Page 26

B RIONY PRESSED HER BACK against the wrought iron and stared up at the castle. It must have comprised three sprawling stories of stone, with a large dome in the center.

Was this to be her prison? She looked at her arm again. Toven Hearst. What had he given up to obtain her? She couldn’t imagine that Reighven would have parted with her for anything less than an astronomical sum.

The Hearsts were rich; that much had been clear even without the evidence of it staring down at her. But why spend so much on her?

Toven had once killed four people just to get to her, so she supposed spending tens of thousands to have her now wasn’t so much a surprise. A chill shivered through her as she remembered the way he’d chased her, running alongside her as if taunting her with how easily he could catch her.

The only reason he’d failed to capture her that night a year ago was that he’d been greedy with his magic.

He’d misjudged what killing four people at once would do to his heart.

It had been the first time she’d seen anyone take more than one life with a single Heartstop—an unheard-of skill.

The Eversuns had known Orion was capable of it.

Reports had come that he could kill two people with one casting of Heartstop.

Even the most talented of heart magicians could use Heartstop only once at a time.

Orion Hearst had been the dangerous exception, and Toven Hearst had had the potential to break every rule that came before him.

That night, Briony had moved through a dark forest, stumbling across corpse after corpse, four in all, until finally finding Toven Hearst incapacitated with the agony of ripping his heart four times in a single moment.

She’d wondered then, as she stared at the carnage that was normally impossible for a single magician, if she should kill him where he lay and save Evermore the problem of Toven Hearst down the line.

But she couldn’t. Not then.

Lightning again broke across the sky, shocking her from her memories.

The navigator flame seemed to bob, as if it were saying, Come along now . It began floating to the house again, leading her inside.

Absolutely not , Briony thought. She glanced at the gates, her eyes following the long stretch of the wrought-iron fence into the inky night. Briony took off to the right, following the fence and hoping for an opening.

She looked at the castle again, half expecting someone to be watching her from the doorway or from behind an upstairs window. It remained dark.

The rain pelted her face and further soaked her dress. Her slippers were not meant for rain or even outdoors, much less the muddy grass along the fence. By the time it gave way to a stone wall, she’d lost one of her slippers in the mud.

Briony looked up the wall as lightning cracked the sky. It was ten feet high, at least, and with no footholds for climbing. She kept moving, circling the castle with one eye on the door where the navigator flame waited for someone to navigate.

As she rounded the southeastern side, her shoulder burned and her head pounded. Each breath felt like a stab in the ribs. She reached for her magic, either mind magic or heart magic, but wasn’t surprised to find nothing responding to her.

Briony thought of Larissa. Did Toven know that Finn had taken her?

Surely he had to. As she shivered against the wind in her thin dress, she found herself almost mourning the loss of Larissa.

When there had been two of them, Briony had felt safer somehow.

The idea of being alone, under Toven Hearst’s roof, powerless in so many ways …

She’d never needed to know hand-to-hand defense. She’d always had Anna by her side. Briony had learned plenty of magic that would fend off attackers of all kinds, but she’d never needed to learn how to fight off a man when she was without magic.

As she curved around the back of Hearst Hall, Briony stopped at the sight of a large pond on the property.

Maybe a small lake. The moon reflected off its surface, and the rain rippled the waters.

Aside from the rivers that trailed down from the mountains, Bomard lacked bodies of water.

Where Eversuns prayed to the waters that were so plentiful along the coasts and in their large inland lakes, Bomardi called upon the stones.

She refocused, finding the end of the stone wall just ahead of her.

She rounded the wall and found she was at the top of a small hill that opened to a field.

She could just see the base of the mountains in the distance.

Her mind ran with the possibility of hiding out there.

She didn’t know what she’d find in the mountains, but all she needed to do was outlive the Gowarnus herb elixir as it drained from her system.

She just needed to run down this hill and toward the mountains.

It was worth a chance.

“I’d stop there, Rosewood.”

She spun. Toven Hearst stood ten feet behind her, staring at her with guarded eyes.

Thunder rattled the sky, and she shook with the strength of it. Her heart pounded with the adrenaline of her near escape and her fear of him, this unknown Toven Hearst.

He wore the same clothes from the auction, but up close now, she could see that his vest was embroidered in silver. The rain made his hair darker, and she thought of the boys jumping off the dock at the Eversun school.

She blinked against the rain. He stepped forward, and it took everything in her power to keep from retreating from him.

“Would you consider continuing this tour of the grounds when it isn’t raining?” he said, his wit as acerbic as ever.

Briony glanced over his shoulder at Hearst Hall, looking monstrous in the storm, then behind her to the mountains. To freedom.

Could she outrun him?

“Before you dash into the mountains to die of either cold or creatures, know that the grounds stop here for the purposes of that ink on your arm. If you cross the line, you will be harmed.”

Briony looked down at the tattoo on her arm, the black and gold that glistened his name. Was that true? Or was it meant to scare her?

He was narrowing his eyes at her. She wondered if her non-responses unnerved him. Even if she’d had her voice, she wasn’t sure she’d have the courage to give him hell like she used to. She used to fight back before she found out he was a murderer.

“Come now,” he said, taking another step closer to her. “You’re being stubborn—don’t make me drag you.”

She’d woken up in her first cell, been dragged on her back to her second, and been strong-armed into the dark closet of her third. And now she was being asked to walk to her final one.

The rain was slowing.

A breeze rustled the tree branches above them, and the moon reflected in his eyes.

It was worth a try.

If she was wrong, she’d end up in the cell like he’d planned anyway.

With an agility she didn’t know she still had, Briony spun on her heel and leapt across the invisible barrier, into the field.

A spark of fire burst through her arm, burning, crackling, sizzling up her nerve endings.

There was the squelch of wet grass under her and rapid movement as momentum rolled her over and over.

Fire spread through her entire body, frying her from the inside.

A yell echoed behind her as the pain surrounded her mind and plunged her into a spinning darkness.

***

Rocking. Swaying.

Briony was floating in the lake at school. The water was warm against her chilled body, and the gentle waves rocked her.

Her mind floated up, thoughts attaching to memories.

She’d been outside in the rain. She’d wanted to roll down a hill.

Toven Hearst had stopped her.

Her eyes fluttered, and she remembered the pain. Her body quaked, and arms pulled her closer.

Someone held her to their chest, warm, solid, a steady heartbeat, walking, swaying, rocking her back to sleep.

Her skin hurt. She could hear the rain but couldn’t feel it.

Warm fingers pushed her wet hair off her forehead, and arms squeezed her tighter.

She fell back into the blackness, like blinking.

***

“What happened?” A voice burst into her mind, waking her. A woman’s voice.

Her eyelids fought against the paste that closed them together.

“She jumped across the property line,” rumbled a voice from the furnace against her ear. “This damned tattoo electrocuted her.”

“Is she alive?” the woman said. It was the concern of a mother. But her mother was dead. “Toven, is she alive?”

The breath caught next to her ear. “I—I don’t … She didn’t scream.”

The low vibration of his voice lulled her. She drifted out to sea again.

***

The first thing Briony became conscious of was the bed. Her eyes snapped open, and she stared at the low ceiling above her. Every limb sparked to life, but they only twitched when she tried to move them.

Tears pricked her eyes. She called out for her father, but no sound came.

She couldn’t move her head. Her muscles were weighed down; even her eyelids worked too hard.

Then the pain came. She screamed and screamed into the silence of an empty room until her mind shut her body down and she slept again.

***

A cold compress touched her forehead, and her eyes blinked blearily at the movement in the room. A hum of voices, but she couldn’t pick up the words.

She called for Rory. He could heal her. She’d healed him so many times—all he had to do was push magic down that vein in his chest to hers. Rory could fix it.

She remembered then. How he’d tried to say goodbye to her, and she hadn’t let him. How he’d asked her, Do you believe the prophecy is about me? Really? In your heart, Briony? And how she’d let him ride to his death.

Tears tracked down her face as she sobbed. She tried to lift her hand to wipe them away, but her muscles didn’t work anymore.

“She’s crying,” a deep voice said. “She needs something for the pain.”

“I’ve already given her—”

“Then she needs more!”

Briony wept, unable to open her eyes. Unable to face a world where Rory was dead. She’d woken up in that world once before and they’d sold her, like she was a piece of land to harvest. Cordelia and Didion, too.

A terrible thought slithered down her spine. That’s how I truly know he’s dead , she thought into the darkness. He didn’t try to stop the auction.

Even without a plan and without an army, Rory would have been there.

The pain of it dragged keening agony out of her.

***

The next time she woke, she could tell it was daylight. She turned her head toward the sun, peeking underneath heavy curtains and pouring out the side of closed drapes.

Briony’s body still ached, but she could move slowly. She swiveled her neck to survey the room she was in, and her body jerked when she saw she was not alone.

Serena Hearst was stirring a teacup set on the bedside table. Briony watched the tall woman standing over her, her long limbs graceful in the dark.

“Hello, Miss Rosewood,” she said, her voice unreadable.

Briony met her eyes. They shimmered a cold blue.

“How is the pain?” Mrs. Hearst asked. When Briony didn’t respond, she continued. “Do you remember what happened?”

Briony remembered the rain. Toven’s gaze as he told her to come inside. The sharp burst of electricity as she jumped into the field. This damned tattoo electrocuted her.

She nodded.

Briony glanced around the rest of the room. It was bare. No fireplace, no art. Only the bedding, the curtains, and the bedside table.

Toven’s mother watched her guardedly. Briony tried to calm her heart as it whispered that she was in this woman’s house. This woman whose son had just bought her like a prized horse. This woman who had married the most lethal man in Bomard.

“You had a concussion and a poorly reset dislocated shoulder. We staved off the hypothermia from the rain, but as you know, you were electrocuted quite severely. It may be another few days until your muscles are ready.”

Another few days. That made it sound like days had already passed. She wanted to ask but let her mouth fall shut when she remembered her voice was gone.

Mrs. Hearst tilted her head at her. “Is there anything else wrong with you physically, Miss Rosewood? Are you in other pain?”

Briony shook her head. When Toven’s mother continued to look her over, Briony slowly brought her hand up to her throat, each movement sending tremors through her muscles. Briony tapped her throat, her fingers brushing past the metal collar still on her, and she carefully shook her head.

Mrs. Hearst blinked at her, realization dawning. She lifted her hand and twitched her fingers. Heat flared in Briony’s throat, and she tested her voice.

“Thank you,” Briony said. Her vocal cords were gravelly with neglect.

Serena Hearst stared at her a moment longer, and Briony felt as if she were memorizing and cataloging her features. Then abruptly, she took the teacup from the bedside table, turning toward the door.

“Rest.” A command not a suggestion.

Mrs. Hearst left. Briony tried to glance past her through the doorway, wondering what part of Hearst Hall she was in, but the effort to crane her neck was too much.

She heard soft voices outside the door, and as she tried to make out the words, her tired body fell into repose again.

***

Rory was screaming.

Briony ran through a maze of tall hedges, searching for him desperately. He called her name, begging her to find him. Every turn took her deeper and deeper into the maze. The sky was getting darker, and she could hear something chasing her. Hunting her.

When she looked up at the sky, the moon was beginning to blot out the sun.

“Briony!” Rory screamed.

She tripped, falling toward the earth. Falling, falling.

***

Briony jerked awake, tears wet on her face. The memory of her brother screaming rang in her head like a bell. Her chest heaved. She lifted her hand to wipe her face, and her muscles protested, but they did at least move this time.

As she shifted in the sheets, she realized she wasn’t alone.

Toven Hearst stared out of the curtained window, facing away from her. The dusk sky backlit him, coloring his pale hair purple and orange.

She glanced at the closed door, the empty room. It was just the two of them, and she had no idea what he wanted with her.