Page 91 of These Vile Hearts

It’s so dangerous.

I could fall.

Come with me, Lorelai sings in my mind as she leans down, reaching out a slender hand.Come, my love.

I can’t remember why I didn’t want to go with her in the first place. There is nowhere I would rather be than in the presence of this enchanting creature. Adjusting my weapons belt, I stand again, stretching upward to reach for her.

Her fingers entangle with mine, the singing intensifying tenfold.

Then Lorelai smiles down at me with two rows of pointed sharklike teeth and inky smoke pours out of her throat, enrobing me in darkness.

28

Maddox

My vision returns, and I find myself standing in a suspended meadow in the treetops. Lichen and epiphytes grow on flowering shrubs and smaller trees arranged in a fairy ring around the little clearing. Bundles of glowing blossoms illuminate the area, but unlike the deep purple of nightshade buds, these are a warm goldenrod yellow. Moss and thin branches have woven tightly together to form spongy ground sturdy enough to walk across with bare feet.

Plopping down, I pull off each of the leather boots I’d been wearing beneath my scarlet gown. The constant song in my head stops and the tiredness returns to my bones. Like I’ve just been drenched in tree sap, everything feels weighted down and heavy.

Slowly, awareness creeps in.

“Isn’t it lovely here?” Lorelai says in my ear. “Almost as lovely as you.” She pulls my hair tie free and runs slender fingers through my loose strands, breathing in as every muscle in my body stiffens.

“Most mortals scream when I stop singing in their little heads. But you are a different sort of mortal, aren’t you? You cansee, can’t you?”

I turn my head to look at her, but she moves to my other side. Ialmost ask what she plans to do with me, but I’m not sure I want to know the answer. “What are we doing here?”

“Why? Don’t you like it?” Lorelai crawls on hands and knees until she’s kneeling in front of me, flashing a sharp-toothed grin. Pupils swallow her aquamarine eyes so they’re nothing but dark voids boring into me. Ropes of gray spiderweb hang like a makeshift dress from her wiry frame. Tiny black spiders crawl inside the woven silk.

“I mean…” My head aches as I search for a way out of this.Anyway. My weapons are still on my belt, but the siren will most definitely bite my head off with her razor-blade teeth if I make any quick movements. “Obviously it is lovely here,” I tell her. “Just curious, is all.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I spot a break in the foliage, but beyond that is nothing but inky darkness. What time is it? My heart speeds. I have to get back to Magesté. I have to get back to—

Poisoning Castor.

Lorelai’s wide smile fractures, eyes narrowing as she leans in toward me, ocher smoke spilling from her mouth like saliva. “I don’t believe you.”

Song spreads once again through my skull, filling me up, intoxicating every inch of me.

My eyes flutter closed, and I forget what I was so worried about just a moment ago. I wish she would just keep singing and never stop. Her hands stroke along my jaw, sliding down to remove Castor’s black cloak from my shoulders. I let her, shrugging out of the heavy material.

“What do we have here?” Her head tilts as she pats the leather belt strung low across my hips.

Dreamily, I answer, “Weapons.”

“What do you need weapons for?”

“To kill the Redwood King.”

Lorelai pulls back now, looking me over with renewed interest. “Kill the Redwood King?”

“Yes,” I say placidly. “I’ve made a pact with the Myrtle Queen.”

Lorelai’s smile spreads wider than ever, her song increasing in tempo. “Have you? And what has the Myrtle lovely promised you in exchange for the king’s death?”

I giggle—which I don’t ever do, but now I’m not sure why. Giggling is great. “Lots of things. Money, a place to live, a cure.”

“A cure from what?”