“Put the gun down,” Tom pleaded with his brother.
“My sister?” Fiona said, confusion and grief breaking the fragile ice of her features.
“Yes,” said Henry Rose, clearing his throat. “Your sister. And I am your father. I beg of you, please, let the boy go. He’s done no wrong in the world. Whatever evil called you forth from your grave, try to throw it aside and find your humanity.”
For a moment, no one spoke, and a heavy silence filled the air. And then Rowan realized what was making her so uneasy. The beast. It was nowhere in sight, and yet, why not? Weren’t Fiona and Tom leaving with it? Shouldn’t it be nearby?
Fiona shook her head, agony in her eyes. “But I love him.”
“If you love him,” pleaded Henry Rose, “then let him go. Take your beast and hide yourself away. We won’t try to stop you.”
“Please,” said Rowan, meeting her sister’s gaze with kindness, her voice gentle. “You’re killing him. Haven’t enough people died already? Please spare Tom.”
Fiona stared at her sister, her eyes growing soft, and it seemed to Rowan that she was beginning to reach the girl—to touch the place where her heart ought to have been. Fiona turned to Tom and looked at him with great sadness. Then, cutting through the silence, there came a rustle in the trees and the sound of approaching footsteps. Rowan turned to see the duke emerging from the woods. How had he known where they would be? When she heard Merrilee’s whimpers, she had her answer. Stepping out into the clearing, dragging the girl by the wrist, he gave them all a magnificent smile.
“Should I be hurt that I wasn’t invited?”
Rowan held tight to her rifle, ready for anything.
“Merrilee!” Henry Rose exclaimed, but as he started toward her, the duke pulled the child in front of him and pointed a gun at the back of her head.
“No!” screamed Rowan.
“I won’t hurt her,” the duke said, his face utterly calm. “I won’t hurt her as long as I leave here with that coin.” He gestured to Fiona, who glared back at him.
“What does the child have to do with this?” Henry Rose pleaded, horror in his voice. “Let her go.”
“No,” the duke said, as if speaking to a group of small children. “I would very much like that coin. And something tells me that it will not be easy to reclaim on my own. I am rather fond of my throat, you see. But you are all good people. You don’t want this little girl to die. So I would suggest you all start trying to convince your friend here to hand over her necklace to me.”
“Why?” Rowan cried, desperate to draw out the man she’d seen before, the man she’d thought so charming and kind. “So you can overthrow your king? So you can overthrow your own sister? Why are you doing this?”
“Why?” he asked, his face contorted with anguish. “Do I need to tell you why? Haven’t I told you enough? I told you what these people did to my family, and when my sister married into their lot, she became one of them. They are murderers, all of them. They should no more be running a kingdom than should a pack of wild dogs.”
“And you should?” Rowan asked, trying to keep from sounding as incredulous as she felt.
“No, Rowan, we should.” He held her gaze, and for a moment, she lost herself in his eyes, in what could have been. “I tried to tell you that day in the kitchen. I tried to make you understand that together we could rule. Don’t you see, Rowan, the things we could accomplish? You know about the documents I’ve unearthed. Your father has told you. You’ve seen for yourself the wonders they hold. You’ve seen the power they contain, but it took me months to decipher that one page of ancient script. I need you, Rowan. I need your gifts. Together we will change the world.”
Rowan took a step back. “By unleashing monsters on it?”
“I can control it. I know how to control it. I promise you.”
“You knew what you’d awakened, and yet you let it descend upon our village? You knew it had killed your soldiers, and you didn’t warn us?”
“You think the monster killed my soldiers?” he laughed. “Oh, but how very wrong you are. You think it gouged out that man’s eyes? No, my love, my monster was still sleeping then—stirring, perhaps, but still sleeping, I assure you. It didn’t awaken until after they were all already dead.”
“Then how?” Rowan asked, her mind suddenly cold with the possibilities.
“You really haven’t figured it out yet? Think, Rowan. The captain’s eyes were torn from him. The other soldiers’ fingers were stained pink.”
“They killed him,” whispered Jude. “They killed him, and then they removed their clothes to wash the blood from their bodies.”
The duke smiled. “The boy is brighter than he looks.”
“But why?” asked Rowan, the horrible truth of it washing over her in waves.
“Why?” he asked, smiling at her with the eyes of a madman. “For the same reason I have a gun pressed to a child’s head. For the same reason your friend Tom is heading off to the tundra to be consumed by death’s mistress.”
“The coin?” Rowan asked. “It’s a talisman, a spell of some kind. But what is it to you? Why does it have this hold over you?”
“Can’t you hear it?” he asked, his wide eyes growing stranger by the moment. “Can’t you hear it calling to you? It’s beautiful, like nothing else in this world. When my monster began to stir, when it began to push open that doorway to this world, the call became irresistible. Those men had no choice but to do what they did. We mustn’t blame them. We are the same.”
“A doorway? That’s what Mama Tetri said—that the coin is like a doorway.”
“My darling,” he said, his face alight with a rapturous smile. “It’s that and so much more. Can’t you feel it? It’s not just any doorway. It’s the doorway to the underworld—the doorway to hell—and what beautiful music it makes, what glorious symphonies of lust and longing and death. Don’t you want to follow it? Don’t you want it to be yours? The only thing that stands between us and that beauty is the talisman around a dead girl’s neck. Join me. Help me remove it, and I will show you wonders beyond your wildest dreams.”
Rowan wanted to tell herself that there was no truth to his ramblings, that he was simply a madman. But she knew that she couldn’t, for she had heard the melody as well, had perhaps always heard it—that distant music that haunted her sleep and awakened in her bones, a horrid longing to sink into the earth and meet death face to face. But she also knew instinctively that it was a trick, a lure, and that the call must always be refused.
Without meaning to, she took a step away from the duke.
His face grew hard, his eyes suddenly cold. “You stupid girl. I’m offering you the world.” He pressed the gun harder against the base of Merrilee’s skull, and the child cried out in pain.
“Let her go,” Rowan said, her breath catching. “Let the girl go, and I’ll come with you.”
“Rowan?” Tom said, meeting her eyes with fear, but it passed quickly, for he knew his old friend, and he began to see what she was doing.
“Listen to me,” Rowan said to the duke. “Let Merrilee go, and I’ll give you whatever you want. I’ll join you. I’ll help you retrieve the coin. Just don’t kill her. She’s only a child.”
She took a step toward him, and he held out a hand to her, his features cut with the strange and exquisite longing of a man who thinks he might not have to die alone.
“Rowan, no!” her father said. “This is not for you to handle. I have brought this fate upon our house. This battle is mine to fight.”
But before she could communicate her true intentions to her father, it was too late. He moved quickly toward the duke, who shoved Merrilee aside and pointed the gun at Henry Rose.