Page 37

Or sometimes the task was to focus on a moving target, blurring the edges of everything else.

For this, she’d found a large seabird that flew in lazy circles around Hearst Hall, but even as she tried to focus on the albatross and blur the rest, her mind wandered, trying to guess why a seabird would be found in the mountains.

One day a large hawk joined the white bird, dancing and diving.

She’d meditated on the two of them for hours before realizing she recognized the large hawk.

It was Orion Hearst’s familiar. Her chest had squeezed tight in anxiety with the knowledge that the man himself was at home at that very second.

She stuck to the image of a lake with still waters after that.

The beginning theories were familiar due to her studies in cloaking and blending, the abilities to change form or become unseen, but without a thread of magic behind her eyes to tug on, Briony didn’t know what to do with the meditations.

Her hand reached up for her neck, fingers running over the healing fox bite as she tapped the cold metal.

She needed to get back to the library and research a way around these collars, but what if Mallow was going to read her mind again?

Mallow would see her research if Briony couldn’t shield it from her.

Briony was sitting in her armchair, staring out the window at the grounds and imagining the Eversun lake in the place of the front gates, when a knock came. She blinked. The intrusion brought her mind back to the present.

She stood, and when no one pushed their way in, she said, “Come in.”

Toven opened the door, and her breath caught in her throat. She flushed at the memory of the last time she’d seen him, when he had been wearing hardly anything.

He stood in the doorway as if there was a spell keeping him out. She watched his eyes drift down to her throat. “You’re healing well?”

She nodded. “Yes, thank you.”

He said nothing else, just stepped into the room and looked over the furnishings. She eyed him, waiting for the purpose of his visit to become clear.

He stared at her bookshelves, his fingers playing with the ring on his right hand. It looked like it could be onyx, but there was also a green tint in certain lights.

Orion had a similar one.

“Is that a Hearst family ring?” she asked, taking advantage of the unrushed nature of the conversation.

He looked down, splaying his hand. “No. It’s a symbol of the line.”

Briony hummed, a thought coming to her. “Del Burkin is dead. How will that affect the line?”

He quirked his brow. “I see the Journal page has been informative,” he said. “Burkin was Cohle’s successor. Cohle will need to choose a new one now.”

Riann Cohle was first in line to the Seat, should anything happen to Mallow. Briony crossed her arms.

“That’s what I never understood. Burkin is not a blood relative of Cohle’s, but he was chosen to succeed him?”

“Yes. Not everyone on the line chooses their firstborn to be their successor. Some align themselves with other influential families by giving them a place.” He gave her a pointed look. “ Blood doesn’t matter to us in Bomard.”

She scoffed. “Says the man who will inherit his father’s place in line—”

“My father and all Hearsts before him have chosen to pass the position to the firstborn,” he interrupted. “It is predetermined, yes, but it is a choice. The hall and the Hearst wealth follow similar inheritance laws.”

“Isn’t that odd then?” she asked. “When Cohle does name his successor, that completely random person could now supersede your father in the line should anything happen to Cohle?”

His lips curved. “Yes. But the politics of the line only matter to the line at the moment. Mistress Mallow will live for a very, very long time with the bond from her dragon, and there will be no need to plan for succession. The line is nothing but a symbol now.”

Briony’s brow furrowed as she tried to pivot the conversation somewhere useful. When he gave no further clue as to the purpose of his visit, she decided to be direct.

“I was wondering when I might have another visit to the library,” she said.

He pressed his lips together, irritation clear on his face. “Were you?”

Glancing down innocently, she said, “I find that I need to keep my mind occupied, after being viciously attacked in my bedroom.”

He sighed, and she looked up at him as he ran a hand over his face.

“And what of your other books?” he asked.

“I’ve finished them.”

He leveled his gaze on her and hummed. “And you think you’ve learned all you can … about agriculture?”

Briony’s skin tightened, and her stomach flipped over.

He glanced down to the mind barriers book on the side table near her hip. The one covered in a slipcase for a book about agriculture.

She was caught. Would he punish her for hiding the book from him? Her heart was in her throat when his eyes returned to her, but there was an intensity in them that stopped her. As if he was asking her an entirely different question.

But he had to know, surely, that there was little she could accomplish without access to her mind magic.

“I’ve learned quite a bit about agriculture,” she said softly, testing. “But I find I lack the tools for a practical application.”

They stared at each other, unblinking. Finally, Toven slipped his hands into his pockets.

“You think you are ready for a practical application?”

The room grew hotter, and the walls felt closer. They were dancing on the edge of a knife.

“Yes. I learned the basics years ago,” she said, and then as an afterthought: “Of agriculture.” Her lips twitched.

Toven nodded slowly. Then he spun on his heel and said, “Come with me.”

Briony stood frozen before jerking forward to follow. Her pulse raced as quickly as her thoughts. She’d all but asked for her magic back, and this was his response?

He led her down the stairs, and instead of turning toward the library, they crossed the entry hall to the other wing. Was he taking her to the kitchen? For the Journal ? She almost asked, but then he stopped in front of a familiar door next to the tapestry of the Ash Wood forest.

Toven’s face was guarded as he reached for the handle, and Briony realized it was the door Serena had carefully closed on their walk. He let her in, and her gasp echoed off the bare walls inside.

The room was small and completely empty but for a plain white chair. There were no windows and no other doors. The walls were pearly white, and an eerie glow seemed to emanate from the room itself. There were no lamps or candles.

It was a meditation chamber. It had to be.

Briony stepped backward in dread, and her back met Toven’s chest in the doorway.

“No—”

“You said you lacked the proper tools,” he said. His hands took her shoulders and moved her forward.

She spun, eyes wide. “I don’t want to use it.”

His face was a mask, but his eyebrow lifted in derision. “You do know what this is?”

“Yes, but—I—”

He scoffed. “What did you expect, Rosewood? You bat your lashes at me, and I give you back your magic?”

He stood on the threshold, blocking her exit. Briony turned back to the white room, looking it over and wondering if it could truly help her with mind barriers.

She stepped forward slowly. The door shut behind her, and the wall swallowed it up. There was no doorknob, just a blank wall. She was alone in the chamber. The only sound was her heartbeat hammering in her ears.

She sat in the chair, trying to conjure Finola’s instructions while staring at the vast emptiness of the blank walls.

The white walls help you empty your mind. The world outside falls away. Your body falls away. It is just your mind.

Briony swallowed, feeling the same tightness in her chest from years ago. The room was simultaneously too small and too wide. She stood from the chair, her legs shaking, and turned in a circle to find the door.

White in every direction.

Her heart raced as she pressed her hands along the wall, desperate to find the way out. Tears pricked her eyes as her breath shivered in her lungs.

“Please,” she whimpered, fingernails scrabbling for any seam she could find. “Please!”

He’d left her in here. She’d never get out. He was punishing her for taking the mind barriers book.

“Toven! Please!”

The doorknob appeared at her request. Briony tumbled out into warm arms. Dragging in deep breaths, she pressed her forehead against Toven’s chest and stifled her sobs.

“Don’t lock me in, please,” she begged, clutching him.

She had only a moment to feel his arms around her before he pushed her to step back. She took a shuddering inhale and prepared an apology for wanting to learn mind barriers—for presuming he would return her magic to do so.

His voice rumbled first. “There are other techniques. Meditation chambers are not for everyone.”

He dropped his hands from where he’d curled them around her upper arms. She stood so close to him she could feel his breath on her forehead.

The air between them pulled tight, vibrating like a string.

Toven turned and led her back the way they’d come, taking her to her room. Briony relaxed the farther she walked from the chamber. Her mind whirred with ideas that the panic hadn’t let her consider before.

Someone at Hearst Hall used a meditation chamber. Someone at Hearst Hall practiced mind magic, though it had been outlawed in Bomard for five years.

The advanced mind magic skills—cloaking, blending, and mind reading—all began with meditation and a clear mind.

Toven had shown an interest in mind magic in school.

She’d caught him using it a few times. But Orion would also see benefits in mind reading as Mallow’s favored soldier. And what had Toven said?

Don’t show your hand when you’re bartering with information, Rosewood. What’s in your mind can be taken from you.

When they arrived at her bedroom, Briony had more questions than when she’d left it.

She moved through the door and turned to ask some of them directly.

Just then, every candle in the room flamed to twice its size. Briony jumped as the corridor behind Toven seemed to ignite. And just as soon as it began, it was over.

Briony knew this system, as her father had used a similar one. The leader of the realm was demanding the immediate presence of the inhabitants of Hearst Hall.

Toven stood still for a moment, staring at the candles. “I have to go.”

Briony’s pulse accelerated as she was abruptly reminded that Toven was one of Mallow’s skilled soldiers. Underneath his warm hands and his mercurial eyes, he could be as ruthless as his father in battle. He was a killer. She’d seen that firsthand.

“All right,” she said.

He glanced at her one last time, as if he wished to say something, but then spun to leave. The door locked behind him.

Briony dropped into her chair, staring at the mind barriers book and pondering the last ten minutes with a racing heart.

***

She woke late the next morning. It was past nine when her stomach rumbled, used to a prompt breakfast tray delivery.

It seemed the house was behind schedule.

Briony bathed and dressed, but there was still no breakfast tray on her side table. Instead, there was a note.

Miss Rosewood,

I have gone on an emergency.Toven is injured. I don’t know when we’ll be back.

The house may have trouble, but just ask for what you need.

Serena

Briony’s fingers trembled around the paper.

Toven was injured. And it was serious enough that Serena had left to be with him.

She wondered at the small kindness of leaving a note for her. Serena could have left her completely in the dark, but she hadn’t.

Briony stared at her bedroom door, wondering what would happen to her if Toven died. Would the tattoo alert her somehow?

A sudden, inexplicable terror seized her ribs, the pressure so overwhelming she found herself gasping for air. She screwed her eyes shut and drew on the meditation she’d been practicing until it passed.

If Toven died, would she go back to Reighven?

She forced herself to breathe.

Briony ran for the door, hoping against all odds—

The handle turned under her fingers. She cried out in relief, hurrying out of the room that had started to press in on her.

She stood in the middle of the corridor, her fingers over her mouth and Serena’s note in the other hand.

“Hello?” she called out like a child. She had to be sure she was alone.

There was no response.

Briony moved slowly toward the stairs, piecing together what she knew. Mallow had called for Toven yesterday, and now he was injured. Did that mean there was a confrontation? Had Sammy or Finola or Velicity or Didion done something to Toven?

She tried, but failed, to find a scrap of joy that maybe there had been a victory against Mallow.

Gasping, she remembered the Journal page in the kitchen. She raced down the stairs and flew down the corridor. She ran into the kitchen and skidded to a stop, the headline numbing everything inside of her.

REBELLION SQUASHED AT CASTLE JAVIS: ANOTHER ROSEWOOD SLAIN

There was ice in her veins and a cold wind between her ears.

Finola was dead.