Warped (28 page)

Gray Lily snaked her ringed hand through the bars and pressed it to Will’s chest, even as he struggled to wrench away.

Tessa screamed and held him, even as she began to feel the icy pain in her chest. Just like before.

Will’s face spasmed in panic and fury, and his voice cut into her like a blade. “Tessa!” he roared. Thick cords stood out from his neck as he strained against the pain. His tall, strong form arched back like a whip.

But already the silver thread was being drawn. Tessa held him, enveloped in pain herself, and saw the beautiful thread wind away from his weakening body, drawn by Gray Lily. With what seemed like the last of his strength, Will pushed Tessa away from him, breaking the contact and lifting the cold ache from her. Will sagged in his brother’s grip and his head slung backward. His eyes turned and fixed on Tessa. “Destroy the unicorn, Tessa. Kill it.”

She stood frozen; she couldn’t look away. She kept staring into Will de Chaucy’s eyes as they became transparent and disappeared. But his last look still burned through her.

Hugh’s eyes closed and his face grew red and wet, but he maintained his grip on his brother’s body until it was gone and his hands clutched empty air. Gray Lily turned away, weaving the silver thread through her fingers and whispering.

Tessa crumpled to the ground. It felt as if everything inside her had been ripped out. Slowly she pushed herself up and saw Gray Lily standing on a small hill of grass some distance away. A silver cloud of smoke seemed to gather around her as her hands worked the thread of Will’s life.

As the smoke cleared, Tessa saw the unicorn: a living dream, strong and graceful and proud. It tossed its head as it came nearer, and its mane made a line of tattered silk that rippled on the breeze. Its long spiral of horn rose from its sculpted head. As the unicorn came closer, Tessa could see his eyes. Warm golden brown fringed with dark. Will’s clever, beautiful eyes.

The unicorn reared up against the sky, tearing the air with its hooves. As Tessa and Hugh watched, Gray Lily’s body grew taller, straighter. Tessa stared as comprehension came to her: Gray Lily had woven Will’s thread into the form of the unicorn while he was here, inside the tapestry—so now she had her youth again. Will’s youth.

Gray Lily tossed back her head, sending shiny blond hair flying. Her delighted peal of laughter rang out.

“God help me,” Hugh de Chaucy said, staring at Gray Lily and the unicorn. “It was Will. All these years I truly believed he had been killed by the unicorn. That’s why I helped her. I thought she had trapped the monster that murdered my brother.
She
has been the monster all along.”

“But now?” Tessa whispered. “Hugh, how could you do it?” She lifted her tearstained face to him. “To your own brother?”

“You still don’t understand.” Hugh said wearily. He leaned against the bridging bars as if they were holding him up, as if every particle of strength had left him. “Her power is absolute over anyone whose thread she holds. No will is strong enough to oppose her. She can twist the body, the mind, the form. She is as a god.” He hung his head.

“I don’t believe that,” said Tessa. She looked through the heavy gate at Hugh’s sagging, lined face. “Help me, Hugh. Tell me how to get him back.”

“You can’t get him back,” Hugh said. “We are lost. She is too powerful.”

“No,” Tessa said. “She
has
something that makes her powerful. What is it, Hugh? What is the key?”

Hugh made a fist and let it fall against the iron bar closest to him. “I don’t know.”

“You must have noticed something,” Tessa insisted. “Is there a piece of wood or a rock that she carries with her, or wears?”

“No. There’s nothing like that.” He hesitated, frowned. “Only that silver ring she wears. It never leaves her finger.” He suddenly backed away from the gate, as if he had been jerked on a leash. “If you do as she says, she will send you back to your world,” he said, his words rushing out. “Do it, Tessa Brody, and forget this terrible story. For that is what it will become in time, just a story. And you’ll remember us only in your dreams.”

“It’s too late,” Tessa said. “I love him.”

There was silence for a moment before Hugh spoke. “So do I,” he said. His gaze seemed to shift inward as he turned away. “Perhaps she will allow me to stay here with him. There might be some peace in that.”

In the distance there was a whinnying cry. Tessa covered her ears—she couldn’t bear it. Gray Lily strode toward the castle gate once more. Tessa stared. The witch’s figure was curved and supple beneath a clinging, sheathlike garment of green silk, covered by a lavishly embroidered robe. But her eyes were the same, and Tessa shuddered as they flicked over her. Like those of a snake sizing up its next meal.

“It is done. What a relief.” Gray Lily ran her hands over her bosom, and down her waist and hips. “I feel wonderful,” she said with a long, stretching roll of her shoulders. She looked at Tessa. “Come out of there, girl.”

Tessa backed away from the heavy metal bars that separated her from Gray Lily. Somehow they seemed impossibly flimsy, not nearly protection enough from the creature on the other side.

“Why?”

Gray Lily raised a finely arched brow. “Because I have what I want. My unicorn is returned.” She gestured to the castle, the sky. “From the outside, the tapestry will have been restored and will show the unicorn as before. He lives within the tapestry once more, and his eternal youth is mine. Now,” she said briskly, “we must leave. I’d like to be in Rome for breakfast.” She gave Tessa a sly smile. “And
you
don’t belong here.”

“No one belongs here!” Tessa cried. She threw her arms up. “It’s not real. It’s not life. You can’t put people in here, trapped like . . .
specimens
. It’s evil, don’t you understand?”

“I didn’t put you here, pet,” snapped Gray Lily. “Somehow you did that yourself. Remember? The fact is, I want you out of my tapestry. You cause far too much trouble. And as for evil,” she said with a sneer, “my tiny machinations are nothing. Not compared to the bloody carnage those three sisters have wreaked. Have you forgotten that your father lies dying? We can save him if you come with me now.” Gray Lily gripped the gate and gave it an irritated heave, but the massive structure didn’t budge.

Tessa shook her head and stepped away. “I haven’t forgotten anything. But I’m not leaving Will here. Or any of them.”

“Fine. Your choice,” spat Gray Lily. “We’ll have to do it another way. This will hurt a bit.” She shot a hand through the gate, and a
ping
rang out as her silver ring clanged on the metal. She pointed a slender finger at Tessa and began to mutter in a guttural voice.

Tessa gasped as she felt a tiny spear of pain strike her chest. She scrambled backward. The pain subsided. A look of fury passed over Gray Lily’s countenance and she stretched her arm as far as it would reach through the square grating. “Come back here,” she muttered, and clawed at Tessa.

Gray Lily wasn’t close enough, Tessa realized with a sigh of relief. She must have had to be within a certain distance of a person to pull their thread.

With a grunt of disgust Gray Lily withdrew her hand. “Come along, Moncrieff,” she snarled. “She’ll come out of there. If she doesn’t want me to hurt the unicorn.”

Hugh stared at the ground, his shoulders slack. At Gray Lily’s words Tessa saw him mouth a word, silently.
Will
. When he looked up, he had a strange, lost expression on his face. But he trudged away, following Gray Lily, walking toward the distant forest, head bowed.

Tessa was alone. She was locked inside a fortress of stone and there was nothing left to protect. She made her way to the wide, dim space of the great hall and slumped at a table strewn with wilted flowers and candle wax. Here, only the night before, firelight had flickered over Will’s face as he had kissed her. She closed her eyes and traced the memory of the feeling on her lips with a finger. Why did that seem more real than anything that had happened since?

Hugh said she would forget. He was wrong. The person Tessa had tried to dismiss as a fantasy was the only part of reality she cared to cling to. There would never be a place for her in a world without Will.

She thought of her father; she would never see him again. Or Opal. They were from another life, another world. She hadn’t returned the threads; maybe the world she knew wasn’t even
there
anymore.

Everything had been taken from her now, Tessa thought. She was gutted. Empty of everything except, apparently, tears. She raised her head and squeezed her wet eyes shut and flexed her cold fingers nervously. Will was gone. She would never have the chance to show him how much she loved him.

I will never go back into the tapestry. I would rather die. Destroy the unicorn, Tessa. Kill it
.

Or maybe . . . She frowned and interlaced her fingers. Maybe if she was strong enough, she would.

Chapter 43

S
he couldn’t get the castle gate up. She couldn’t turn the ponderous wheel even an inch by herself. Finally she wiped the sweat from her eyes and wiped her stinging palms on her dress.

“Idiot,” Tessa said. She ran to get Hannibal from his stall.

“Okay, big boy,” she murmured. Nervously she looped a harness over his gleaming black chest and led him out into the courtyard. She fastened a heavy rope to the harness and to one of the handles of the wheel. “C’mon.” She tugged him forward until the rope stood taut. Hannibal stopped.

Tessa pulled, trying to urge the massive horse forward with a combination of giddyups, threats and tentative slaps on his rump, which he disdainfully brushed away with his tail. He just stood there. Finally, getting weepy again with frustration, she begged him.

“Please, Hannibal.” Tessa rested her head against the horse’s muscled shoulder in exhaustion. “Please open the gate. For Will.”

As if he had been waiting for her to speak his language, the proud war horse surged forward. Tessa leapt out of his way and the heavy, rattling gate began to rise.

With a yelp of relief Tessa secured the locking mechanism and unhooked Hannibal. She had no clue how to saddle the huge animal, so she stood on a high wooden stool, slung the crossbow over one shoulder, tucked a handful of her skirts up into her knotted sash and climbed onto his bare back.

Hannibal trotted out with Tessa clinging to him like a limpet. Her hands were knotted in his mane, and her sneakered feet dangled below dusty skirts while the crossbow banged against her back. Her old clothes had been in a damp, tangled pile where she’d left them, so she had decided to stick with the dress.

“Go find Will,” she whispered to the tufted ear below her. Hannibal seemed to require no further orders and broke into a gallop, across the grassy fields and toward the forest.

Tessa rode through dappled shadows into the cool dark of the forest, green on green. The sweet, cleansing scent of the trees drifted over her. She could hear the twitter of birds and, somewhere distant, the trickle of water.

She sat stiffly upright, jumping at every twig snap beneath Hannibal’s step and turning her head from side to side, cautious of every silhouette they passed. Anxiety drummed inside her, making her pulse beat and her muscles stiffen with tension. Tessa swung the loaded crossbow forward across her lap. She was thankful for the ugly weight of it, and for the remaining bolts that jabbed into her thigh if she leaned forward too far.

Then she heard the dog. It was the yelping bark of the lymerer’s dog, coming from up ahead. The sound brought back every memory, every visceral sensation of the hunt. A knot of fear crept into her and settled deep inside, a cold weight in her gut. But rather than stop Tessa, it whipped her into frenzied action.

“Go! Go!” she shouted, and leaned forward on Hannibal’s neck, kicking at his sides. She clung to his back, tilting and lurching awkwardly, but she hung on. They raced toward the sound and broke through the dense trees into a small clearing, where Hannibal shuddered to an abrupt stop. Gray Lily stood before them.

She stood, hands on her hips, and looked up at Tessa. “Here she is at last,” she said. “I knew you would come.”

Tessa’s glance swept the rest of the clearing as Hannibal stepped toward the center. The huge, brutish lymerer stood there, silent and grim, practically at eye level with Tessa as she passed. His Hellhound pulled at its leash and growled. At Tessa’s glance the lymerer brought a grubby hand up to his throat and ran a thick tongue over his lips.

Tessa stiffened and looked away. Hugh de Chaucy was there, near the edge of the grassy circle, sharpening a spear with some kind of flat stone. He did not look up at Tessa but continued to hone the point with rapid, methodical movements.

“Where’s Will?” Tessa demanded from her precarious seat on Hannibal.

Gray Lily gave her a tight-lipped, smile. “You mean my unicorn, don’t you? I don’t know. He’s off somewhere.” She shrugged. “Grazing, perhaps. Leave him alone. He’s happy.”

Tessa thought of Will’s tortured look when he imagined going back into the tapestry. His love of life, of freedom. “He’s
not
happy,” Tessa hissed. “He’s a prisoner. Let him go.”

“This is becoming tiresome. Get down from there, girl.” Gray Lily barked out the order. “I have what I want. I am ready to leave.”

“Suppose I just shoot you instead,” said Tessa. She raised the crossbow and angled it over her forearm, fingering the safety latch. She aimed the pointed barb of the iron bolt at Gray Lily’s chest. Her palms felt slick with sweat. Hugh de Chaucy raised his head and gave Tessa a speculative look. Gray Lily eyed the crossbow. She made an exaggerated pose of fright before dropping it and letting out a high-pitched trill of laughter. It sounded like bats swarming from a dark cave.

“That won’t have any effect on me,” Gray Lily advised, indicating the crossbow, “and you would waste valuable time.” She looked up at the twilight sky. “Evening is coming. The moon rises soon.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark,” Tessa said. She rested the crossbow lightly on her thigh so they wouldn’t see the way her hands shook. “Whose was the first thread you stole?”