Page 21

P ORTALS ALWAYS FELT LIKE THEY FLATTENED YOU and pulled you apart at the same time. As Gains tugged her through behind him, with his flesh touching her tattoo, she wondered what would happen if he let go of her in the middle of the portal. Where would her body go?

When they broke through to their destination, Briony had two seconds to let her eyes adjust to the dark before she was forced onto a chair, arms dragged behind her. Two guards in Bomardi blue affixed her hands to the back of the chair with a simple spell that worked like glue.

Gains secured Larissa to a chair on her left, instructing the guards in low voices. Briony saw chairs with restrained people lining the entire room.

Was it a room? She looked up to a tall ceiling, maybe three stories, dizzyingly high. There were catwalks and ropes, but also strange things hanging from pulleys. The entire room was a circle.

The hum of hundreds of voices slithered down to them from above the ceiling.

She knew where they were. It was the Bomardi Circus. Her father had taken them when they were young, and the entertainers had given her purple roses for her hair.

And now she was below deck, like one of the animals that danced for applause.

She looked to her right and found Cordelia sitting several chairs away, eyes wet and cast down.

Briony glanced around. The chairs with prisoners continued in a broad circle, and she startled when she recognized Didion looking back at her.

His eyes were bruised black, and his lip was cut. To his left were more men looking much the same, many of them from Rory’s army. She found Sammy, and when he nodded at her from across the circle, tears pricked her eyes.

Briony whipped her head around, trying to take in as much as she could. Exits, hiding places, weapons.

There were about seventy prisoners according to Gains’s count yesterday.

She counted fourteen Bomardi down below with them, and half of them were loudly planning to bid.

They couldn’t do that from down here. One guard was standing directly in front of Briony with his back to her.

He scanned the room, looking for threats.

He was so young, though. He couldn’t be older than twenty. He had pale skin and dark brows that made him look more menacing than his slight frame suggested.

“Parsons, right?” Larissa said to her left. Her gaze was on the back of the guard’s neck. He gave her his profile in response. “Stones, you’ve grown up. How’s your father?” she said conversationally.

Briony squinted at her. Was now really the time for catching up?

“He’s fine,” Parsons said shortly.

“I was sad to hear that the Trows wouldn’t clear his gambling debts. Shame.”

Larissa seemed to be sympathetic, but Briony couldn’t believe she would poke a sore subject while restrained to a chair.

Before Parsons could respond, a man swept in through the stage door with Cohle trailing behind him.

Briony recognized him instantly, but she didn’t know his name.

He was one of the most well-known Bomardi entertainers.

In the cities, they drew his face on the sides of buildings, advertising his performances.

He had probably been in the circus that day she’d been with Rory and her father, young and just starting out.

The man’s piercing blue eyes traveled over the chairs, stopping briefly over her face. He knew her. He looked down at his shoes and fiddled with the papers in his hands.

“Bomard thanks you for your services, Mr. Vein,” Cohle hissed, clapping him on the shoulder.

“Yes, Cohle. I am … glad to be of assistance.” He shuffled the papers, and Briony recognized them as the notes the appraiser had taken.

She wanted to scream. Vein could stop this. He could try. He wasn’t like the rest of them.

Vein looked down at one of the pages and turned to Cohle. “Is this an error? This number?”

Cohle smiled and nodded at Cordelia. “No error. The future Queen of Evermore. If you think that’s good, take a look at the Eversun princess.”

Vein flipped to the next page, and his face paled.

Briony frowned. The Hearsts had not come to collect Eversuns from the cell. Orion had said he wouldn’t be buying heartsprings, but did that mean he had no one to sell? Would any of the Hearsts be out in the crowd tonight?

She looked to Larissa. Toven would be. Briony couldn’t imagine a world in which Toven Hearst didn’t come to claim Larissa Gains.

They’d been close at school, and at one time their betrothal had been imminent.

As for why they hadn’t already been married in the years since, Briony could only assume that the uncertainty of war kept young Bomardi from creating unions, much in the same way Rory and Cordelia had put off marriage.

“We need to take our seats, Mr. Vein,” Cohle announced, earning the attention of the other Bomardi. He offered his hand, and Vein took it. “The circus is yours.”

Briony watched as Gains and the others followed Cohle out. Reighven made sure to sweep by her, trailing his fingertips across one shoulder, dipping below her collarbone and across. When she could bring her eyes off the floor, she looked up to see Parsons glancing away from her.

“Yes, she’s been the center of attention all week,” Larissa said to Parsons.

“Everybody has their eye on her.” Suddenly, Larissa leaned forward as far as her restrained arms would allow.

“And did you hear how much she’s estimated to go for?

” she said in a loud whisper, as if she and Parsons had a secret. “Thirty thousand gold.”

That caught Parsons’s attention. Briony didn’t know how Larissa had heard about her estimated price, but it didn’t matter. Parsons turned to look over his shoulder, his lips parting at the number.

A bell chimed. Vein cleared his throat and moved to the center of the room. He seemed focused on ignoring the presence of the people whose sale he was about to facilitate. A circle in the ceiling opened, and a platform rose with Vein on it, lifting him to the audience.

A stage light hit him, igniting his smile and jaunty step. The theater roared, and Briony jumped with the pressure of it. Thousands of people.

The platform completed its lift, and the ceiling was closed again.

“Welcome!” Vein’s amplified voice spun over the crowd, reaching below stage easily. “Welcome. Find your seats, ladies and gentlemen!”

Briony’s heart thundered in time with the applause.

One of the women a few chairs away started to hyperventilate. She dipped her head between her knees, tears tracking down her cheeks, mouth open wide. One of the guards went to check on her, wrenching her up.

Vein began his opening remarks. “We are honored tonight by the presence of Mistress Mallow. May she reign forevermore.”

Briony shivered. Mallow was up there. As she listened to the shouts and applause, Briony imagined the tunnels of Mallow’s black eyes on her as Bomard sold her off to the highest bidder.

Vein launched into propaganda about the days to come, signaling Mallow’s power and Bomard’s right to rule over the entire Moreland continent.

Two of the guards stared up, listening to Vein. The others were hovering around the men across the room, as if waiting for trouble.

“And she’s a virgin,” Larissa said. Briony glared at her, wondering why she was still pushing this. Larissa relaxed in her chair and gazed at her. “I couldn’t fathom what anyone would want that for in the bedroom, but the blood?” Larissa whistled.

Parsons’s head was turned to listen.

“They’ve only asked for another five thousand for the virgins, but I would have gone higher.

Imagine if you drain her blood once a week—not enough to kill her, of course, but a healthy amount of it.

What does that go for on the black market here?

Five hundred gold?” Larissa smiled. “I was never very good at maths, but do that once a week for a year? Two years?”

Briony stared at her. Where was she going with this?

Above them, Vein continued. “We have seventy-four lots for auction tonight,” he announced magnanimously. The crowd erupted. Across the room, Didion pulled against his chair, fighting the spell that stuck his hands to it.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll bring each lot onstage, one at a time. I have here a measure of their magical strength out of five. All lots sold as is. The winning bidders will coordinate with Gains at the end to arrange payment. Let’s start off the evening right,” Vein crowed. “With a Meers.”

Two guards moved to pull Sammy to the center, where the platform would raise him up. A trapdoor opened in the ceiling.

Briony’s heart leapt. The auction was beginning.

Larissa was unfazed. “So, Parsons,” she said. “You’re not bidding? Stuck down here with us instead?” She hummed. “That doesn’t seem right.”

Sammy’s hands were fixed together behind his back, and he had a black eye and a limp. He was shoved to the circle in the center, and the stage rose with him on it.

“Did they give you payment for your service to Mistress Mallow at the very least?” Larissa asked.

“Stop talking,” Parsons snapped at her. He turned to face them. “Or I’ll have to silence you.”

Briony looked between them as Larissa grinned.

“I just think it’s a shame. That’s all,” Larissa said.

Above, Vein read Sammy’s catalog. “Thirty-one years old. Son of General Meers of Evermore.”

The crowd hissed.

Parsons’s eyes flicked to Briony, his lips tight with a decision he seemed to be making. Briony’s pulse raced with the way he looked at her. Like she was a diamond in a glass case.

“Specialized in combat and strategy at school, so this heartspring would be perfect for someone in Bomard’s army. The strength of his magic was measured at a four out of five. Most impressive.”

Parsons glanced at the positions of the other guards. Almost all of them were staring upward, listening to the auction. He moved quickly.

“Let’s start the bidding at two thousand gold pieces.”