Emrys opened his mouth, and I expected he would greet her. But different words spilled out, and his eyes coldly passed over her to Phelan, to the Wolfes. To the duke. “At long last, the traitorous court is reunited. I hope your lives in Bardyllis have been idyllic, a dream. Was it you, Ambrose, who gathered and rallied our alliance to return?”

“It was me,” the countess answered, and boldly took a step toward him. “I found those who wanted to be forgotten. Your brother, for one. As well as the spymistress and the master of coin. The three of them would have continued on for another hundred years if you had not found a way to haunt the new moon. And so it is I who answered your summoning, Emrys. I have brought us back to end this curse.”

“Raven,” said Emrys, his eyes shifting to her. “You have not changed either. Do not lie and claim that you returned to ease my suffering.”

The countess acted like he had struck her. Her face went pale; her eyes glittered like she craved to stab him.

“You are perhaps looking for the throne,” Emrys continued, motioning to the empty dais. “The chair your brother once graced as duke, before you plotted to kill him, Raven.”

“We plotted to kill him, old friend.”

Emrys only smiled, but there was no kindness within it. I wondered if walking this fortress, abandoned and alone for an entire century, turned a heart into stone, deeper than Mazarine’s old magic. “The throne does not appear until nightfall,” he continued. “When it appears, your dreams will manifest. Be ready, for they will be eager to cut you to the quick.”

“Dreams?” my father echoed.

“You have not dreamt since you left,” Emrys said. “That has changed now. You stand in the mountain where the crime was committed, where the curse hooked your souls. Your dreams, then, will now return when you sleep. And there are no remedies here to keep them at bay. Nor will these corridors and this hall be safe when the sun sets. If you do not wish to encounter the nightmares, remain in your room with the door bolted. But if you want to end the curse, one of you must break the dream and claim the throne.”

His words wove together all the stray pieces of my wonder, questions, and dread. We would dream, and our dreams would roam this place at night, just like they did on the new moon.

What would my mind spin and create, now that it could?

“Oh, and one final warning,” Emrys said, raising his hand. “Your deathless state is no more in these halls. You can bleed and feel your life ebb; you can feel the mortal sting of a blade. It would be a shame, indeed, to watch a number of you fall before the curse breaks.”