“Tonight,” I affirm.
“Bring a lock of hair, the button from your favorite coat, and something shiny,” Rhion says.
“I can’t tell if you’re joking,” I reply.
Rhion joins me at the window and looks out onto the expanse of the Otherworld. His long fingers flex against the windowsill. “I never joke about a quest.”
Chapter Eighteen
Faith and Marion are already under the tree when I arrive. Their shadowy figures are huddled together in the dark, but I recognize the shape of the gossamer veil Faith wears over her long dark hair. It ruffles in the breeze gently behind her, making them both look like phantoms.
The theme of tonight’s party was Arthurian legend, and Faith dressed as Isolde. Beside her, Marion is Tristan, in brown leather riding boots and chain mail.
The drawstring pouch clutched in Faith’s hand catches the moonlight as she holds it up. “I’ve got everything Rhion asked for.”
She borrowed her shiny object, a pair of diamond earrings, from my wardrobe when we dressed for the revel together earlier tonight.
Tucked in the pocket of my cloak is a gold button, a small lock of my hair tied with a ribbon, and a sapphire ring.
There’s a rustle in the dark blue shadows of the garden as more footsteps approach.
Lydia emerges, followed closely by Rhion, looking like a lost dog in her wake.
My sister’s medieval-style dress swishes behind her, and shelooks so small against the acres of the garden my heart aches with the desire to protect her.
She joins us under the boughs of the tree and glances up at the double moons in the sky. “Emmett will be just a moment.”
“What’s he doing?” I ask.
Lydia casts her gaze to the toes of her silk slippers in the dirt. “Tying up some loose ends.”
Rhion has got a roll-top canvas pack slung on his back. He’s wearing a linen tunic with a lion on his chest, the Lancelot to Lydia’s Guinevere.
We wait a few minutes in tense silence, jumping at every snapping twig and rustling branch, until Emmett’s shadow emerges from the cool mist.
“Sorry for the wait,” he says as he approaches.
“Tying up loose ends?” Beneath my teasing is a genuine wish he’d tell me what he was doing. His life here is still almost entirely a mystery, and I know there are things happening at court he isn’t telling me.
“Something like that,” he says airily. “Shall we?”
Rhion nods, and we follow him dutifully out of the back gates of the castle, and into the dark expanse of wilderness.
The air feels immediately thicker here, under the dense canopy of leaves. The trees in the old-growth forest are spaced a few paces apart from each other, leaving gaps for shadows to dance like ghosts. I jump in fear and Emmett grabs my arm to steady me, then lets it go just as quickly. I take the opportunity to look at his costume. He’s wearing a hooded chain-mail shirt with a breast plate, inlaid with stars. “Who are you supposed to be?” I ask. He shrugs vaguely. “A knight, I think.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re the laziest fancy-dress party attendee I’ve ever met, did you know that?”
“What about you?” He waves his hand at my navy-blue gown, my silver diadem with little crystals that hang down over my forehead.
“I’m the Lady of the Lake,” I say indignantly.
“How long a journey will it be?” Lydia asks from up ahead.
Rhion tilts his head to the sky and takes a breath. “It depends on how kind the forest is feeling tonight.”
“And how do we get it to be kind to us?” Faith asks. She lays a pale hand on the trunk of the nearest tree. “Please be nice, I’m already having quite a bad week.”
Rhion looks at her, aghast. “Stop that. The trees hate sarcasm.”
