“If that cord snaps you’ll be trapped here forever,” she told me, tones clipped and no-nonsense, like a nurse in an ER. “You need to follow it home to your body.”

“I still need to call her out,” I explained, even though her words had fear souring in my belly. I smashed the box with the lady and her knight painted on it. It sparked when the pieces came apart. I felt a twang go through the air, as if the castle was a tapestry and one of the warp threads had just snapped.

“That will take too long,” Isabeau said. “But I can help, now that I know her name.” She smiled and it reminded me of my mother. Sword blades were softer than that smile. “You understand that I cannot fight her?” she asked. “Only her guards and protectors.”

I nodded once. “This fight’s mine.”

“Bien.” She glanced down at the broken box. A shard with half of Constantine’s face had landed near her foot. “They are still dear to each other.”

“Yes, it’s all very romantic,” I said drily.

“These are memories, I assume?” When I nodded, she looked pleased. “You’ve done well, Solange.”

“I had help,” I said so quietly I wasn’t sure she heard me.

“Is there a place nearby that has some sentimental value?” She peered through the shadows. “Where they were together?”

I looked around as well, trying to remember which memories I’d seen that had taken place here. They’d mostly been at Bornebow Hall. Except for the time she and Constantine had gone to the Drake castle to find Viola’s mother chained to a post and Madame Veronique in the courtyard. There was the Christmas feast, the dance with the candles, and the kiss by the tree.

The tree.

“There.” I nodded to the tree at the base of the hill leading up to the inner bailey. It hadn’t been there in her memory, but she’d incorporated it into her psychic safe place. I grabbed the remaining boxes and dashed over the grass until we were under its shielding branches. It was a pale birch tree, the leaves glinting like emerald drops and tinkling musically.

Isabeau glanced at me, an ax suddenly appearing in her hand.

“Okay, that’s cool,” I said. “I didn’t know I could do that.”

“I’ve done this sort of thing before,” she reminded me with a ghost of a smile. “You continue smashing the boxes and I’ll see if I can’t entice our little friend out farther.”

I still had the rock in my hand. I cracked it over the boxes.

“It helps if you call her name,” Isabeau suggested. “Especially as I’m now here and foreign to her dreamscape. She’ll be looking this way.” She brought the ax down swiftly, severing a branch. “Viola!”

“Viola!” I added, jumping up and down on all of the box pieces. I’d pulverize them into dust if I had to. Isabeau hacked at the tree. “Viola!” Stomp. “Viola!” Hack. “Viol—ew.”

Thick blood oozed out of the broken branches and the gouges in the white trunk. Rivulets coursed down, filling the spaces between the roots like tiny, bloody wishing wells.

Suddenly, I felt weird. I grabbed at a branch for support. I could hear the thunder of horses riding out of the upper gate, the flash of swords and armor.

“Crap,” I said thickly as my vision started to go black. “One more thing.” I felt my body slumping but couldn’t stop it. Viola’s knights were still advancing, Isabeau was still chopping at the tree, and I was still falling. “I’ve been blacking out.”

1199

Viola walked through the tournament camp, pennants snapping from pavilion spires and horses nickering in corrals. The sounds pierced her sensitive ears and she had to stop herself from wincing. Sunset had given way to evening, the sky was full of stars, and the fields full of torches. The lights stung her eyes. Knights, pages, and stable hands crowded around, tending to horses and armor. The smell of so many bodies pressed together made her mouth water. She knew they were staring at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. They were beneath her notice, unimportant.

Not Tristan.

None of it mattered without him.

She kept walking, barefoot, in a tattered gown stained with blood. Whispers boiled in her wake, weapons dropped with a clatter. A man stepped into her path, frowning. “Lady, are you well?”

He stumbled back out of her way when she raised her eyes to his. He blanched, confused, but was able to get back to the safety of his tent. She searched the family crests, the rampant lions, the unicorns, and the bar sinister, which was the black stripe that proclaimed illegitimacy. She felt strangely fond of that black mark, despite the evidence that she wasn’t a bastard after all. Her father was still begging for her mother’s forgiveness. Viola, remembering decades of tears and blood, wanted no part of it.

She only wanted Tristan.

There. The coat-of-arms of the Constantine family. It was a small tent, part of the larger circle belonging to a baron. Tristan had had to pledge himself to a new lord when Phillip Vale was found murdered in his bed.

She stepped through the painted canvas opening, feeling as hopeful as she had the first time Tristan had told her he loved her. He’d pledged himself to her, and she’d tied a ribbon to his shield. That same shield was propped against a table, the ribbon faded and tattered. He sat on a curved wooden bench, his head in his hands. His black hair fell into his eyes, obscuring his vision. He looked pale and tired.