I placed the revolver on the oil-stained concrete. It made a hollow clack that echoed into the vaulted ceiling of the mill, a sound of surrender that tasted like ash in my mouth.
“Kick it away,” Elias’s voice boomed from the darkness above.
I obeyed. I kicked the gun. It skittered across the floor, sliding under a conveyor belt that had been silent for twenty years.
“Come into the light, Princess,” he commanded. “The court is waiting.”
I stepped forward, my boots crunching on broken glass and rat droppings. The air in the Sawmill was different than the woods. It didn’t smell of living things. It smelled of dead iron, ancient grease, and the sharp, chemical tang of the preservatives Elias used to keep his secrets from rotting.
I walked past a tower of rusted saw blades, their teeth glinting in the shafts of moonlight that pierced the ruined roof. The mill was a cathedral of industry, vast and hollow, a place where trees had once been brought to be stripped and broken. It was fitting.
I reached the central clearing, a wide open space where the sorting line used to dump the finished lumber.
And there, I saw the arrangement.
I stopped, my knees locking, my breath catching in a throat that felt suddenly too tight to swallow.
I had expected a wedding. I had expected flowers stolen from graves, a veil made of lace curtains, a grotesque parody of romance.
But Elias didn’t want a wedding. Not yet.
He wanted a verdict.
In the center of the floor, bolted to the concrete, was a single metal chair. Julian was strapped to it. His hands were zip-tied behind his back, his ankles bound to the legs. His head was lolled forward, his chin resting on his chest. His shirt was torn, revealing the dark bruising on his ribs from the fight at the cabin, and fresh blood matted the hair at his temple.
“Julian,” I whispered.
He didn’t move.
But he wasn’t alone.
Facing him, arranged in a neat semi-circle like a jury box, were three other chairs. They were mismatched—a folding chair, a wooden dining chair, and a plastic lawn chair—scavenged from the trash.
And sitting in them were the Guests.
I clapped a hand over my mouth to stifle the scream that tried to tear its way out.
To the left sat Sarah Miller. She was still wrapped in the silver duct-tape bandages Elias had applied in the morgue, her body stiff, her head propped up by a block of wood taped to the back of her neck. She was facing Julian.
In the middle sat Ms. Albright. Her hand—the one with the tea cup—was resting on her lap, the plastic cup still fused to her dead flesh. Elias had put a hat on her. A Sunday church hat with a fake flower.
And on the right sat Becca Trent. The blindfold was gone. Her eyes were open, fixed in a milky, unseeing stare at Julian. Her pink coat was clean. Elias had tried to wash the mud off, leaving wet, dark smears on the fabric.
They were the jury. The dead, silent jury.
“Order in the court,” a voice rasped.
I looked up.
Elias stood on a metal gantry ten feet above the floor. He wasn’t wearing the filth-encrusted barn coat I had seen in the cellar. He was wearing a suit.
It was an old suit, clearly stolen from a closet decades ago. The sleeves were too short for his massive arms, the fabric straining across his chest. It was a charcoal gray, moth-eaten and dusty, but he wore it with a terrifying dignity.
He gripped the railing of the gantry like a pulpit.
“The accused is present,” Elias announced, looking down at Julian. “The jury is seated. The Honorable Judge Elias presiding.”
He looked at me. His eyes were bright, feverish, burning with a lucid madness that was far scarier than confusion.
“And you,” he said, pointing a thick, scarred finger at me. “You are the Witness. Take the stand.”
He pointed to a spot on the floor, marked with a white chalk X, right next to Julian.
“Elias, please,” I said, my voice trembling. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I said take the stand!” he roared. The sound echoed off the metal walls, shaking the dust from the rafters.
I moved. I walked to the X. I stood next to Julian.
Close up, he looked worse. His breathing was shallow, rattling in his chest. He smelled of sweat and old blood.
“Julian?” I whispered.
His head lifted, just an inch. His eyes cracked open. They were glassy, unfocused, but they found me.
“Elara,” he croaked. “Run.”
“Silence!” Elias shouted. He picked up a heavy wrench from the railing and banged it against the metal grate. CLANG. CLANG. “The accused will not speak until spoken to!”
Elias walked down the metal stairs, the heavy boots clanging on the steps. He moved with a lumbering power, descending from his high perch to the floor. He walked into the circle of light, looming over us.
He ignored me. He walked straight to Julian.
He grabbed a handful of Julian’s hair and yanked his head back, forcing him to look at the jury.
“Look at them,” Elias hissed. “Look at what you made me do.”
Julian groaned, his teeth gritted against the pain. “I didn’t… make you…”
“You left me!” Elias screamed, shoving Julian’s head back. “You left me in the water! You bought the wrong shoes! You told them I was dead so you could have the big house! So you could have the Princess!”
He spun around, facing the dead women. He spread his arms wide, like a conductor presenting an orchestra.
“These are the witnesses to your crime, Brother. They saw you. They saw you try to stop the game. They saw you try to take her away from me.”
He walked over to Sarah Miller. He touched her duct-taped shoulder gently.
“Sarah says you didn’t look hard enough,” Elias said, his voice dropping to a conversational murmur. “She says you stopped searching for me after a week. Is that true, Julian?”
Julian didn’t answer. He was staring at his brother with a mixture of horror and heartbreak that was painful to witness.
“Is it true?” Elias demanded, turning back to him.
“I searched for a month,” Julian whispered. “I walked the river every day. I found the shoe.”
“A size seven!” Elias spat. “I was a size nine! You knew! You knew it wasn’t mine, but you showed it to Father and said, ‘Look, he’s gone, now I can be the only son.’”
“I was a kid, Elias. I was twelve.”
“I was fourteen!” Elias roared. “And I lived in a hole! I ate bugs! I drank mud! While you slept in sheets that smelled like lavender!”
He was pacing now, a caged tiger in a suit that didn’t fit.
“But I didn’t mind,” he said, his voice softening suddenly, dangerously. “I didn’t mind the dark. Because I had a job. I had to watch her.”
He turned his gaze to me.
“I watched you, Elara. I saw you grow up. I saw you leave. And I waited. I knew you’d come back.”
He walked over to me. He stood so close I could feel the heat radiating off him, smell the stale sweat and the iron of the mill. He reached out and touched my cheek. His hand was rough, calloused, but his touch was feather-light.
“But you brought him,” he whispered, gesturing to Julian. “You brought the Bad Prince. He poisoned you. He made you smash the wall. He made you run away from the cellar.”
“I ran because I was scared, Elias,” I said, forcing myself to hold his gaze. “You scared me.”
“Because of him!” Elias shouted, pointing at Julian. “He’s the Dragon now! Don’t you see? Richard is dead. I killed him for you. But the Dragon spirit… it jumped. It jumped into Julian.”
He walked back to the center of the room.
“That’s why we’re here,” he said. “To excise the spirit. To judge the sinner.”
He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a gun.
My gun. The .38 I had kicked under the conveyor belt.
He must have retrieved it before he came down.
He held it awkwardly, his large hand swallowing the grip.
“The jury finds the defendant guilty,” Elias announced, looking at the three corpses. He nodded as if they had spoken to him. “Yes. Guilty on all counts. Abandonment. Betrayal. Theft of a life.”
He turned to me. He held out the gun, handle first.
“The sentence is death,” he said. “And the Princess carries the sword.”
I stared at the weapon.
“Take it,” Elias commanded.
“Elias, no,” I said. “I can’t.”
“You have to!” he insisted, his eyes widening. “It’s the rule! Only the Princess can kill the Dragon. If you kill him, the spell breaks. We can go to the Castle. We can be happy.”
“He’s your brother,” I pleaded. “He cried for you. He told me he cried for you.”
“He lies!”
“He kept your secrets!” I shouted. “He broke me out of jail, Elias! He gave me this gun! He gave it to me so I could find you!”
Elias froze. He looked at the gun in his hand, then at Julian.
“He gave you the gun?”
“Yes,” Julian wheezed. “I gave it to her.”
Elias looked confused. The narrative in his head was cracking. The Bad Prince wasn’t supposed to help the Princess find the Knight.
“Why?” Elias asked, his voice small.
“Because I wanted her to be safe,” Julian said. “And I knew you were the only one who could protect her.”
It was a lie. A beautiful, desperate lie. Julian had given me the gun to kill Elias. But in this moment, he was twisting the truth to fit his brother’s madness.
Elias wavered. The gun lowered slightly.
“You… you wanted me to protect her?”
“Yes,” Julian said. “I failed, Elias. I couldn’t protect her from the town. I couldn’t protect you. I’m not the Dragon. I’m just… I’m just the brother who wasn’t brave enough.”
Elias stared at him. For a second, I saw the boy in the shed. The boy who just wanted to be invited inside.
But then, his eyes flicked to the “jury.” To Becca Trent.
He frowned.
“She’s laughing,” he whispered.
“What?” I asked.
“She’s laughing at me,” Elias snarled, looking at the dead woman. “She says he’s tricking me. She says he’s playing Hide and Seek.”
His face hardened. The confusion vanished, replaced by the cold, iron certainty of the Sandman.
“He’s lying,” Elias said. “He’s trying to steal you again.”
He thrust the gun at me again.
“Take it, Elara. Shoot him. Shoot him, or I will break the dolls. I will break them into pieces.”
He pointed his other hand at Julian. He wasn’t bluffing. He was going to tear him apart with his bare hands if I didn’t act.
I reached out. My hand was trembling.
I took the gun.
It was heavy. Cold.
“Good,” Elias breathed. He looked ecstatic. “Do it. Aim for the heart. The Dragon’s heart.”
I raised the gun.
I aimed it at Julian.
Julian looked at me. There was no fear in his eyes. Only acceptance. And love.
“It’s okay,” he mouthed.
I looked at Elias. He was smiling. A beatific, terrifying smile of anticipation.
He wanted this. He wanted me to sever the tie to my old life. He wanted me to become a monster like him, so we could be alone in the dark together.
I tightened my finger on the trigger.
“Do it!” Elias screamed. “Judge him!”
I took a deep breath.
And I turned the gun.