Page 11

“All you’ll have on your side is the element of surprise,” Phoebe said quietly to Briony. “Don’t waste it.” She turned to Velicity. “Get Briony out. Don’t come back for us.”

Briony’s head snapped to her. “What? No. We’ll find the men, and we’ll—”

Cordelia grabbed Briony’s hand. “You have to go, Briony. You have to find whatever’s left of Rory’s forces. They need a Rosewood to rally behind.”

“My line doesn’t matter anymore,” Briony whispered. “A woman cannot be ruler of Evermore.”

Before Cordelia could argue, the first bang of the doors unlocking sounded.

Phoebe and a few others gathered the fruit from the floor.

Velicity grabbed Briony’s elbow and dragged her across the room to where Gains had been choosing women for the next round of medical exams. The woman with the braid and black eye joined them.

Just before the second door unlocked, a figure dashed across the room, almost knocking into Briony in an effort to join the next group.

It was Eden. Katrina was hot on her heels.

The door opened, and five women were readmitted into the cell. One of them was shaking so hard that she fell to her knees.

Gains gestured at the next five: Briony, Velicity, the black-haired woman, Katrina, and Eden.

Velicity stepped forward, volunteering to be first in line, and Briony suddenly realized that they had no plan. Just … fight? It wasn’t enough. They had no signal. And what did she know about combat without magic?

Katrina moved in line next, then Briony. Eden and the black-haired woman fell into line behind her.

Reighven clicked his teeth at her as she passed him.

Her eyes flickered over every detail outside the dungeon as they stepped into a small antechamber of dark walls.

The light was almost too bright after that darkness, and she had to squint against the torches.

As Reighven locked the door to the cell with a twist of his hands, Gains opened the next one.

Briony tried to remember the floor plan—the fruit against the dirty stones.

They followed Gains out of the second door and found a labyrinth of hallways. She had no idea how Phoebe had remembered it all. And a sudden fear struck her that she hadn’t. What if she’d made mistakes? Two left turns should take them close enough to that window, but what if it didn’t?

Reighven locked the second door with a heavy thunk, and Briony turned to watch what kind of locking gesture he used so she could replicate it once she got this collar off. He caught her looking and smiled with yellow teeth.

“Don’t be smart now.”

Briony hurried to follow Katrina’s blond hair as she left the antechamber.

Gains led them around the two left corners, and there—

Briony could see the window. It was dawn.

They were ten paces from it when Velicity reared back and swung her chained hands at the back of Gains’s skull. He fell sideways with the strength of it, smacking into the wall.

Briony spun as the black-haired woman delivered a hard punch to Reighven’s stomach, doubling him over in surprise. Eden darted the ten steps to the window and started working it open.

Gains recovered and shoved Velicity’s body back with magic, pinning her against the stone wall.

Briony moved to swing her chains at his head in the same way Velicity had, but she felt a hook around her waist, tugging her back on a string.

She smacked into a hard chest, and Reighven’s pale hand wrapped around her chest to hold her against him by her throat.

She kicked, trying to maneuver him into releasing her. He grunted and held firm, pinning the black-haired woman to the wall with magic. Katrina kicked Gains in the stomach, and Briony watched his hold on Velicity release.

Eden got the window open.

Reighven reached out, and Eden was yanked from the window by her hair. She screamed as she flew, landing hard on her back.

Briony curled forward as far as she could and then flung her chained hands over her head. The metal connected with Reighven’s face with a crack, and he released her with an oof!

Eden scrambled back to the window, nimbly dodging every body part in the hallway and every spell cast. She was fast.

The raven-haired woman had her chains wrapped around Reighven’s neck, choking him. Blood dripped down his head from the smack her shackles had given him. Eden was gesturing for Briony to run to the window, but Katrina and Velicity were struggling with Gains.

“Enough!” Gains bellowed. He reached out and contorted his arm. Velicity screamed and dropped to the floor. Her knee was angled wrong. He’d dislocated it.

Gains grabbed Katrina by the neck and slammed her head against the stone wall. Briony gasped as she crumpled.

Briony’s heart pulsed with rage and fear. Without logic, she sliced her arm through the air, a magical instinct.

Something thrummed in her chest.

Gains gasped, grabbing for his sternum. Blood blossomed bright red against his blue coat.

Time seemed to stand still as Briony looked between Gains and her own hand. The hand that had just sliced his chest open with magic. Velicity’s pained face was slack with awe.

Briony spun, finding Reighven standing over the black-haired woman, giving up on magic and kicking her in the ribs. She flicked her fingers, and her heart sent magic down her veins. Reighven’s body flew from the ground, hitting the ceiling. She pinned him there.

Gains stared at her in shock as he started to heal himself, pulling his skin back together.

Velicity jumped at him, digging her fingers into the slice to tear him open again. Gains yelled in pain, and Velicity screamed, “Briony, go!”

Briony tugged on her magic— heart magic—and cast a shield around herself, the strength of the Rosewood bloodline. She ran to the window, feeling magic bouncing off her shield.

Briony joined Eden at the window, looking down. It was a steep drop onto jagged rocks.

There was a scream from next to her as Eden was yanked away from the window again.

Briony whirled around and found Velicity on the floor barely conscious, Katrina out cold, the black-haired woman rolling in pain, and Reighven standing in the center of it all, Eden held against his chest like a shield.

One hand was holding her throat; the other was held out in front of him, palm up.

Briony’s eyes widened as she recognized the beginning of the Heartstop cast—the spell to crush a heart.

Gains was pale but healing his wound on the ground as Briony stared down Reighven.

“Playtime is over, Princess,” Reighven growled. “Don’t know how you’re resisting the collar, but it’s two of us against one of you. Step away from the window, and this one lives.”

The black-haired woman came to her feet with unsteady movements and tried to rush at Reighven. He kicked his leg out, and his heavy boot caught her hip, sending her flying into the wall.

Briony watched his fingers begin to curl in toward his palm. Eden gasped, squirming as her heart began to collapse in her chest.

Eden’s eyes begged her. Briony began to leave the ledge.

Velicity’s voice stopped her. “Don’t—”

Reighven crushed his fingers into a fist, and Briony screamed as Eden took one last breath—her heart crumpled, her eyes never leaving Briony’s. Reighven let her body drop and began moving toward the window. Gains was just coming to his feet again.

Guards appeared at the opposite end of the hallway, and Briony took off to her left, up the stairs. She’d find the window on a higher floor, and maybe it would give the women a chance if they were separated.

She heard Reighven’s heavy footfalls hot on her heels. She felt several of his spells rebound against her shield.

She spilled out onto an identical floor. A chunk of stone broke off a wall and slammed into Briony’s side. She tumbled to the floor. Her shield was for magic, not physical force.

Her ribs burned in pain, but she rolled back to her feet. The balls of her feet slapped the stones as she ran down the hall, searching for the next staircase or the next window. She tried to find the thread of her mind magic, but it was still silent. It was her heart she was casting from.

Briony threw herself down a corridor and skidded to a stop. It was a dead end. She tried the two doors, but they wouldn’t budge.

When she spun back around, Reighven was at the entrance of the corridor, panting and smiling at her.

“You’re going to be fun to break,” he said. He didn’t bother moving down the hall. He had her cornered.

Briony reached her hand out, palm up. She tugged on the vein of magic in her chest, ready to rip her heart if it meant taking Reighven out of this world.

Reighven’s eyes flew wide.

She’d never cast Heartstop before, but she thought the mechanics of it were clear enough.

Briony curled her fingers into a fist, concentrating on what it meant to kill him. To kill someone.

Reighven’s body went still, and Briony waited. Even with the pulse of magic in her chest, nothing happened.

His yellow teeth smiled at her from under his twisted nose. “You have to really mean it, Princess. You’ll get it next time,” he mocked her.

His hand shot out, and magic as sharp as knives sank into every inch of her skin. She heard herself screaming through the tunnel of the pain. She dropped to her knees, trying to grasp onto any magic inside herself to make it stop.

A slim body with hair the color of straw crashed into Reighven, throwing them both out of sight. Katrina.

Briony’s mind released the pain.

She pulled herself to her feet and ran toward them as Katrina screamed.

Reighven had Katrina by her hair, tugging her up to the same position Eden had been in when her heart had stopped in his hand.

“No—”

“Let’s try this again, Miss Rosewood.”

Gains was behind Reighven, gasping from running up the stairs.

“Hands above your heart, knees on the ground,” Gains demanded.

Briony’s mind raced as Katrina’s ribs dragged in air.

“I already owe Caspar Quill and Riann Cohle a few thousand gold for this little stunt,” Reighven said. He grinned. “Trow won’t mind this one going to waste, too, I’m sure.”

Eden was dead. Another one, too? Velicity or the black-haired woman? Katrina here, about to die. Fifty magicless women locked in a room two floors down.

The men were alive somewhere, but Rory was dead.

“On the floor, Rosewood,” Gains bellowed.

He closed in on her as her eyes flicked between him and Reighven. Her hands were held out as far as the chains would allow, prepared to engage either of them.

She could kill them both. It might take some fighting, but she could do it.

And then what? Who was left?

“I’ll kill this one, too, Princess.”

She could try Heartstop again. Take out Gains. But not before Reighven ended Katrina.

She could kill Gains, then Reighven as Katrina’s body dropped.

And then she’d be alone.

“It’s okay, Briony.” Katrina smiled at her. There was blood on her teeth.

Briony blinked at the friend she’d never been kind enough to.

Katrina nodded. “Don’t think of me. Go.”

Reighven snarled, starting to curl his fingers toward his fist. Katrina gasped but tried to smile through it.

“Go, Briony,” Katrina wheezed.

She had to—She could—She—

Briony dropped to her knees and moved her chained hands above her head.

Katrina fell from Reighven’s grip, gasping on the floor. Alive.

Gains grabbed Briony’s chain and threw her onto her back. He put his boot on her chest, holding her down.

“Go tell Orion we need that Gowarnus elixir, after all,” Gains ordered Reighven. “And clean this up.”

Briony winced as Katrina coughed, clutching her chest. Had she done the right thing?

She didn’t know why she had magic. Had this been her only chance? Had she wasted it?

Gains reached down for Briony’s chain and dragged her down the hall on her back. Briony watched Katrina breathe, knowing the blonde would have done the same for her, tenfold.

She held on to that thought until she was dragged out of sight.