Free Ravencliffe (Blythewood series) by Carol Goodman Page B

cursed race that destroyed her?
    “Merope wasn’t destroyed by a Darkling,” I cried. “She loved Aderyn and he saved her.”
    Is that what your Darkling lover told you?
Van Drood snickered.
Would you like to see what really happened?
    The image of the feathered monster vanished from the glass. A moment ago I would have been grateful to see it gone, but as I turned around, looking into one blank mirror after another, it felt stranger not to see anything. My own reflection had been wiped from the glass. It was as though I didn’t exist anymore.
    Then the mirrors started spinning, faster and faster, like the Human Roulette Wheel—or like a zoetrope I’d watched once in the nickelodeon, a wheel with images inside it that made a moving picture when you looked inside. Only I was
inside
it, and the pictures that began to emerge of a snow-filled forest were not just pictures. I felt the bite of the cold snow blowing through those woods and heard the howls of the wolves that prowled it.
    Shadow wolves.
    I knew exactly where I was.
    I’d seen this story twice before—once in the candelabellum, a device kept in the Blythewood dungeons, and once in a spinning teacup that Raven had showed me. It was the story of how the Order of the Bells came to be. In both stories the seven daughters of a bell maker set off through the woods to deliver a set of seven bells to a prince at a castle. They were set upon by shadow wolves, creatures possessed by the
tenebrae
. When their cart toppled, the youngest sister, Merope, rallied her sisters to play changes on the bells to keep the shadow wolves at bay. They rang the bells through the night, one by one ceasing as they grew exhausted, until only Merope rang her solitary bell. When the prince and his knights came to rescue them Merope was gone, leaving a blood-filled impression in the snow.
    That’s where the stories diverged.
    The Order believed that Merope was abducted by a Darkling—an evil creature on the side of the
tenebrae
and all the monsters of Faerie. But Raven had showed me a version in which Merope was in love with the Darkling Aderyn, who saved her and then, together with the creatures of Faerie, helped battle the
tenebrae
. What story would van Drood show me in the hall of mirrors?
    I watched warily as the shadow wolves pursued the bell maker’s daughters and Merope rang her bell to drive them away. Surprisingly, van Drood’s story followed Raven’s, as the great black-winged creature descended toward her and her face lit up with love. Aderyn gathered Merope up in his arms and carried her into the sky. Together they followed the sisters and the knights back to the castle, fending off the shadows that pursued them. I watched in horror as the prince was set upon by shadow crows and devoured by them—just as van Drood must once have been devoured by the
tenebrae
to become what he was now. Was that why he was showing me this story? Was he showing me how he became a Shadow Master so that I would feel sorry for him . . . or even
save
him?
    “Can you be saved?” I asked aloud.
    The revolving pictures juddered for a moment as I’d seen moving pictures in the nickelodeon jerk when the film got stuck in the projector—or as I’d seen van Drood himself jerk once before. He had looked then like a broken machine. Was a piece of him that was still human struggling to break free?
    But then the pictures ran again all too smoothly. The prince was ripped apart by the shadows, the crows burrowing beneath his skin to eat him from the inside out. I bit my cheek to keep from crying out.
    The thing that was once the prince turned to me, face bulging as the shadow crows moved beneath its skin, red eyes glowing, mouth spewing smoke. I watched in horror as the creature ripped open its own chest to extract a writhing crow.
    I ducked to dodge the flying missile and heard a thud and cry of pain from behind me. I turned, thinking someone had joined me in the hall of mirrors and been hurt, but the