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“I F YOU ’ RE NOT GOING TO TRY , then maybe we should just stop.”

“Oh, please spare me, Rosewood.” Larissa slouched in her chair with a harsh look. “Perhaps you’re an awful instructor.”

Briony crossed her arms. She couldn’t believe she’d worried about Larissa in her absence—that she’d actually wanted to see her at one point.

They’d been at this for two hours already.

Earlier this morning, Briony had been woken from a fitful dream, full of soft white sheets, long muscular thighs, and warm hands.

Larissa had been pounding on her door, claiming that it was nine o’clock and she’d be down in the drawing room waiting for her.

Toven had yet to make an appearance, and Briony wondered if he would.

She had considered asking about the meditation chamber near the kitchen for their lessons, but Larissa was nowhere near ready to stare at blank walls all day. And Briony was in no hurry to return there.

Larissa let her head drop on the back of her chair and breathed deeply. “We have to go faster,” she said. “This is taking too long.”

“If you don’t comprehend the basics, then how can you possibly expect to master the advanced?” Briony stood from her chair and walked to the window.

They’d been facing each other in armchairs on either side of the coffee table, meditating for hours. As someone who’d never even practiced it, Larissa needed to understand where mind magic was drawn from. Briony couldn’t just tell her to reach for that thread if Larissa didn’t know which one.

And of course, it was possible Briony was a bit distracted herself.

Whenever she let her mind drift, she’d see her lips, pink and full, closing over the tip of Toven’s cock.

And speaking of, he must have a much more powerful mastery of mind magic than she thought in order to conjure an image of himself that must have been …

enlarged. Exaggerated, perhaps. The version of Toven that he had supplied for instructional purposes had been quite imposing.

True, she had never seen a man’s cock before, but she couldn’t possibly imagine that he was quite so … stately.

“I’m tempted to learn mind magic just to know what’s gotten you so upset over there, Rosewood.”

She looked at Larissa, finding her with legs crossed, elbows draped across the arms of the chair, and a wide smirk on her face. Briony realized she was running her fingers over her lips, staring off at the Hearst grounds with a flush to her cheeks.

Shaking off her thoughts, she said, “Nothing. Are you ready to begin again?”

Briony returned to her chair, but Larissa just kept smirking at her.

“So,” Larissa said, “how often do you and Toven get into it like that? I must admit, I’m surprised he allowed you to strike him, much less speak to him in that manner, seeing as you’re supposed to be his captive.”

“And you’re supposed to be dead,” Briony said with a shrug. “We’re all playing roles, aren’t we?”

Larissa sent her a catlike smile.

Briony tilted her head. “Why do you want to attend the Biltmore parties this badly, Larissa?”

Leveling her gaze on her, Larissa responded, “Revenge.”

Briony stared back. While she still didn’t know what had caused Larissa to be put up for auction with the rest of them, she’d certainly seen her beg her own father for her life. She’d witnessed Hap Gains claim he had no daughter.

Nodding at the answer, Briony took a deep breath. “Ready to begin again?”

“I’m curious how this whole thing works,” Larissa said slyly.

“What whole thing?” Briony assumed she was talking about the mind magic.

“Toven Hearst and his golden heartspring.” Larissa examined her. Briony waited, wanting Larissa to do the talking. “I mean, he clearly isn’t interested in taking advantage of”—she lifted her brows—“all you have to offer.”

Briony didn’t know if she meant as a heartspring or as a woman, and she wasn’t about to ask for clarification.

“So what does he do with you all day?” Larissa continued with a shrug.

“Generally, he ignores me,” Briony said.

“Does he?” Something glinted in her blue eyes. “Yet you feel comfortable pounding on his door at two in the morning? Do you visit each other in the dark often, Rosewood?”

Briony’s memory snapped to Toven standing in the middle of her room in nothing but pajama bottoms, Toven’s eyes drifting over the front of her blood-soaked nightdress.

“No,” she said. “I was just watching from my window for him to come home last night, that’s all.”

Larissa tilted her head. “Your window.”

“Yes, I’m in the room next to his.”

Larissa went very still, and for a moment, Briony wondered if she was supposed to be lying to her about sleeping in a dungeon. But then the corner of her mouth ticked, and she breathed a loose laugh.

“Right,” Larissa said quietly, turning her head to look out the window.

Briony had just begun to wonder if she’d said something wrong when there came a knock on the drawing room door, then Toven stepped through. Seeing him again after last night was like a lightning strike through Briony’s body.

He stood just this side of the entry, as if he wouldn’t dare come closer. He wore black trousers and a black shirt, and his eyes were empty.

“Come to check on us?” Larissa said when it was clear he would not greet them.

“I have news.”

Briony stared at him, thinking it odd that he kept himself so far away. She couldn’t even tell if he was looking at Larissa or her when he next spoke.

“Canning Trow’s elixir has been outlawed from Biltmore Palace, by order of Mistress Mallow,” he said, and Briony struggled to hear him with how low his voice was. “It is also no longer allowed on any heartsprings who are being held as political collateral.”

Briony and Larissa glanced at each other.

“What happened?” Briony asked.

He began fiddling with the ring around his middle finger.

“Finn and I just returned from an audience with Mallow that I requested, so I could speak to a guilty conscience I had for something that transpired last night.”

His tone was cold and his volume low, and Briony watched his eyes—unblinking. Larissa sat at attention, hanging on his every word.

“I told her that while it was indeed my idea to host a smaller gathering away from Biltmore last night, it was not my intention to expose the president’s daughter to such vulgar festivities.

We knew it couldn’t be Mallow’s strategy to instill such fear in a woman who would be returned in one piece one day. ”

Briony lifted her brows, and Larissa sat back in her chair with a deep, satisfied breath.

“Of course,” Larissa said melodically. “It hadn’t been your intention at all.”

There was something in the way Larissa emphasized “your” intention. Something in the way Toven had phrased everything so carefully to them. Because if it hadn’t been Toven’s or Finn’s intention, then the blame lay somewhere.

Briony’s lips parted, and she almost smiled.

Toven had found a way to get one over on Canning. Just as she’d told him he should.

He’d also found a way to keep Briony from ever taking the elixir. She was relieved: He had no reason to fight her about going back to Biltmore any longer.

She cleared her throat. “Were either you or Finn punished?”

“No,” Toven said. “Mistress Mallow was extremely grateful for the update and appreciated our acknowledgment of guilt.” He nodded at Larissa. “Finn will be allowed to continue bringing Juliana to Biltmore, but as his guest only.”

Which meant, Briony inferred, that Larissa could still go to Biltmore in Juliana’s place, and she wouldn’t be forced into demeaning sexual situations in the process.

Political collateral. That’s what Toven had called the president’s daughter. Briony thought it over for a moment. Was that how the Hearsts saw Briony, too? Was that how General Tremelo of Daward saw her? Something to be kept healthy and unharmed until a safe return?

She tried refocusing, but something was niggling at her.

“Finn is trustworthy in all this?” she asked.

Both of them looked at her as if she had sprouted a third arm.

She hurried to explain. “I just mean, he knows quite a bit of information, such as Larissa’s true fate and this plot with the president’s daughter. Couldn’t Mallow find these things in his head?”

Toven glanced at Larissa before responding. “Finn isn’t important enough to Mallow for an interrogation like that.”

Briony narrowed her eyes. “He had an audience with her just this morning,” she pointed out. “And he’s now a successor, so wouldn’t more opportunities arise—”

“Finn’s mind is safe,” Toven said, finality in his tone. “Your concerns are warranted, but you’ll have to trust me.”

Briony looked over at Larissa. She was examining her nails. Briony would drop the subject for now.

Toven took his first steps forward into the room, and something about seeing his body move made Briony’s mind conjure up the image of his naked chest, his muscular thighs, his head thrown back on a sigh.

“Making progress here?” he asked them, but he kept his gaze on Larissa.

“No,” Briony said as Larissa said, “Of course.”

They sent each other narrowed gazes.

“Rosewood is being needlessly thorough,” Larissa said, flipping her hair for Toven’s benefit.

“Good,” Toven said. Briony’s eyes went to him, but he was staring at Larissa and Larissa alone.

“You need to plan for hours of deception. There may be no way to give you privacy at Biltmore for a break.” Toven pulled up a chair across from the two of them and sat.

“I won’t be allowing you to go until you are proficient. ”

Larissa snorted. “‘Allowing’ me.”

“Yes,” Toven said, without warmth. “Only when you’re ready. The person to decide that will be Briony.”

She blinked at him. The rare sound of her name on his tongue conjured the sounds from last night, the way he’d moaned her name as he finished, the way his lips had formed around the vowels, the way his throat had bobbed with the deep sound of it.

She stared, waiting for him to realize it, too. But he kept his gaze on Larissa as if they were in a staring match.