“I am not your mother.”
“No, but you are going along with your father’s plan for the same reason my mother did my father’s. It’s what keeps you tethered to Rixton when you have every ability to leave of your own accord.”
Indignation causes me to tighten my fists, raise my chin. “And what reason is that?”
“You desire love from a man no longer capable of such a thing.”
My stomach twists at this, blood pooling at the hollow of my throat. I want to hate him because he is right. While I have all the agency at my fingertips to run away from Rixton, to join Clara and Liza and flee to the Queen’s city of Lysdin, where no one will ever find me, what I want, above all else, is a father’s love.
“What do you propose I do, then?”
Ransom circles before me once more, blocking out the moonlight. His eyes glisten, and I do not hate the way it makes me feel. Like someone is spooning warm syrup into my veins.
“There is one more thing to sweeten the bargain. You help me, and in return, I offer you a way out of Idlewild while still maintaining the favor of your father.” He closes the gap between us, reaching for my hand. “Take my name.”
His words hit me like a blow to the gut.
“You’re speaking of marriage?” The thought alone is enough to make me feel like a mad thing. Like this is all some elaborate dream my addled mind has conjured to make the pain of Idlewild all the more sour.
Ransom smiles wickedly in the starlight. “Would it be so bad? To be mistress of Blackbourne Castle?”
His boots shiver across the soil, and he wraps a hand around my waist, draws me in so tightly the buttons of his jacket press through my bodice. My breathing slips to something like ocean waves, crashing against my own lungs, my ribs. A ribbon of sweat licks down my back.
“If this is a marriage proposal, Lord Black, it is the worst in centuries.”
He pulls back, silver light dancing in the green of his eyes. “That is not a no.”
“It is also not a yes.” The words are hot on my lips. “You cannot utter a threat to me and those I love and a means of rescue all in one breath. It is a devil’s deal.”
One more to add to the list ever-growing.
His teeth are alabaster in the low light. “Call it what you like. I’m not letting you leave without an answer.”
So, this is it. This is why Ransom Black brought me from my house under the guise of damnation to my father. No belongings taken, only to be sent home. So that one night, when the moon is low and the souls in the wood are hidden behind their veil, he can meet me by the banks of the River Thine and watch me use the bell. But even that, I do not know how to do.
The need for Ransom’s knowledge cracks across my chest like rippling thunder.
“You said you know how to use it.”
His smile splits wider, hand tightening on my waist. “Is that a yes, Ms. Thorn?”
I spread my pink lips like oleander. To seize the bones. Even the ones trapped beneath the earth. “It is not a no.”
His throat rumbles, nose inches from mine. My eyes drift to his mouth, blood-bitten and full, and back to his own. Still just as hungry. Maybe more so.
“The trees,” he says.
“What?”
He takes a step back and drops his hand from my side. “That is how you get to whatever lies beyond—a copse of trees. In the Rending, Erybrus was cast away from Ithrandril. The power of that breaking created a place in between life and death, or do you not remember your father’s teachings?” He grin is a pointed tease. “Trees are both living and dead, Adelaide. Alive and yet unmoving. They act as a passageway to this in-between.” He moves back toward the fountain, boots slipping. “Father discovered the truth just before he died. During one of his seances.”
The trees.
I roll the words around on my tongue until they taste of something familiar. Until they are worn down to something palatable. And when I swallow them, they light a fire in my belly.
The simplicity of it all. And yet, the truest things often are.
“The rowan wood.”
