“See? You looked up to me once, before that boy came along. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want good memories? Come on, son. Do it for me. Burn it and that’s that.”

Rafe held the lighter in his palm, then threw it across the kitchen so hard it shattered the window.

His father didn’t look surprised. In fact, he looked like he’d planned for it.

“All right,” he said, resigned. “Rip?”

Ripper’s grinning face appeared in the doorway.

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Bring up the girl.”

“Not the boy?”

“Saving him for later,” his father said. “Go get her.”

Rafe was on his feet at once. “Dad? Dad, don’t do this. Please don’t do this—”

“Too late, son.”

His father took the book off the table and tossed it into his big red toolbox on the floor, then kicked the lid shut and locked it with his fistful of jangling keys.

Ripper and Chopper dragged Emilie into the kitchen. Her hands were tied in front of her and they’d gagged her with what looked like one of his dad’s old blue handkerchiefs.

“Here she is, Boss,” Ripper said. “And your knife. We took it off her when we caught her.”

His father took the hunting knife and looked at it.

“How’d she get my knife?”

“Mom gave it to her,” Rafe said.

“I didn’t say she could do that.”

“You were dead.”

“Least I got it back.” He put his knife into his belt. “Let her down, boys.”

The Bright Boys put Emilie on her knees on the floor. Rafe got up again, ready for a fight, but Ripper grabbed him, put a knife to his throat.

“You wanna find out why they call me Ripper?” he asked.

“Stop that,” his father said. “Not my son.”

Ripper only laughed low in his throat, then leaned in close to whisper in Rafe’s ear.

“Your daddy said I get to be prince when you’re gone.”

“Gone home,” his father said. “Not gone. Home.”

“Home,” Ripper repeated. “Right. Home.”

He stepped back, wrapped his hand in Emilie’s long blond hair, and held it hard enough that she cried out behind the gag.

“What should we do with her, son?” his father asked.

“Let her go,” Rafe said. He couldn’t believe this was happening, that his father had turned into this monster. But he could see the darkness in his eyes. This benighted place had gotten to him. Was there any light left in him?

“You’ll destroy that book?” he asked. “You do that, I’ll let her go. Easy as pie.”

Rafe glanced at Emilie. Behind the gag, her eyes pleaded with him. Not to say yes, but to say no. She groaned a sound.

“Shut her up,” his dad demanded.

Ripper grabbed her by the neck and slapped a hand over her mouth so that she couldn’t get a single sound out. Emilie tried to bite at the hand that silenced her but she couldn’t do it. What was she trying so hard to tell him? It didn’t matter. Rafe had already made up his mind.

He said, “Okay, I’ll—”

A single perfect red feather wafted through the hole in the broken window and floated on the air until it landed at Rafe’s feet.

A red feather like the fletching in the arrow above the queen’s throne.

Rafe said, “I’ll play you for it.”

His father looked at him, eyes narrowed. “Play?”

“Let’s kill spiders,” he said. “You know, like old times.”

“I already have the book. Why should I play to win something I already have?”

“We aren’t just playing for my book.” Rafe’s mind whirled, thinking up terms, how to make it interesting enough to get his father to go along with it. “How about this? If I kill the spider, I get the book, and we all get to leave. But if you kill it…I’ll destroy the book, and I’ll…” He couldn’t believe he was making this offer. He looked at the red feather on the floor again. “I’ll stay with you. Here.”

“You’ll stay here with me? You and me?”

“You let Emilie and Jeremy go home, and I’ll stay here with you until you, you know, move on.”

“No running away the second my back is turned?”

“No running away.”

His father thought about it, then said, “What if we both miss it?”

“Then you still win just for playing. If we both miss, I’ll still destroy the book. I only win if I kill the spider.” He faked a smile. “Come on, Dad. It’ll be fun. And you were always a better shot than me, right?”

Slowly, his father nodded.

“Having you here sounds good to me,” he said. “We’ll have a good time.” To Ripper he said, “Get our bows.”