“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.”
Ripper said, “This ain’t a good idea, Boss.”
“Do what I say,” his father ordered.
The Bright Boy released Emilie. “I’ll get your bows.”
His father patted Rafe on the shoulder.
“I know you missed me, son.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Rafe stood in the dark and dank backyard as his father gave orders to Ripper about the target, the distance. It seemed there were no floodlights in this version of the house. Would they have to wait until morning? Rafe couldn’t stomach the idea of spending a night in this place. He had to get Emilie and Jeremy to safety. At least she was there in the backyard with them, tied up but alive for now. Where was Jeremy? What had happened to him? Was he hurt?
He couldn’t think about it.
Bright Boys began to mass in the yard. A dozen, then two dozen, more…they all carried lit torches like a mob of angry villagers hungry for a good witch burning.
What had he done? He was crazy to think he could win this game. Once, when he was fifteen years old, he saved a queen’s life with a lucky shot. Now, years later, he had to do it again? And if he failed he’d have to stay in this place forever, this evil place two streets over from Hell?
Ripper nailed the paper target to the trunk of a skeleton tree forty yards from the line. Even by the light of so many torches, Rafe could barely see the spider in the center. They’d be shooting on pure instinct.
His father joined him behind the shooting line.
His father chuckled softly. “You and I both know how this ends already. And I’ve kept myself busy waiting for you to show yourself.”
Rafe’s mouth was dry when he answered, “You’ve been practicing.”
“Not much else to do here.”
One of the Bright Boys, a shorter one with a forked tongue and fangs like a snake, appeared carrying both Rafe’s bow and quiver and his father’s.
“Sire,” the boy hissed.
Rafe took his own bow and clutched it tightly. The bow his mother had given him. What if he never saw his mother again?
“So how do we wanna do this?” his father asked as he checked his own bow. “Six rounds? Twelve rounds?”
Two Bright Boys stood behind his father. The squat one with snake teeth and a taller one with skin so pale he looked like a ghost in gray. But their eyes gleamed with satisfaction. They looked sated. They ate fear. That’s why the Bright Boys had let a deadly sleeper spider loose in the throne room. Not to kill the queen but to create a feast of terror. And the ones by his father’s side looked especially well fed.
