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There was nothing to distract her from it now, and Taly thrashed against the hands that chained her to the table.

“Hold her!” Aiden barked. Aimee was sobbing, but she gripped Taly’s arms, using bands of water to keep her flat against the wood.

And then Aiden made his first cut.

Taly screamed. And once that scream came out, she couldn’t stop it.

Every scream she’d swallowed, every scream she would’ve taken with her to her grave back in the square—she didn’t bother holding any of it back now.

To hell with pride. Dignity.Ego. What purpose did they serve in a world that was only pain in every direction?

“Aimee, you have to keep her calm,” Aiden growled. “I’m removing the seed. It’s latched to the spinal cord. One twitch and I lose it.”

“What do I— What do I do?” Aimee stammered.

“Talk to her. Tell her a story, anything.”

“I, uh…” Aimee tried, stalling for an idea. Then she said, raising her voice over Taly’s screams, “Do you remember the last day we spent together in Picolo? Just a few days before you turned five? Probably not,” she murmured. “But it was… nice. Really nice, actually. We went surfing—you surfed, by the way. My father taught us all. He started when we were babies, and you were good. Great even. I remember that day, it was—”

Taly screamed and jerked, her body arching against the table.

Aimee forced her back down. “It was like you were dancing with the water. I was sure you were going to be a water mage, and I had all these plans for us. How we’d go to school together, then university, and then we’d get our first apprenticeships in your father’s court together.”

Taly held onto the sound of her cousin’s voice for dear life. The pain continued to recede, flowing from her extremities.

But it didn’t fade.

It concentrated, growing sharper, fiercer, diluting down to a single point of agony.

“We used to have clambakes on the beach.” Aimee gasped the words, blinking hard against tears. “While you and I built sandcastles, Aiden would dig for crabs. And we were happy. For a little while, we were really happy, and it’s not your fault that went away.”

Aiden’s blade cut directly down her spine. Taly screamed, body twisting. The pain was bewildering.

And still building.

Still cresting like a wave of fire beneath her skin

Still reaching for its final zenith when—

release

Finally,finally, the pain released, the full effect of the spells settling over her like a weight that melted her into the table.

For the first time, Taly was able to breathe. For the first time, she realized she wastired. Utterly exhausted. There was enough room in her head for such things now.

Aimee loosened her grip, though one hand continued to gently stroke Taly’s blood-soaked hair. And she was glad for it. Glad for the comfort as Aiden continued to cut and trim the dead Vorpal Vine from her body.

There was someone waiting in his office when Ivain returned to the townhouse later that night.

He’d been expecting her, because Shards knew after today she owed him some damn answers.

Ivain closed his office door. Locked it. Cori said nothing from where she lounged on the couch in front of the fire, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of whiskey dangling from her gloved hand.

“I always liked this room,” she said, the picture of relaxation. “All these years and I still haven’t found a better place to just come and think.”

The curtains had been pulled, the light was dim, the shadows outside beginning to stretch as the sun sank beneath the horizon. The first sunset of a new dawn, and this was certainly not how he’d planned to spend it.

Taly had finally been moved upstairs. When he’d last checked, poking his head into the room to find Sarina and Calcifer keeping their silent bedside vigil, she’d been asleep and resting without pain.