Holly Black - The Darkest Part of the Forest

Grimsen, who, with his brothers, made Heartseeker and Heartsworn. Who could coax metals into any shape. She must have stared at him too fixedly, because he turned toward her and gave her a mendacious smile. His black eyes gleamed.

Frantically, she searched the crowd of grim courtiers for Jack—and spotted him, riding before his elf mother on a dappled faerie steed. He wore an expression that was no expression at all, a curious unreadable blankness. Her gaze rested on him, until he finally noticed. His eyes widened and he opened his palms and mimed looking down at them.

Confused, she did the same.

Her heart sped all over again. On her right, in black ink, like that of a Sharpie, were the words CARROTS and IRON RODS in the same scratchy handwriting of all the other messages. And on her left were the words REMEMBER TO KNEEL in a familiar hand—her own.

The first two clues were a reference to that story about the farmer and the boggart, the one she thought hadn’t made any sense. Those were the same words that had been circled in mud, but she no more understood the clue now than she had then.

And the third clue—a reminder about etiquette?

Scanning the crowd, she looked for Jack again, her eyes sweeping over a bent-backed woman holding a gnarled cane, a long-nosed green man with a shock of black hair, a golden creature with long grasshopper-like legs.

No one met her eyes. Jack wasn’t there.

“Sir Hazel,” the Alderking said. “The sun is risen and so you are no longer my little marionette.”

Several of the courtiers, some in tattered lace finery, some in nothing at all, began tittering behind hands and fans. One phooka laughed so hard that he brayed like a pony.

She closed her hands into fists, trying to fight down panic.

“Your face!” the phooka shouted, strange golden goat eyes rolling up in his head with mirth. “You should see your face!”

Hazel glanced back at Ben, in the cage. He was standing, hands curled around the bars. When he saw her turn his way, he gave her a somewhat unsteady smile, like he was trying to put on a brave face—a smile that she couldn’t possibly deserve.

“But you are still mine,” the Alderking continued. “You would do well not to forget it, Hazel. Come forward and kneel before me.”

She knelt, feeling the cold of the stone seep up into the strange, almost metallic cloth of the pants she wore.

REMEMBER TO KNEEL.

“Look at me,” the Alderking said.

She did, seeing the poison green of his eyes and the long raven-feather cape draped over his shoulders, each feather the glimmering blue-black of an oil slick. He was ruinously beautiful in the way that knives and scalpels can be beautiful. She’d tried to avoid thinking about that, since he was Severin’s father and it wasn’t right that he should be equal in beauty to his son, but staring at him made it impossible to ignore. He was a fairy-tale king, radiant and terrible. Part of her wanted to serve him, and the more he gazed down at her, the stronger that feeling became.

She forced herself to look away from his eyes, forced herself to study his lips instead.

“Imagine my surprise to find Severin hiding in your house. Not only have you failed at your task, but you have squandered my goodwill.”

She stayed silent, biting the inside of her cheek, and bowed her head.

The Alderking had clearly expected nothing less. “Will you deny it, little sneak? Will you pretend that you intended to betray him? Will you claim that you’re still my loyal servant?”

“No,” she said, trying not to show panic on her face. “I will not.”

For the first time since she’d been brought before him, he looked wary. “Come here, Eolanthe. Tell the court what you know.”

Jack’s elf mother stepped forward, a leaf in one of her hands. Hazel knew what it was immediately. She read out the words written in her son’s blood, and when she named Heartsworn, the buzz of conversation among the courtiers was silenced, as though the name of the blade itself was a spell.

Eolanthe was shaking a little. The Alderking watched her with blazing, possessive eyes. He looked at her as though he’d remembered that he was angry with her and that the memory of his own anger excited him. Hazel could see why Eolanthe hadn’t wanted Jack to draw the Alderking’s attention.

A moment later, the full force of that stare was turned back on Hazel. “Tell me, why would you believe one of my courtiers had Heartsworn?”

Hazel swallowed. “Someone has to have it. That’s the only way that the casket could have been broken, the only way that Severin could have been freed.”

He leaned forward eagerly. “And who shared that bit of the curse with you?”

Hazel shook her head. This part was easy. “Severin told me.”

The Alderking signaled and the cage was wheeled closer to him. He studied his son with an odd possessiveness, gazing at him the way one might look at a particularly valuable painting put away in storage because it had acquired a scratch. A painting you no longer wished to hang where others could see, but neither were you willing to part with.

Severin stared back, eyes hungry. Ben had stepped into shadow, so that it was hard to see his face. Hazel wondered what he was thinking.

“Who freed you?” the Alderking asked his son. “Tell me where the sword is and I will forgive you. You may sit at my side, my own heir restored. What do you think of that? I have the means to take my revenge on the Court in the East. With your sister under my control and the twin swords back in my possession, nothing stands in my way.

“Let us destroy Fairfold, destroy all those who gawked at you these long years as you slept. I will show you the might of your sister brought to harness. You will see how easily we will take back the Eastern Court, wrest the throne from the upstart knight who rules it.”

Hazel sucked in her breath. He spoke about destroying Fairfold as though it were nothing, a smudge to polish away.

In the cage, Ben whispered something to Severin, but the horned boy shook his head. When he turned back to his father, his eyes were hot and bright. “Let the mortals go and I will sit beside you, Father. Let me out of the cage and I will take my place by your side.”

A thin smile appeared on the Alderking’s mouth. “Where is Heartsworn?”

Severin shook his head. “You first. I’m the one in the cage.”

For a frozen moment Hazel wondered if the Alderking would let Severin out, if Severin would betray them. But then the Alderking laughed and called over a creature in red armor, with a tail that whipped around behind him and ears like that of a fox. “Take the mortal out instead and bring me the Bone Maiden and all her knives.”

Ben shouted as a dozen knights gathered around the cage, shoving their swords between the metal branches to keep Severin back as they unlocked the door and dragged Hazel’s brother through it. Severin grabbed one of the knights, twisting his arm hard, nearly pulling between the bars. The faerie screamed and she heard a sharp sound, like bone cracking.

Hazel started toward them.

“Halt, Sir Hazel,” said the Alderking. “You will stay just as you are or I will cut young Benjamin’s throat.”

Hazel stopped moving. Three knights pressed their blades to Severin’s skin. He was breathing hard, but no longer struggled. Two knights seized Ben and dragged him across the stone floor to thrust him in front of a blue-faced hag in a tattered black gown who had appeared at the Alderking’s summons. She pressed long fingers to Ben’s forehead, inspecting his birthmark.

“Now, you or my son will tell me what has happened to Heartsworn. If you don’t, the boy will suffer.” The Alderking’s smile was horrible.