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‘Oh, and yes, I did the same thing,’ she bit out, breathing heavily as she stepped away from him and wiped her palm on her robes. ‘Spread my legs for a man with human blood on his hands. So are you going to spit on me, now? Are any of you?’

Rosalind.

Allie.

My thoughts wouldn’t move swift enough, nimble enough, to wrap themselves around whatever the hell was happening.

‘Here’s what you don’t understand,’ she added, turning away from Halbert and his sagging jaw, her voice loud and clear in the breathless silence. ‘Whatnoneof you understands. This isn’t about liking or disliking. It isn’t about spotless morals or clearly drawn lines. It’s aboutsurvival– of you and me as much as of anyone trying to live outside these walls.’

She was speaking to the galleries, to the hundreds of bewildered eyes blinking at her from above. To the majestic statues. To the marble pillars and walls, the high windows and the sunlight dazzling through them to illuminate every speck of dust whirling around in the silence.

To everything, really, except for me.

Gods help me, why wasn’t she looking at me? I hadn’tdreamedit, had I, that she’d said …

My daughter. My daughter.The words pulsed through my skull like a persistent headache, numbing every other sound around me.

‘The Mother’s empire is only getting stronger,’ Rosalind continued, her sharp words reaching me from miles and miles away – marching on, unaffected, as if the floor wasn’t sinking away beneath my feet. As if she hadn’t just upended my entire existence with a single resounding slap and a few snapped words. ‘The rest of the world is only getting weaker. If they don’t kill the bitch now, theyneverwill – and once she’s done away with that bigger threat between our borders, where do you all think her eyes will wander next? Do you really believe she’ll contently sit down on that throne she built fromourbones and gladly accept there is nothing left to conquer?’

You seem to have inherited your mother’s talent for shouting rather convincingly, Agenor had said, and gods help me, I could see it now – the paling faces as her words sank in, the shocked murmurs rippling through their ranks.

Rosalind didn’t move, didn’t flinch. The words kept spilling from her lips.

‘I stood before that throne, twenty-two years ago,’ she said, and all I heard was that number, the weight behind it. Twenty-two years.Just before you were born. ‘I know exactly what her magic is capable of. So trust me, by the time she’s able to devote a century or two to this city, by the time she no longer has any magical enemies to worry about … The wallswillfall. Sooner or later, I promise you they will.’

Someone had started crying behind me – quiet, muffled sobs.

‘So don’t be idiots,’ she finished and turned to Norris – ignoring Halbert entirely, in a wordless but crystal-clear message that he’d likely fail that simple assignment anyway. ‘Fight her while we still can. It might be the last chance humanity will ever have.’

I realised I wasn’t breathing.

Thathadto be enough, surely? No one with an ounce of sense in their minds could refuse a plea like that, could they?

But Norris hesitated, dumbfounded gaze travelling from Rosalind to me to the audience that had just shouted at him so vehemently. His lips moved erratically without producing a single sound.

‘This is hardly the moment to start worrying about your re-election, Norris,’ Rosalind added impatiently.

That broke the spell. ‘But … but we can’t …’

She scoffed. ‘We?’

‘Well,Ican’t just— We have no idea—’

‘Is that a no?’ she cut in, voice so sharp that even I flinched on the other consul’s behalf. ‘Are you going to refuse to act?’

‘Look, we’re talking aboutmurderers,’ he sputtered with an incoherent gesture at me. ‘How can we trust the … your … Emelin – hell, how can we trustyou– if—

‘I see.’ There was no hint of disappointment in her voice – just cold, factual observation. But her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to her chest and yanked off the lily brooch pinned to her white robe. ‘Thank you. That’s clear enough.’

‘Wait,’ Norris blurted. ‘Wait, what are you—’

The silver lily clattered against the marble floor in response.

‘I’m resigning,’ she pleasantly informed him, bunching up her robe to pull it over her head. A slim, blue-grey dress appeared below; she chucked the robe into a shapeless heap next to the brooch and smoothed her skirt back in place. ‘I’m sick of catering to cowards. Time for war. Let’s go, Em.’

It came out quieter, that last sentence – softer, perhaps. I stumbled half a step back, feeling the walls folding in on me, and stammered, ‘But … but we …’

But we have failed. But we still need to convince them.