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Katrina’s voice shook. “It’s—it’s meant for love matches.

It’s a kind of … escalation of the heartspring bond.

Much like boosting, in some ways,” she said, glancing at Briony.

“But in the same way that sharing a physical union strengthens your marriage in some cases, the heartspring magic grows stronger when you …” Her breath shuddered, and her eyes flitted as panic set in.

“It’s meant for love matches,” she repeated.

“And when it’s not a love match?” Cordelia asked, her voice tight. “When they chain our magic to them and drain us for power? What does Sacral Magic become then?”

Katrina swallowed thickly. “The power gained from a physical union … it only works when freely given. You can’t— force someone to share Sacral Magic with you.”

“But Canning thinks he’s found a way?” Cordelia asked. “A way to benefit from Sacral Magic when it’s not freely given?”

Phoebe, who had stood silently until that moment, turned to them with a flat voice. “I spent five years in school with Canning Trow. I’d bet anything that that elixir will do something to those women—something to make them ‘give freely.’”

Briony chewed on her lip as Cordelia finally realized what Briony had known since the moment Reighven had put his hand on her: Regardless of the magical benefits of holding the Eversuns captive to be heartsprings, for some of them, they would still be a woman locked in a man’s house.

And Canning Trow had figured out how to make the most of it.

She could only hope that Canning’s “hush-hush” comment meant that his elixir would not be widespread in Bomard.

Briony knew her own future—Reighven had made that clear—but her friends might not have to suffer in the same way.

Many Bomardi, primarily the women on the line, would find this in poor taste.

She wondered at Canning’s audacity in distributing such an elixir with a woman on the Seat.

“Why in the waters does it matter if some of us are virgins then?” Cordelia said, eyes wet and voice cracking. “Virgin’s blood and and virgin’s tears are important for obscure and dark elixirs, but why pay extra gold for a virgin if you’re just going to—to—?”

Cordelia choked. Briony took her hand.

Katrina’s voice was hollow when she spoke. “They used to tell us as young girls that our heartspring magic with our future husband would be stronger as virgins, but I had always assumed that was—”

“Utter bullshit,” Phoebe finished for her. “A woman can be on the Seat or on the line in Bomard, but it’s all the same shit as Evermore.”

Briony watched Phoebe’s fire burn hot as Cordelia’s was extinguished.

Coral and Jellica were returned four hours later. They didn’t speak to anyone, only lay in a corner, not wanting to be touched.

Larissa didn’t come back.

***

Briony woke on the day of the auction to a quiet room, only the sound of muffled weeping. She pulled herself from sleep and opened her eyes.

Larissa Gains was sitting next to her, staring down at her face with an open expression, as if she’d fallen asleep with her eyelids open. When she saw Briony was awake, she closed herself up, painting on the familiar pout of her lips and arch of her brow.

Briony looked her over. She was still in her chains. She didn’t know how long Larissa had been gone, and she longed to ask her what the elixir was, even if Larissa wouldn’t tell her.

Larissa gazed down at her.

“I used to envy you,” she said in a low voice.

Briony blinked up at her, not understanding. She waited for Larissa to laugh at her or mock her hair or her clothes. Something familiar.

“When I was nine, my father told me he wouldn’t leave his position in line to a woman, so I’d better find a husband quick.

” She tossed her hair behind her shoulder and stared out over the room.

There were bite marks on her neck. “I thought it was an odd thing to say to someone who hadn’t started to bleed, but what did I know.

He was furious to see all the Bomardi boys falling over themselves to dance with you at that state dinner between first and second year.

He said that should have been me. He sent me to an evening woman to learn how to seduce men. I was seventeen.”

Briony blinked up at her in astonishment.

Larissa sighed. “She was good, though.” She smiled secretly.

“ Really good. The two weeks I had with her were …” Larissa nodded, laughing.

“When I came back, it was time for year two to start. My father said goodbye to me and told me he wanted me engaged by the end of the summer. And if I wasn’t, then I should be pregnant at the very least.”

Briony’s teeth ground together, anxiety swimming in her veins.

“But I said, ‘Don’t worry, Daddy. The Hearst boy is wrapped around my finger. I’ll have him by the end of the year.’”

She chuckled darkly, like there were layers upon layers to the joke.

Briony stayed curled on the floor in her same sleeping position, not willing to break this dream—this dream of Larissa … sharing with her? Being open with her? She tried to think what could be so funny. How had Larissa and Toven ended that year? She struggled to remember.

Larissa bit her lip, still laughing to herself.

“And now here we are. At the end of the world. Standing in a line to be sold and drained of our magic, and some of us raped, too. And still, I can’t sleep for envy of you. Of what your life will be.”

Larissa’s head leaned back on the wall, staring up at the ceiling. Briony wished she could speak, ask her what she meant.

Briony watched as Larissa turned to look at her lazily. She seemed to be taking in every inch of her face. Larissa’s lips parted as she took a breath to speak again.

“Get away from her! What are you doing?” Cordelia jerked awake, pulling Briony away from Larissa.

The commotion woke several other women.

Larissa rolled her eyes and stood. “Nothing. Just a little girl talk. Calm down.” She waltzed back over to her side of the room.

Cordelia asked Briony if she was all right. Briony watched Larissa as she stared at her nails and played with her split ends until the door opened hours later.

Larissa’s father entered with an older gentleman with white hair and spectacles.

He had a kind face and reminded Briony of her grandfather who’d died fifteen years earlier.

His fuzzy white brows twitched as he took in the room of women.

He cleared his throat and carefully avoided eye contact with any of the prisoners.

“Is this all of them?” he asked Gains.

“There’s about twenty men down the hall.”

The older man nodded and took off his glasses to clean them. “If you wish to start at eight tonight, perhaps we should start the appraisals with the men while the women are … prepared.”

Gains nodded. “Trow will meet you upstairs with the first men in five minutes. Princess,” he called out, gesturing for Briony. “Come with me.”

The older man quickly left the room, while Gains waited for Briony to walk to him.

He led her out and toward the staircase. When they passed Reighven in the hall, standing guard, he smirked at Briony.

“Tell Trow to collect Meers for appraisal, then do the rest five at a time.”

Briony’s heart leapt. Sammy was just behind one of these doors.

Reighven nodded and whistled at Gains before they turned the corner. Gains looked back.

“Tell them to take it all,” Reighven said lecherously. “I like ’em bare.”

“Don’t we all,” Gains said flatly.

It wasn’t until Briony was bathed and dressed in a robe with two beautiful women with accents from across the sea tending to her that she realized she was having her body hair removed, her skin buffed, and her hair styled.

A lot was being done to her, and several of the other imprisoned women were coming and going in the time it took Briony’s skin to look glossy.

She had the distinct feeling that Gains was in charge of this demand.

When the women with sharp faces and patronizing smiles were done with her, Gains gave her clean undergarments and a chemise to wear, then brought her to the next set of stairs.

She followed him curiously. No one had been up this flight.

He brought her up through the kitchens, bustling with servants.

In Bomard and Evermore, these were usually non-magicians from across the sea looking for work.

When they came to a large room, Briony was immediately aware that she was in her undergarments in the drawing room of Trow Castle. But more important, the Bomardi elite were across the room near the fireplace, smoking pipes and drinking amber alcohol.

As she was led toward a two-foot-tall dais at the center of the room, she counted them out.

Mallow was missing, but the man who stood as first in line for the Seat was there: Cohle.

He was a brutish man who loved power more than leading, which was why Evermore had suspected he was allowed to keep his place in line when Seat Pulvey was assassinated.

Canning’s mother, Genevieve Trow (third in line), was chatting with two other women whom Briony recognized as fifth and seventh in line, respectively.

Liam’s father, Caspar Quill, who was sixth, laughed boisterously at something said by Gidrey—tenth.

Florence Kleve, a woman in her seventies with deep-bronze skin, whispered to Carvin, second in line.

And Orion Hearst, eighth in line, drank from a glass of amber liquid, eyes glued to her.

With Gains, fourth in line, at her side, leading her to the platform, she deduced that the Ten were accounted for.

It seemed the men and women here were getting an advance viewing of those to be auctioned.

The older man with the spectacles from earlier stepped forward. He seemed like he didn’t want to make eye contact with her at all.

Briony shivered in the morning air as she reached the platform, some thirty feet away from the Ten.