The day was known already. Sunday. The Harvest Festival. And here were the dark details. A population drunk on good wine wouldn’t know what hit them. As for King Quercus? Petronio read on, appalled but delighted. Who would suspect their very own army and its dearly trusted leader? At the peak of celebration, in a country filled with the noise of feasting, the King would be asked by his faithful bodyguards to leave the feasting area, and all possible witnesses. Once the paid-off men had the King where they wanted him, the deed would be done. Time for the soldiers to move in. Virtually no blood would be shed as the country changed hands. All that Fenestra had done was offer the right amount of gold and whisper in a few ears.

As Petronio rolled the scroll up and placed it carefully back in the alcove, he heard footsteps coming toward the study. Loud footsteps of two people: It could only be Salix and Alnus. The picture still leaned against the wall. If anyone came in, it would be the first thing they noticed. There was no way out. Petronio shrank back into the shadows like a trapped rat. This time, there would be no sewage worker to blame, and the guards might choose to attack first, ask questions later.

26• THE RAVENWOOD

One second Ark was in the drenching mist of thick cloud. The next he was pulled up by beat of wing into the sudden space of stars and night. The moon looked as if it had been ripped in half by the same claws that now held him tight in a curved cage. Ark’s teeth clattered in their sockets. His clothes were woven for Arborium, protected as it was by leaf and branch. Up here, the wind scoured his skin. Yet the cold was the least of his worries. The warning squawks of the raven might as well have been kirk bells ringing out his death.

He couldn’t believe that Mucum had somehow managed to follow him. Why didn’t he stay down in the roots with Flo? At least he would’ve been safe. Ark’s last and fleeting hope was that Mucum gave Petronio what he deserved.

But all that had vanished, a long way behind him now, as he swooped over the forest, covering miles in minutes. Ark was dimly aware how rare this sight was, Arborium laid out like an undulating tapestry of leaf and shade. A real bird’s-eye view. His mind recalled the map he’d seen on Jobby Jones’s wall, and here it came alive, rising and falling beneath him. To the east, he could see the nighttime lamps encircling Hellebore, the castle at its center rising up like a budding flower. But they were flying west, where the lit-up roads and small platform villages soon petered out.