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It was a journal. A magician’s entry from a thousand years ago, back before they started measuring time after Vindecci. It detailed a ritual to save his daughter’s “purity” from “the wolf.”

Two candles. Two parents. The mother cleanses, the father bleeds her.

She slammed the book closed, cheeks burning in anger and embarrassment. She pivoted to Toven, ready to release her pent-up rage.

A warm hand dropped on her shoulder. He was staring down at the blood dripping from the slice over her heart. He raised his hand and cast a spell to sew the skin back together. His eyes didn’t leave her chest as she felt the cut heal.

“What if it hadn’t worked?” she asked, voice thin.

He stepped back from her and ran his hand through his hair. “Then I would have thought of something else. A different spell.”

She wondered at what point he would have come to her room, held her down on the bed, and penetrated her.

Minutes before the “visitors” arrived? Or perhaps he’d rather let them all die instead.

“And if you couldn’t find another spell? When would you have consulted me and my opinion on the matter?”

He blinked at her before looking away to her bookshelves. “I was hoping I could find something like a glamour. Something cast to deceive the detection spell.” He swallowed thickly. “I was hoping—”

“You were hoping I’d never have to know,” she finished for him. Her skin buzzed with anger. “To cast a spell and brush it under the rug.”

His lips pressed together tightly. “Do you not understand that we could be under investigation? By order of Mallow, you are being examined tomorrow morning, and we have no idea why—”

“I understand perfectly, thank you,” she spat.

“I also understand that you had twelve hours in which you could have told me what was going on”—he took a breath to interrupt—“to inform me of the problem so that we might be able to come up with a solution together , but instead you chose to surprise me—”

“My family is in jeopardy, Rosewood—”

“And you’re blaming me for that?”

“Sometimes I have to act without your approval to do what’s best for my family! Not just you, all four of us!”

Her lips opened in a silent gasp.

His eyes widened as he seemed to realize what he’d just said. His mouth snapped shut, horror dawning over his features. Before she could press him further, he turned on his heel, dashing for the door.

Briony gaped at the empty doorway for several long moments before sitting down on the corner of her bed. She stared at the fluttering light in a jar on her nightstand, listening to the echo in her ears of him calling her family.

***

At seven the next morning, Toven knocked on her bedroom door.

“They’ve arrived.” His voice was flat. And his eyes were cold.

She had been dressed for hours, unable to sleep. It seemed the same for him. Both of them resigned to whatever fate awaited them.

Pulling her bedroom door closed behind her, she followed him down the stairs and to the drawing room.

As he pushed open the door, he took her elbow in a firm grip, tugging her across the threshold behind him.

She cataloged the room quickly. Serena. A man and a woman in nurse uniforms that she didn’t recognize. Cohle. And turning to greet them, a smug leer on his face, was Reighven.

She stumbled, her stomach tight, before she cast her gaze down to the floor.

Toven’s steps slowed, but he gave away no other reaction.

“Cohle. Reighven,” he greeted.

“Apologies for being so early, Hearst,” Cohle said without a hint of remorse. “But your mother tells me you’re early risers here at Hearst Hall.” He smirked at her and Toven.

“Yes. Thank you for your hospitality, Serena,” Reighven said with a wink.

Serena stepped forward. “Of course, Lag.” A thin smile pasted on her face. “And I’d prefer if you called me Mrs. Hearst.”

Briony turned her eyes down to the stone floor. Her skin was cold, and her breath was shallow.

“What’s this about?” Toven asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, shifting in front of her.

“Reighven and I have been tasked to check in on the heartsprings,” Cohle said. “There’ve been a few issues, and Mallow has asked us to follow up.” His voice scratched down her spine.

The male nurse conjured an examination table and silently gestured toward it. They’d been silenced, she realized.

She padded to the exam table, and all eyes were on her as she obediently slid up onto it.

“Looks like you learned how to play nice after all, Princess,” Reighven said.

“I’ll ask you not to speak to my heartspring,” said Toven coldly. “You may address me if you have a direct order for her.”

Briony lay back, her mind numb. She breathed deeply, pulling air into her empty lungs. A lake with still waters.

“What kind of issues?” Serena asked. “What’s wrong with the other heartsprings?”

The nurses hovered over her, silently casting several scans.

“One of them wasn’t properly sterilized,” Reighven said.

And Briony felt the room shake, quivering before her eyes.

There was a thick silence as the nurses tested her.

The only other woman she’d heard was to be sterilized was Phoebe, the other surviving Rosewood. Had Phoebe become pregnant?

Her chest shook.

Her fertility would be ripped from her again. This possibility. This small chance of a future.

The male nurse tapped against her left hip bone. A dim red light appeared. He switched to Briony’s other side, and with a tap, a bright green illuminated the man’s face.

A pause, like skipping a step on the stairs. She felt every eye in the room on her waist. She didn’t dare look at Toven.

And then a sharp, “Ha!” cracked from Reighven’s throat. He chuckled, and the room shook with it. “Two months with a fertile slut and she’s not knocked up? You check to see if your boys swim, Hearst? With me, you’d have triplets by now—”

“That’s enough, Lag,” Serena hissed. “Please remember your manners while you’re in my house.”

Reighven scoffed. He breathed as if he would say something else, then stopped himself. He turned back to the male nurse. “Scan for her virginity.”

The room tensed. Cohle laughed.

“Toven, you’ve fucked her, of course,” Cohle said.

“ Gentlemen ,” Serena warned.

“I want proof,” Reighven said. “Do it.”

The female nurse produced a bundle of branching white flowers. Briony held her breath as the familiar scan washed over her, centering on her abdomen, then stopped. It found nothing. Briony almost cried in relief.

“See, Lag? Stones …” Cohle sighed. “All right, carry on. Finish the sterilization.”

The room went silent.

The male nurse stepped forward.

Briony braced herself for the wrenching pain she’d felt the last time her tubes had been severed. She looked past the arm of the nurse toward the ceiling and took a shuddering breath, focusing on anything but the image of children with her curls and gray eyes—

“Don’t—” A throat cleared. “She’s my property. Don’t I get a say here?”

Briony swallowed, blinking rapidly. A thick silence fell like snow.

“Why, Hearst? You want pups?” Reighven chuckled.

Cohle hummed. “The Rosewood girl and all tied to her line must be sterilized. Clearly, you know why.”

“Carvin’s wasn’t done right, either, and we took care of that yesterday.”

Phoebe. Briony’s pulse thudded.

Toven seemed to have come to the end of his arguments.

Briony saw the faint green light over her hip fading, winking out of existence.

Her limbs were heavy. She felt cold and useless. Pain pricked behind her eyelids.

It would all be over soon.

The male nurse lifted his hands and positioned them over her hip. Briony squeezed her eyes closed as he prepared to cast—

A crack of wind whipped by her. There was a sudden voiceless gasp and a whoosh of air.

Briony’s eyes snapped open as a grunt sounded to her right, followed by a crash!

“Mother!”

Briony jolted, springing to her side off the table. Toven was next to her in a heartbeat.

The male nurse was on the floor several feet away, face dazed, as if not quite knowing what had sent him there.

Reighven lay crumpled against the far wall, head lolling and unconscious.

Serena Hearst’s hands were outstretched, magic crackling between her fingers as she faced Cohle, who looked as shocked as Briony felt.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do this,” Serena said, voice pitched low and dark, eyes intent on Cohle. “Miss Rosewood is under my protection.”