Elswyth brought her horse to a stop at the edge of the clearing where the conservatory sat. She stroked its mane, produced an apple from her hand, and then tied the reins around a post. Then she waited.
The conservatory of the Royal Gardens stood like a diamond in the night. Stars twinkled above the towering domes, reflected in the countless panes of glass. Within, the shadows of trees shifted and swayed, barely illuminated by moonlight. And all around the greenhouses, the forest and the gardens waited, silent. Atop the conservatory a single light shone—a lantern, burning in Silas’s quarters. A shadow moved back and forth there, pacing. A tall, gaunt shadow.
Elswyth strode across the clearing, her ferrosilk gown blending into the dark green of the grass. She stepped silently on the pathuntil she reached the glass walls of the conservatory. The front door would not do, and so she snuck around the side, searching for the entrance to the service corridor. She found it, but the door was locked. She tried again, hoping it was only stuck, to no avail.
She knelt—a small keyhole sat beneath the handle, set in green bronze. She lifted her finger to it and then sprouted a single branch from the tip. It wove into the keyhole, and she let it branch into the vacancies within, forming the right shape…
A click. The door swung open.
Thank you for that trick, Sir Silas, she thought. Then she stepped inside, letting the door latch behind her.
The corridor was dark. On either side of her, glass walls waved with shadows. She crept forward, feeling her way along the wall, making sure her gown did not scrape on the stone floor. She came to the end of the hall, where the spiral staircase stood, leading to Silas’s rooms. It was illuminated with golden light, pouring from the entryway above.
Elswyth took a moment to breathe. She unsheathed her knife from her belt. She could not best him in combat, certainly not while he was in possession of the amberheart. But perhaps if she surprised him, subdued him, then she wouldn’t need to fight him.
The blade felt heavy in her hand. She could poison him with a sedative. She could render him paralyzed and then question him. That would be preferable. She wouldn’t need to kill him. Not until she was sure.
But her poison had done nothing to the Reaper, when he’d attacked them earlier. No—the only way would be to kill him immediately, if she could. A blade to the heart. Perhaps that would keep him from accessing the amberheart’s power.
Then she thought of lying with him in the Hall of Orchids, ofhis mouth on hers and the scent of his skin—of playing with his chest, his hair…
She felt sick. She paused for a moment, leaning against the wall, clutching her stomach. Could she really kill him? The first man—the only man—who said he’d loved her?
And then suddenly, a sound. Light filled the chamber.
She ducked behind a pillar, knife clutched to her chest. A figure crept down the staircase, lantern raised high. His black suit and silken hair glowed in the flame’s light.
Silas turned, and Elswyth saw his face bathed in lantern-light. Not the monstrous face she’d seen earlier, but his own face: dark eyes, soft lips, heavy brow. Something in her melted when she saw it.
No. This is the man who took your sister from you. Who killed Percival. You must be strong.
Silas paused as if he heard something. He raised his lantern high, peering into the darkness where she hid. Elswyth froze, desperately trying not to breathe.
Silas stared for a moment before turning away. He set off down the hall to his right, taking the lantern with him.
When he was well down the hall, Elswyth let herself breathe.Where is he going?she thought. She stepped out from behind the pillar and crept after him, feet falling quietly on the stone.
Silas reached the end of the hall and then turned right. Elswyth followed, peering around the corner just in time to see Silas vanish through a door, entering one of the greenhouses.
She crept down the hall until she reached the door. It hung slightly ajar, and she peeled it open slowly, just enough to follow him through.
A small path led through the forest before her. Palm treestowered on either side, wrapped with snaking vines. And at her feet, on either side of the path, were carnivorous plants: flytraps and pitchers and deadly unnamed things.
She saw the back of Silas’s head disappear into the trees, and followed him, crouching behind the leaves that hung over the trail. When she saw him again he was standing at the center of the Hall of Carnivorous Plants, just before the corpse flower.
He stared at the central stalk. The red petals spread out on the floor before him, slick with mist. Elswyth smelled the rotting meat of it alongside the sweet pheromone that it used to lure its prey.
Silas knelt in the dirt. Then, to her surprise, the corpse flower began to move.
It bristled at first, like an animal disturbed from sleep. Then the petals that covered the floor before Silas began to peel away. They slid over one another, making a soft scraping sound, and revealed a black gap in the floor.
Elswyth couldn’t see much from her hiding place behind the leaves, but she could see Silas looking down into the pit. Then he stepped forward and vanished into the corpse flower. Elswyth blinked, wondering if she’d just seen Silas Blackthorn eaten by a carnivorous plant. The corpse flower moved again, its petals sliding back into place. Then Silas was gone, and the room was still.
Silas’s lantern disappeared with him, and darkness swallowed the gardens, save for the starlight filtering through the glass above. Elswyth crept toward the corpse flower in the meager light. She stood at its edge, remembering the feel of its slippery petals and the bite of its thorns. She examined the spot where Silas had vanished. There was no lever she could see, no contraption to open a door.
Elswyth knelt. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched thepetal before her. Like the last time, she saw the petals nearby begin to lift, and serpentlike vines creep from beneath them. One of them shot out and grabbed her wrist, thorns digging into the skin. It jerked, trying to pull her closer, into the maw of the carnivorous plant.
But she was different now, and stronger than she’d been all those months ago. She flipped her hand over and grabbed the vine where it held to her wrist, wielding it like a rein. Then she sent a pulse of vitæ through it. The leaves around her flipped up one by one in a wave, like scales flaring. She pushed more vitæ into the corpse flower, feeling the central stalk, the pitlike stomach, the nest of twisting vines beneath the surface. She sent her awareness into it until the plant quieted, responding to her movements like a well-trained horse.
