A cold wind woke Idris, in the end.

  He shivered, croaked in displeasure, and was immediately shushed.

  “There now, Sir Idris,” said Lila’s voice. “There now. The winter is rushing in after you. Let me close this window.”

  She spoke as if she did not expect him to hear or answer, and he heard the closing of a casement to his left. Then, not long after, he heard sentences that were familiar to him.

  “’And while the knights were brave and true, they were also only men, after all.’”

  Knights of the Four Kingdoms. About a third of the way through, if he recalled correctly.

  He let it wash through him. The familiarity of sleeping nettle haze settled over him.

  I am sick, he realised. How long have I been sick?

  He remembered a yellow space, and a woman with myriad hair. There had been a doll, too.

  Uncle Haylan will be here with my breakfast soon, he thought, and fell asleep again.

  *

  Fae lullabies wove around Idris.

  “And the Fairy Queen

  She took the moon

  And stirred it with

  A golden spoon,

  And all the faefolk laughed and played

  To see the mess that she had made...”

  He understood, subliminally, that a routine was going on around him that he had unknowingly been a part of for some time. Willard was here, so it was night time. He did not think he had been awake yet, or at least conscious enough to have that thought, so he relished in it.

  There was normalcy, outside of him. It had been so long since anything normal had happened that he did not even mind being an invalid.

  Then he realised how much he hurt.

  His throat felt like it had been replaced with spikes; his head pounded. Every inch of skin on his left arm burned. His back had lumps on it, pressing into the bed. Even if he wanted to move, he was sure he would not manage it. But at the very least, he knew he was alive.

  Carefully, he twitched his left hand and tried to grab for Willard, and was surprised when he felt the hedge witch’s fingers wrap around his.

  “There now, Master Dead-Talker,” he said softly. “You’re going to be fine. You thirsty?”

  Idris squeezed Willard’s hand.

  “One minute. Young Master Thistle-Whiskers, I believe this is your job, now.”

  There was a weight on the bed, then up beside Idris’s shoulder, and Thistle purred deeply and settled into a warm ball beside him. Idris cracked his eyes open and gazed at his beautiful cat, grateful he was there.

  When Willard returned, he smiled and put a jug down on the bedside table.

  “Welcome back,” he said. The room was dark, save for a candle burning on the windowsill – it was not the windowsill of Summer’s End. Instead, Idris was sure he was somewhere in the palace, but it was not his rooms. “Ah, aye, we ain’t managed to get you upstairs, yet. Healers wanted to keep an eye on you where Lila couldn’t shut them out. Can’t say I blame them.”

  He was in the annex, then, where he had slept the first time. That meant he was really ill.

  “Cat’s not meant to be here, but we can’t keep him out,” said Willard, scratching Thistle between the ears. “He’s a possessive little thing. Won’t leave you alone. Anyway, a drink.”

  Willard fed Idris sips of water – his lips were burned and scabbed and taking any drink was difficult – and then he picked up some bottles to administer medicines. Idris took them without complaint, even the morning thistle.

  “We’ll talk in the morning,” said Willard in a soothing whisper, as the sleeping nettle took effect again. “Don’t you a-worry about nothing.”

  In the morning, the palace healers took over. They examined every inch of Idris, taking off all of his bandages and checking every bruise, and documenting it all on long scrolls of parchment. They wove complex healer arias around him, but he found them soulless and dim compared to the brilliant whiteness of his mother’s magic.

  My mother, he thought suddenly, remembering the rain and the clay. Where is my mother?

  He grabbed at one of the healers, tried to talk, but his throat was so burned that it was impossible. Then he heard, “Good morning, Sir Idris,” at the end of the bed, and through the crowd of white-clad magicians he saw the olive-green shawl of the Eremonts.

  They moved aside for Lady Eremont as she came, straight and proud like always, to her son’s side.

  “You are rather severely aria-burned, which has stunted your recovery somewhat,” she said, without any motherly feeling. With two fingers, she tapped Idris’s collar-bone. “And from here to the fingertips on your left hand. The Dead-Walker armour made its mark.” She opened his right, bandaged hand. “This morning thistle burn will heal nicely, though. The glass cuts, not so much. I am a brilliant healer but I cannot work miracles, Idris.”

  Despite that, she smiled at last. “At least not without my tincture,” she said softly, sitting beside him. “Ah, hello, cat. You are not meant to be here.”

  Thistle reowed at her, but allowed her to scratch under his chin.

  “Much happened,” she said. “But minimally, we can move you back to your chambers today. You are healing at last.” Seeing his frown, she said, “You have been here a month, Idris.”

  A month?

  “Winter is here,” she said, glancing at the window. “For a while, I thought perhaps I would say goodbye to you in the same season as I first greeted you, but I underestimated how stubborn you have always been.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  And it was as if in saying that, Lady Eremont unlocked all of the terrible memories of the Harransee. Idris remembered it all – the dragon and the pentagons and Kurellan’s cold eyes and Layton, gazing up at him as the Spirit Glass dissolved – and he croaked and grabbed his mother’s leg and tried to say, “My father, where is my father?”

  Lady Eremont watched him carefully.

  “Idris...” She sighed deeply. “The Dead-Walker armour was the only thing keeping Layton’s heart beating. You know that, somewhere, I know you do.”

  He did, but it still hurt.

  “When I got to you, I thought the Spirit Glass had killed you both.” She wrung his hand. “You were both so cold, so still. The burns...” She turned, and picked something up from the bedside table. It was a doll, shaped to look just like him, with a sewn-on foot and ginger hair. “But I assumed that if the Fairy Queen gave your poppet back,” she said, “that you were still alive.”

  She placed the doll in Idris’s free hand. He stroked its hair.

  “Layton was rotted from the inside out,” she said.

  Idris did not doubt it. He was not sure how he felt, knowing that really, he had not killed his father. He had hoped that when he woke (if he woke), a second bed would be beside him with Layton lying within it, that maybe he was repentant and could be reformed, and he would have the family he always wanted, and a teacher, and...

  Fat tears dropped onto the poppet’s still, smiling face. Lady Eremont did not shush him or hold him. Idris cried soundlessly; his cat, his Thistle, climbed onto his lap and licked his unbandaged fingertips in comfort, purring all the while.

  “I was afraid of all of this,” Lady Eremont whispered, so quietly that Idris was sure he was not supposed to hear her.

  *

  Idris’s chambers were tidy and warm, with both fireplaces blazing and all of his home comforts within easy reach of his bed. Lila propped him up with pillows, wrapped blankets around him, and was silent. It seemed that she wanted to say something to him but could not find the words; she had been mute and obedient all morning while the healers gave their recommendations and notes. She wore her attendant’s winter clothes, in muted blue with black clematis embroidered on the apron pockets and her hair pinned up so she could see better. Idris much preferred her in her armour, with Raven’s Reckoning at her side.

  When all of the healers were gone and they were alone, she sat on the side of the bed and took his hand, and squeezed it tight.

  “I will keep everyone out, if you want me to,” she said. Idris nodded. “Even Willard?” He paused, and shook his head. “Lady Riette?” He nodded. “Her Majesty?” Another nod. “I see.”

  She stood to leave, but he held her hand tight and stopped her. She had been with him so long that he knew she knew, and she smiled softly and patted his elbow.

  “You fulfilled every promise,” she whispered. “And I will not leave you, sir. And I think no less of you than I did this time last year. You did the right thing. I am proud of you.”

  He wanted to ask her if she thought he was evil for what he did, still, but he did not have the capacity. For the last day, he had existed in a state of bewilderment that he could not shift. Layton was dead. The Spirit Glass was gone. His soul was his own again. And yet he did not understand why he did not feel elated. He did not know anything much at all. His friends had been kind and gentle with him, with earnest and honest smiles and soft touches, and even his mother had done her best to be warm, and still...

  Still, he felt adrift.

  There was formal business to take care of but Lila assured him that he did not have to think about of any of it, yet. The palace archivists had sent up the official family trees of the Vonners, Eremonts and Meers. They were all bound in their family colours, with the crests neatly embossed in the leather. Idris did not let Lila take them from his bedroom desk, though, and he kept the Eremont book on his lap. Slowly, he found the page where his branch lay, and he gazed at the name ‘Idris Yanis Eremont’ at the bottom of the tree until his eyes watered.

  After all of this time, it had not been crossed out. The ink on the Vonner tree was fresh, though.

  The Queen also wanted to know if there was to be an official funeral for Layton, which Idris did not want to entertain. Even if he was crazy, he was still the head of one of the oldest families in the kingdom – a family that now, Idris was the patriarch of. The business of title deeds and property within Raven’s Roost was inches of parchment thick. Royal seamstresses had already mocked up new coats with the double raven crest on the back. Idris crossed thick, red chalk lines through them.

  He was not well enough to walk or talk. Lady Eremont had gone through all of his injuries with him so he knew what he needed to be gentle with, but mostly he was ashamed of the huge burn wound that spider-webbed across his torso, like purple lines of lightning that licked up the left side of his neck, all down the left side of his chest, right to the pads of his fingers. He had been lucky in some regards, except that the injury was hideous. He supposed it was what he deserved for killing his father.

  Kurellan’s family had left him a letter. He had not read it.

  Evening drew in when Lila came back with some soup and the crate his mother had left.

  “I found this,” she said, putting it on the bed. “Shall we go through it together? Perhaps it has something in it that might help with all of this other legal nonsense.”

  It was a sensible thought, so he nodded and sipped his soup.

  At the top of the crate was another stack of parchment. Lila frowned, flicked through them.

  “Idris...” She sighed. “These are all of your letters, Idris.”

  She fanned them out on the bedsheets. Every envelope was open, torn by a frantic finger – Lady Eremont had read them, after all.

  “And...” The next stack had Uncle Haylan’s handwriting. “And these, too.”

  Idris wondered why his mother would bother to return them, opened and read but never replied to. He supposed it was some sort of proof that she wanted him to have, that she had cared in some way, just never enough to write back.

  Lila slid out a blue-bound journal. “One of your father’s. Obrin’s,” she corrected, handing it over. Idris put down his bowl and, with his bandaged fingers, opened it up. The first page read, Notes on IYE. Following that were detailed investigations into Idris’s health, his mannerisms, and his seeming lack of any skills with the healer aria at all – and all of Obrin’s fears were revealed, over months and years. He knew, too. He always knew.

  At the bottom of the crate, Lila sighed.

  “There’s this,” she said.

  She pulled out an olive-green shawl.

  Idris stared. He held out a hand for it.

  The forbidden shawl was soft and bright, made by Eremont seamstresses of the highest skill – not a thread was out of place. It was not, as he had suspected, a child’s size. Instead, it was one-and-a-half times his arm span and, as all Eremont shawls were, decorated in one corner. Usually, the corner held a morning thistle crest and the initials of the wearer.

  Instead, embroidered on this one, was a single raven, a morning thistle held tightly in his beak, with the letters IYEV beneath.

  Neither of them said anything for what felt like the whole night. Eventually, Lila said, “We should have a big black clematis put beneath it. What do you think? It makes a fine crest, sir.”

  Idris rubbed the soft fabric beneath his right hand and nodded dumbly.

  Over the course of the next few hours, other truths were revealed to him. Every letter was annotated with Lady Eremont’s careful, tiny script, detailing her emotions about the things she had read, what she planned to write back, what she wanted to say – all unspoken and unknown. She was sorry and scared and resentful and ashamed, and none of those things were good enough to send to a frightened twelve-year-old, living in a strange place, recently crippled and stripped of his family name.

  On the final letter, the one he had sent just after Uncle Haylan’s death, there were very few annotations. Idris remembered writing it, furious – his own handwriting was almost foreign to him on the page.

  This is the very last letter I will write to you, Mother.

  The funeral is over. You did not come. I do not know why I expected you to. I suppose I thought you might have more feeling for your only brother than for your only son, but I must have been wrong. It matters little, because I was not invited, either. Or at least, Haylan requested specifically that I did not go. So I sat alone, like a prisoner or a murderer, and I mourned my uncle without anyone to comfort me. I hope that pleases you. I hope it is punishment enough for whatever it is I did wrong to you, so wrong that you did not come to help your family when it needed you.

  But I now know that it is a waste of ink and parchment to even conduct this fruitless exercise. Your intentions are plain. I am no Eremont, or no Eremont that you care to legitimise. I am not worth any of your time. And I am alone in this awful world and you are glad for it. I will be glad for it, too, once the sting of my uncle’s passing has gone. Why care? Why spend my energy on someone who deigns me lower than dirt?

  I want you to know that I hate you. I hate you as much as you hate me. I hate that you abandoned me here without any explanation or excuse. I hate that you brought me into this world and I hate how you made me. I hate not being good enough for you and not knowing why.

  So do not write. I no longer care. I do not need your words to make me whole. I will do as I have done for the last five years – my duty to my queen – and that will be more than enough for me. She, at least, pretends to love me.

  If I ever see you again, I hope it is a brief meeting.

  Idris.

  At the bottom were four words, in his mother’s hand.

  I deserve your hate.

  That was all.