Page 74

“W HAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE ?” Cohle whispered.

Briony’s heart thundered. She looked among the people in the room, taking stock.

Toven was next to her, his breath coming quickly in her ear. The female nurse was frozen on the other side of the table, with no indication that she’d raise her hands to cast. The male nurse lay still, unsure if coming to his feet was best. Reighven was unconscious.

And Cohle and Serena Hearst faced each other, magic sizzling.

“Watch the nurses, Toven,” Serena said. And then her hands swung in a wide arc.

Cohle was quick to throw up a shield and sliced through the air.

Briony watched in awe as the two of them danced through the room. Serena moved fluidly, catching Cohle’s magic and sending it back to him. Cohle was brutish and thick in his movements.

Toven grabbed the corner of the table and flipped it, dragging Briony down to her knees.

“Stay here.”

He positioned her behind the table barricade, then jumped up and extended his hands toward both nurses. The woman slid to him with a gasp, but the man blocked the spell and came to his feet. Toven threw more spells at him, but he blocked them all.

The female nurse fell to her knees near Briony, and Toven kept her on the floor with one hand while the other swung wide circles to entrap the second nurse.

A window crashed from above, and Briony protected her head from the falling glass. The white seabird from the Hearst grounds sailed inside, swooping low to peck at Cohle just as he’d reached for Serena’s heart. The albatross swerved through the air, dancing with Serena to battle Cohle.

Toven stumbled over a fallen chair, and before he could right himself, the female nurse took off. She wove through the hall and ran out the door.

Briony jumped to her feet in a panic, but Toven stepped in her path.

“Keep him here,” he said, nodding to the male nurse, and then he was running out the door.

Briony glanced at Serena and Cohle, deflecting parry for parry and blasting through furniture, and then to the man on the floor, who was just coming to his feet again.

She ducked behind the table to hide and slapped the floor with her palms. The man fell, and she peeked around to see him tugging on his legs in confusion. She’d stuck his shoes to the floor. It was basic, but she was rusty and she shouldn’t be doing magic.

Crawling to the other side of the overturned exam table, she peeked at Reighven—still out cold.

The nurse was just beginning to unstick his boots when Briony turned back around. She shoved her hands out and he tumbled forward. Uninventive, but she needed to stall.

Serena screamed, and Briony tried to focus—tried to remember everything she’d learned about close-quarters battle.

She glanced up to the portraits of Hearst family members past hanging high on the walls, then reached for one with her magic and tugged it off the wall. She sent it sailing toward Cohle where he stood over Serena as she writhed and the albatross scratched at him.

The portrait flew into his side, the corner catching him under the ribs, just as she’d intended.

Serena stumbled to her feet and assessed the players, searching for Toven. Her eyes widened in alarm, and Briony turned just as the corner of the male nurse’s uniform disappeared around the door.

Briony took off. She had to believe that Serena could handle Cohle. She had to believe that Reighven wouldn’t wake up. Each slap of her feet against the marble floor held a new wish she needed to believe.

She skidded to a halt outside the drawing room and looked left then right, spotting the man running toward the front doors. Briony threw her arms out and tugged them into her chest: the man pulled and pulled on the doors to throw them open, but they wouldn’t budge.

She ducked behind a corner as he turned and ran down the other hall, desperate to get out.

It had been clear from him fighting with Toven that he was not a field-trained medic. He had likely never seen battle. She would have felt bad for him if only their lives didn’t depend on him not escaping.

If he got out and revealed what Serena had done …

If he told someone that she wasn’t sterilized …

Briony ducked through a passage, knowing the shortcut. She skidded out into the opposite hall just steps in front of the man. He stopped so suddenly that he stumbled and fell on his backside, looking up at her in horror.

“I don’t mean you any harm,” she said breathlessly. “You won’t be killed. You just can’t leave.”

Her heart pattered a rhythm in her chest. She hoped she was telling him the truth.

He scooted back from her, mouth flapping uselessly with words he couldn’t voice. Briony brought her fingers to her throat, doing the same thing Serena had done for her when she first arrived. She gave him back his voice.

His hands moved to his throat in shock. He looked her over from head to heel.

“You have magic,” he said. His voice was scratchy, as if it hadn’t been used in months.

“Are you a prisoner?” she said. She fell to her knees so as not to stand over him. “Are they keeping you?”

He nodded. “My sister is … they have her.” His eyes were wild. “Have you seen her? She is at Biltmore Palace.”

Briony’s brows jumped. There was no time for this, but she couldn’t ignore his anguish. “What’s her name?”

“Maggie. She has dark hair like me.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for her, but I don’t know her, no.” She reached out her hand. “Now, I’m sorry, but you’ll need to come back with me—”

“We were both in your father’s medical unit!” He seemed to gasp out the words. “W-we both served you!”

Briony blinked at him. “You’re Eversun?”

He shook his head, tears in his eyes. “Is there such a thing anymore?”

Her mind worked quickly. This man was a prisoner like her. Would she really send him back to his captors? Before she knew what she was going to say, the words tumbled from her.

“If I let you go, you must tell no one what you saw today.”

He shook his head, his eyes wide. “But I can’t leave. They’ll kill Maggie—”

“We’ll tell them you’re dead,” she said quickly. “Whatever has to happen tonight … there will be a lot of cleanup. You’ll be dead, I swear it.”

Briony’s hand reached out, offering him a deal.

His fingers trembled as he took her hand. “What do you want?”

“Nothing. You can find the rebels. Sammy Meers. A woman named Velicity Punt is traveling with him. She has one arm. They were last seen in the north.”

“Because of the tattoo?” His brows furrowed.

Briony nodded. Her heart beat wildly with hope as she held on tightly to his hand.

“Tell Sammy …”

She paused. There was so much. She was nowhere close to knowing the answers to the tattoos.

“Tell Sammy that I’ll be waiting for his signal.”

She came to her feet, still holding his hand, and he followed her up. She opened her mouth to tell him where to go.

“Cordelia Hardstark is now at the Seat’s Castle. The one in the mountains,” he said, the words tumbling out of him.

Briony’s hand squeezed his. “You’re sure?”

He nodded. “She is Mallow’s favorite. She … I’m not sure what she does to her, but I have healed her once.”

Blood froze in her veins. Briony nodded stiffly.

“Go that way,” she said, pointing. “Run to the tree line, then portal.”

When his hand pulled from hers, the warmth left her body, and all of her decisions seemed bound for failure.

What if he was captured? What if he was lying?

He started to run, and Briony turned back toward the passage, her footsteps pattering the belief into her bones.

“Miss Rosewood?”

She turned. She hadn’t been called that by anyone but Serena without sarcasm since she was a princess. Her hope burned bright.

“Something’s not right with her,” he said.

Briony felt her chest tighten with fear. “Cordelia?”

“Mallow,” he corrected, and her brows drew together. “She’s … She was furious to learn that Phoebe Rosewood was pregnant. I took the fetus out of her myself, but …”

Chills crested down Briony’s spine, thinking of what Phoebe had been through.

“There’s something she’s not getting. She thinks there’s a boy heir somewhere,” he said.

He looked with purpose to her belly.

“It’s not me,” she whispered. “He hasn’t … Toven and I …”

The nurse shrugged. “If she finds out you can conceive, she’ll kill everyone in this house.”

She stared at him. Realization dawned on her, hot as daylight.

Briony could still bear the heir twice over.

She was a Rosewood.

The Rosewood line was not ended with Rory.

A crash sounded from down the hall and they both jumped.

“Go!” Briony turned and ran as his footsteps did the same.

It wasn’t until she was back through the passage that she realized she’d never learned his name. Just like the strawberry-blonde’s.

She flew through the doors to the drawing room where Serena stood with her arms outstretched, Reighven’s body in the center of the floor and the female nurse’s just a few feet from his.

“What happened?” she said, panting.

Serena whipped her head around. “Where is he?”

There wasn’t time to discuss her colossally impulsive decision.

“He’s subdued.” She looked around. “Where’s Toven?”

“Reighven woke up,” she said. “We had to engage. Toven brought back the girl”—Serena nodded to her body—“and then Cohle ran. I have to keep them both down.”

Briony nodded, and she was running again before Serena could ask.

She burst through the front doors and stopped, deciding which way they could have possibly gone.

A screeching howl yipped from around the back of the property.

Vesper.

She ran, heading toward the tree-lined lane that opened to the property line.

There was a lump of gray fur on the path, and Briony dropped to Vesper’s side.

She was alive, but only her eyes were moving. There was blood in her jowl, as if she’d sunk her teeth into someone. Briony ran a scan over her and found her back broken. She hissed in empathetic pain.

“We’ll fix you. Just hold on.” She ran her hand through Vesper’s fur.

The fox looked like she would bite Briony’s fingers off if only she could move.

Briony kept going, turning down the lane and stopping dead.

There were two figures standing silhouetted in the morning sun. One was on the ground, the other above him, and Briony’s heart begged for Toven to be the one upright.

She breathed deeply, tugged on that string in the center of her mind. Her body disappeared, turning invisible. She hurried on.

She ran full-out without the need to sneak up on them.

When she saw it was Toven on the ground, his gray hair pale in the morning sun, her legs pumped faster. His body was convulsing, twitching in pain.

“Do you have any idea what kind of problems you have, boy?” Cohle’s malicious voice reached her as she ran. “No. You have no idea what your father is up to in Southern Camly, or else his wife and son would never have been so reckless!”

Briony planted herself twenty feet from them and shoved with all her might. Cohle flew off his feet, sailing through the air and landing in the grass.

She realized her mistake too late.

He’d landed only five feet from the barrier line. The line he could cross and portal out.

Toven sucked in air, greedy with need, and pushed himself to his feet as Cohle did the same.

Briony ran closer, panic forcing her cloaking to give out. She saw her hands, visible, as she lifted them to drag Cohle back toward her and away from the line.

Cohle blocked, eyes on her. He smiled.

“Oh, I see. You’re not an idiot, Toven Hearst,” he said, looking between them. “You’re a traitor to Bomard and to Mistress Mallow. Your bitch has her magic!”

Briony reached, ripping a tree out of its roots and toppling it to land on Cohle. He ducked and ran forward to avoid it, putting the fallen trunk between himself and the boundary line.

Toven’s hands were shaking in exhaustion when he lifted them, and Briony knew that Vesper’s injury must have cost him greatly in his magic wells.

She stepped in front of him and sliced her arms at Cohle.

He deflected and chuckled. “Is she going to fight your battles for you, Toven?” Cohle lifted his hands—and before Briony could block, a pain like thousands of knives sliding against her skin erupted in her body.

Briony screamed until it stopped, then she collapsed on the grass, staring at the sun.

Toven thumped to his knees next to her. She turned over. He was barely able to stay upright.

She pulled herself up. Cohle stood over them both, a slash across his face, as if a sword had caught him. Toven must have used his last ounces of heart magic.

Cohle stared down. “Enjoy your final moments with your Eversun whore, Toven. When Mallow finds out about what’s been going on at Hearst Hall, it will be the end of your line.”

Cohle turned, moving sluggishly over the tree trunk and heading for the property line.

He mustn’t draw a portal. He mustn’t get to Mallow.

That was all Briony heard as she stood, magic rushing through her blood.

And the nurse’s words rang loud and clear— If she finds out you can conceive, she’ll kill everyone in this house.

Briony reached her hand out, and with the spell she was unable to complete only two short months ago in the Trow dungeon, she imagined his heart in the center of her palm.

And she squeezed.

Cohle was two steps from the property line when he froze, clutching his chest.

A rush of power flooded her as he fell to his knees, gasping—and then the rush left her, taking a part of her with it.

Her hand was in a fist, and Cohle was dead on the grass, his body falling past the barrier line.

And inside of her, there was only darkness and death.