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With a twitch of Parsons’s fingers, Briony’s hands were released from their position on the back of the wooden chair. Before she could fight him, his hand was on her arm, hauling her up.

Larissa tilted forward on her feet, the wooden chair lifted into the air behind her, and with a snarl she threw her body against Parsons. The three of them fell to the ground, the chair splintering around them. Briony’s head smacked against the ground.

Parsons yelled out.

Her skull ached as she opened her eyes. Larissa’s hands were raised with the shards of the broken wooden chair still stuck to them. She screamed, bringing them down like stakes into Parson’s neck and chest.

Briony stared in horror as Parsons choked and the blood bubbled. Larissa bared her teeth at her. “Go, you idiot!”

Scrambling to her feet, Briony ran.

There was splintering all around the room. Grunting and yelling.

The guards cursed and scattered as they realized what had happened.

Briony ran the outer edge of the circle, her head spinning from where it had hit the ground. She searched for an exit as every chair she passed cracked and splintered against the ground.

Seventy-four prisoners following Larissa Gains’s lead, and only a handful of guards to stop them.

As she ran by Cordelia, she saw pieces of wood firm in her fists, beating against one of the guards.

Jellica Reeve had most of her chair still put together and swung it at the head of a running guard, knocking him back and climbing on top of him, slamming the wood against him.

The rest of the guards moved quickly to restrain the men first.

Vein’s voice floated down from above. “Some kind of … commotion. Nothing to worry about—”

Spells started flying. One slammed into Briony, and she flew against the outer wall, her shoulder popping, sickeningly. She yelped with no sound.

Someone hauled her up by her dislocated arm, and she tugged out of their grip. Blood dripped into her eyes from a cut on her head, and the pain in her shoulder blinded her.

“Briony!” It was Didion. He pulled her in a direction she hoped was an exit.

Running footsteps thundered from the stage above, and then the Bomardi were there, casting spells and kicking prisoners aside to beat through the crowd. She recognized Reighven’s angry growl.

The smell of magic was thick in the air. The sizzle of it burned her nostrils. They’d only taken a handful of steps before Didion screamed, dropping to his knees at her side. Someone knocked into her, and they were separated.

Cohle screamed orders and Gains organized the restrained bodies, yelling for them to get to Briony.

A pair of arms wrapped around her waist from behind, tugging her back. She kicked, and he dropped her, her elbow slamming into the ground. Arms around her again, and she wasn’t sure if they were the same.

She was pulled up, held against a man’s chest with one arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other wound over her hips. She screamed silently, kicking the air. He moved with her, dragging her away.

Was he stealing her or bringing her back?

The air smelled of blood and pine, and her head was pounding.

She was being dragged away, toward the door.

She heard Gains’s voice close by, and the man who held her turned.

“Good work, Hearst.”

She had just enough time to wonder if it was Toven’s or Orion’s arms around her before Gains knocked her out.

***

Her head burst apart, and she gasped noiselessly against the pain.

Thunder rolled through, rattling her skull. She blinked her eyes open and found herself in a dark circular room. A gavel banged, and she knew where she was.

There were two guards on either side of Briony, hauling her up until she stood on her own. She’d been brought back to consciousness by one of them. She turned to look at everyone else in the holding area, but all she found were broken chair legs and drying blood.

Twisting to look around pulled at her shoulder, recently reset.

She found a backstage mirror, cracked down the middle, and saw that they had banished the blood from her face.

She couldn’t tell if the concussion had been healed.

She was nauseous and spinning, but they might have been the symptoms of a handful of other things.

She tilted her head back and looked up at the place where the stage lay on the other side of the ceiling. There was raucous yelling from above.

“Locklin, we all know you don’t have that kind of gold!” Vein’s voice cut through the pounding in her ears. The audience laughed. “Only serious bids here for Miss Hardstark, ladies and gentlemen!”

Briony’s knees gave out, but the guards propped her up. She was going to be sick.

Cordelia was being auctioned. Then her.

She’d missed it. She’d missed the entire auction. She would never know where everyone ended up. Where Phoebe was sent, or Katrina or Didion or Sammy. She’d have to gather the information as best she could and hope to see them again in this lifetime.

She looked up to the ceiling as the gavel banged.

“Sold!” The audience erupted. “Cordelia Hardstark, love of the late Rory Rosewood, sold to Riann Cohle for twenty-eight thousand, five hundred gold!”

Her stomach heaved.

Such a lot of money. An insane amount. Would she really fetch her appraised price—over thirty thousand gold?

The noise from the crowd deafened her momentarily, and then she knew her concussion wasn’t healed.

A circle opened in the ceiling, and there was Cordelia, lowering back down. Her white dress was spattered with red, and her spotlit face was impassive.

Through the hole in the ceiling, Briony saw Cohle come forward, his thin lips smirking at the crowd. Vein produced a scroll, and the yelling intensified as Cohle took the offered quill.

Cordelia jerked her arm as the platform brought her down, wincing as Cohle signed his name on the scroll. The brand on their forearms must change to reflect ownership. Where Cordelia’s arm had once displayed Reighven’s signature, now it must bear Cohle’s name.

Briony’s head pounded as Cordelia grew closer and closer to her. She wondered if there was something she’d missed. If there was something she could have done differently.

Maybe they should have hidden when Anna told them to. Maybe she should have let Katrina die in the dungeon.

Maybe she shouldn’t have rallied everyone’s faith around Rory. Maybe she shouldn’t have let him go into battle at all.

Maybe she should have been by his side.

Cordelia’s bottom lip trembled beneath somebody’s dried blood as she saw Briony standing there, waiting, and Briony decided her only true mistake had been not killing Reighven in the dungeon corridors.

She should have killed Reighven, and then Gains, and then taken whoever was still alive and escaped. She should have let Katrina die. It probably would have been for the best.

Cordelia ran into Briony’s arms, dodging the guards. “I will find you, Briony. It’s not over.”

The guards tugged Cordelia back, and Briony looked at Cordelia’s face for the last time.

Briony voicelessly responded, Not alone .

The guards took Cordelia’s arms, and she disappeared through the backstage door.

“And now … our grand finale.”

She blinked, trying to focus. She needed to be present. Maybe once this day was over, she would fall asleep from her concussion and never wake up.

The guards pushed her onto the platform. The stage began to rise, and the roar of the crowd felt like a living thing. Vein was yelling, inciting them, but she could only squint against the lights as they hit her.

She looked down at her feet as the stage completed its ascension. Her gold dress shimmered.

The circus was full. Balcony after balcony.

She turned to see the full circle of the audience.

It must have been over ten thousand people, and Briony despaired at the thought that Mallow had this many eager followers already.

How many of these people had been lying in wait, biding their time until the end of the war? And now here they were.

The noise continued for ages. Her eyes landed on the Bomardi on the ground level, filling up the majority of the front rows. Some of them on their feet, hollering. Some of them seated, whispering to one another and pointing to the stage.

She scanned the crowd. Mallow sat in the box reserved for the Seat of Bomard. She gazed at Briony as if she were no more than an elephant, about to balance on a ball. Gains was in the front, Reighven by his side. Cohle and Quill. She couldn’t find the gray locks of Orion Hearst.

“All right! All right!” Vein laughed, sounding like his old self again—performing. “I know we’re excited. Some of us have a new source of power to test out.”

Briony slid her eyes to Vein as the Bomardi cackled. He’d been seduced by it all. Infected. He met her eyes and quickly looked away.

“Our final lot of the evening,” he announced theatrically. He read off her appraisal notes. “Briony Rosewood.” Hissing. “Eversun born.” Booing. “Gold-blooded Princess of Evermore.” Jeering. “Sister of Rory the Slain and enemy of Mistress Mallow.”

They were on their feet again, yelling in the name of their Seat of Bomard.

She let it wash over her, like a cool bath.

Only one person sat perfectly still throughout. Four rows back on the left aisle. The stage lights blinded her from seeing his face.

“Ladies, gentlemen,” Vein crooned. He raised his hands to call for peace. “I’ve not yet begun the bidding.”

The lights were hot.

She focused on the lone person, still not socializing. Maybe he’d already bid on his lot and now was just enjoying a night at the circus.

Vein read out her grading. “As you know, much like Miss Phoebe Rosewood, this heartspring runs with golden blood. The Rosewood bloodline has an affinity for shield magic and protection spells. I do think I can theorize that whoever bonds to this golden heartspring will become flooded with more shield magic than anyone in Bomard knows what to do with.”