact, I do see blood dripping from some of them. Or at least, it’s a liquid that’s thick and sticky and red—it might be sap but it certainly looks like blood.
The gate with its curving thorns reminds me of a hungry beast with a bloody mouth. A cold wind sighs through the bars, sliding over my skin, chilling me to the bone.
My stomach twists.
Everything in me screams—NO!
Don’t go through there. Don’t step through that gate. Don’t.
My eyes dart back over my shoulder. The Nocturne Gates in the center of the vast station loom behind us—the arch we came through when we left the long tunnel is still within reach. If I ripped my wrist free of Whistler’s grip and ran, maybe I could make it. Maybe I could get back home, back to Mr. Mittens, back to my crappy apartment and my normal life.
But the Magistrate is staring.
This time his silver eyes are narrowed. His frown deepens, dark and terrible, like judgment itself.
Another shiver shakes me, deeper this time. My knees nearly buckle. I can’t move. I can’t run.
I whirl back to Whistler, my voice a desperate whisper.
“Do we have to go through there?” I ask, nodding at the iron gate. “Why can’t we go through one of the other gates instead?” I point toward the golden arch of the Gilded Warrens, glittering richly in the dimness. “That one looks safer. Or what about that one?” My gaze flicks toward the Briar Court, neon flowers swaying as if they sense me. “Why can’t we go in there?”
“Oh, you could go into any one of them gates, if you so choose, my queen,” Whistler says cheerfully. “The question is, would they let you out again? And the answer to that is—not without paying the price.”
His grip on my wrist tightens, firm and merciless.
“No, we’re going to meet your Don. Your future husband. And he lives there—” He jerks his chin toward the black iron gates with their roses dripping crimson.
My heart stutters.
“My…my husband?” My voice cracks in horror. “What are you talking about?”
But Whistler only grins, his gold teeth flashing. And then he yanks me forward.
10
Jules
Whistler drags me up to the iron gate, its bars black as midnight, its roses blooming fat and bloody red. Their thorns are longer than my fingers, wet-looking, gleaming like they’ve been freshly dipped in blood or something even worse—something I don’t want to name. He presses one bony hand against the bars.
His voice drops to a rough snarl that carries in the sudden silence around us.
“By crimson vein and ancient flood,
By vow unbroken, sealed in blood,
By thorn and rose, by night so deep,
Awake, O Gate, from endless sleep.”
The words scrape against the walls, heavy with weight…with power. I can feel them, vibrating in my chest like the bass at a club, only darker…older. My stomach lurches. A spell—that has to be what it is. I’ve never felt anything like it before but I know it deep in my bones.
There’s magic being done here.
The roses rustle, their petals shivering as though a wind is moving through them. The iron bars groan, grinding against each other, and slowly, slowly, the gates swing inward.
