The crossbow I had taken from within the rock pillars was already in my hands. The events of the night came back to me in a rush.

“How do you know this?” I whispered, clutching the crossbow’s handle until my knuckles turned white.

“Because,” Hyacinth replied, fear in his voice, “it has struck me before.”

And when I looked back at the arrow notched in the weapon I noticed the blood on its tip, black and dried.

Down in the river below, the monster spun and its fins flipped, roiling the water. My brother called for me from somewhere far away.

I hoisted the crossbow, resting it against the window ledge, and pointed it toward the moving creature. My hands wouldn’t stop trembling. I had never so much as crushed a bug in my life, and now my fingers froze, refusing to fulfill Hyacinth’s request.

“If you wait too long, you will miss your chance,” Hyacinth said, his voice traveling on the wind.

The scarlet sky made it difficult for me to see where the monster was swimming. I bit my lip and waited. A strange force was holding me back, the deep part of my thoughts that knew something I did not, and as I waited there, I felt my mind cloud. The sky was too scarlet, or Hyacinth was smiling too broadly. I could not remember what my first wish was that had drawn the princeling to me.

“Wait,” I heard myself say in a small voice. “Give me time. I need to think.”

There was a silence. Then, Hyacinth tilted his head at me. “What do you need to think about? I have our sword, with which we can cut through the thorns on the other side of the river. You have the crossbow, so that the river can become passable.”

What was the night flower’s thorns for? Why did the crossbow and the sword exist? Who had the ogre been? What was Hyacinth telling Woferl? The questions mounted in my mind, one by one, until I could hear nothing but their roar. I thought of the black thorns that wrapped around the kingdom’s crumbling castle on the hill, the young queen that never returned.

“Are you still waiting, my Fräulein?” Hyacinth said. His voice was still gentle, still amused, but now I could hear an undercurrent of impatience there. “What is it that has you frozen?”

“I . . .” My throat suddenly felt very dry. I thought of Woferl’s fever, every worry I’d had of the link between us and Hyacinth. “Do you know why my brother has been ill?” I asked.

A pause. A sharp, off-pitch note disrupted the music in the air. When Hyacinth spoke again, he sounded offended. “You think I am responsible for harming your brother?”

The accusation in his voice was so piercing that I instantly regretted my question. Of course Hyacinth would never do such a thing. “I’m sorry,” I stammered, more confused than ever. “I just don’t understand. Woferl has been sick lately, often when I speak of the kingdom or come to you to finish my tasks. Sometimes he looks dazed, or appears to whisper your name in his sleep.”

This time, Hyacinth was silent. His face stayed turned up to me. The music that hummed around me turned sharp, unsettling.

“What a shame,” came his reply at last. Now his voice sounded cold, even sad. “I am here to help you, to answer your secret wish, and you will not help me? Not after all you’ve already done? After all I’ve done for you? And for what—because of these small coincidences? A dream that your brother had? Because you think I am doing something to hurt him?” He let out a laugh. “Surely I have served you well up until now. You do not trust me, Fräulein. And you still, even now, continue to think only of Woferl. But what of yourself? What of your immortality? What has he ever done for you?”

My hands began to shake violently. “I—” I did not know what to say in return. A great fear had risen in my chest.

Hyacinth seemed to look straight at me. “Are you unhappy with me, Fräulein?” he said.

I stayed silent, the ghost of his kiss freezing my lips closed. Hyacinth, Hyacinth! came the whisper from his faeries. I had not noticed their blue light filling the dark corridor behind me, their teeth sharp against my ankles. The memory came back to me of my mother and I in the marketplace, when she’d pointed toward the flowers and I’d brushed my hands against their clustered blooms.

Hyacinths are the harbinger of spring and life, she had said, but they are also poisonous.

I trembled at the words.

“I have lost my patience. Come and help me cross this moat,” he repeated. The sky looked very dark now, scarlet as the wine I had held in my painting.

I opened my mouth to agree to help him, but nothing came out. The words lodged in my throat, held back by the eternal sense that something seemed very wrong. “Please,” I finally whispered. “If you just let me think for a moment. If you will just answer my questions . . .”

My words trailed off. I waited, frightened, for Hyacinth’s reply, knowing that I must certainly have angered him. But no reply came. Finally, I inched myself closer to the window and peered out toward the river below. My heart sank.

He was gone.

It took me another moment to realize that the crossbow had vanished too. My shoulders sagged. My hand came up to rest against my chest, and there, I felt the sharp hollow of his absence.

Why did I hesitate? I had been so faithful up until now, and he had indeed been faithful in return. Hadn’t he? Why would he lie about visiting Woferl in his dreams? I bit my lip, regretting what I’d done, loathing myself.

In all this time, Hyacinth had been the one who’d appeared to me in my most troubled moments. Had he just lost his faith in me? The tasks I’d done—all for nothing? He had promised to answer my wish. What would happen now? How could I ever hope to be remembered for anything without him?

A surge of panic hit me. If he had been good to me in his content moments, what could he do now that I had upset him?

I dragged myself back to my feet and continued up the stairs, careful not to fall in the dim light. I had to find my brother. The tower seemed more frightening now that I had trouble seeing my way, and the strange shadows that twisted and molded on the stairs made me quicken my steps. The music in the air sounded wrong. I did not dare look out the window again. I was too afraid to see the dark hooded figures floating near the bottom of the keep, or worse, Hyacinth on the inside bank of the moat, running toward the tower to find me.

“Woferl!” I called out again. At the bottom of the stairs would be our parents, I told myself, and the madame and monsieur. If they were near, then the kingdom would disappear again and leave me in peace. “Woferl!”

What if Hyacinth had taken Woferl? And suddenly the terror of it flooded me, the thought that I might reach the top of the stairs and find no boy at all, no sign that Woferl had ever been there.

Finally, I heard tiny footsteps echoing against the wall, hurrying toward me from farther up the stairs. My heart jerked in relief.