Page 52

Two days after her shopping expedition with Pasquale, gives him another mission—to attend a dinner her mother is throwing that night and pass on a lie about feeling indisposed, and to ensure that her mother doesn’t leave the ball that will follow the dinner early. The latter part worries him, but tells him he needn’t worry—her mother has never once left a party before midnight, and if necessary, he can waylay her for a few minutes by asking her to dance. The prospect of dancing with the empress doesn’t put Pasquale any more at ease.

“Make sure to say I’m indisposed,” she tells him as they both get ready in her suite: he in a formal suit for the ball, she in a servant’s gown she’s stolen from the laundry. “My mother will take it to mean that I had too much to drink and she’ll be too busy being annoyed with me to be suspicious.”

“And Nigellus?” Pasquale asks. He tries to hide his nerves as she knots his burgundy silk cravat. “Do I tell him you’re indisposed too?”

snorts. “No, that will take on a whole other meaning for him, I’m afraid,” she says, remembering how insistent he was that she never use her powers again. “I doubt he’ll ask about my whereabouts at all. Usually at these events, he just stands in the corner, looking miserable and glaring at everyone. I never understood why my mother insisted he attend, though tonight I’m glad of it. The last thing I want is another argument about what I can do with my magic.”

“And if he leaves early?” Pasquale asks.

“Unlike my mother, I’m afraid Nigellus would reject your offer of a dance. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him dance. He’ll likely leave as quickly as my mother will allow,” says. “But it will be a quick thing, grinding up the etheldaisies and adding stardust. I’ll be gone long before then.”

“And you need to mix the poison in his laboratory?” Pasquale asks.

nods. “It’s the grinding of the dried flowers—I don’t exactly keep a mortar and pestle on my vanity. They’ll have one in the kitchen and the palace apothecary, but those places are far busier and the risk of getting caught is much higher. Besides, Nigellus keeps a large store of stardust in his laboratory, and I’d wager it’s stronger stuff than what I could buy at the market.”

“You never do things by halves, Triz,” Pasquale says. “Not even regicide.” He pauses, considering it. “Matricide, too.”

nods, finishing the cravat knot and dropping her hands, but Pasquale catches them.

“That wasn’t judgment,” he says quickly. “I’m with you, you know that, don’t you?”

“I know,” she says. Pasquale is with her. She doesn’t know if there is a place she could go that he would not follow, carrying a torch to light their way. She would do the same for him, but still, it is a strange thing, this bond between them. Not for the first time, she thinks how lucky she is that their paths converged. He is not the husband she wanted, but he’s the friend she needed.

For all of that, though, this is something she has to do alone. There is no reason for both of them to leave Bessemia with bloodied hands.

She gives his hands a brief squeeze before releasing them. “We should go—the sooner I get to Nigellus’s laboratory, the quicker I can leave.”

—

feels strange being in Nigellus’s laboratory without Nigellus—like she’s in a sea without fish or an aviary without birds. As she walks past his worktable, she can’t help but examine it, noting the neat collection of beakers and tubes, organized by size and ready for use. His desk is as messy as it was the last time was here, with six books opened and stacked on top of one another, like nesting dolls.

There is a pile of correspondence next to the books—much of it unopened, though a few letters appear to have been opened, read, and shoved aside.

She’s tempted to snoop, but she told Pasquale she would hurry, so instead she finds a mortar and pestle among the organized equipment, along with a vial of stardust from the dozens Nigellus keeps in a cabinet beside his desk.

Setting up at the worktable, withdraws the stalks of dried etheldaisy. She places the stalks in the mortar, the leaves and petals breaking off into flakes the more she handles them. Then she takes the pestle in hand and begins to grind them into a fine powder. When she’s satisfied, she opens the vial of stardust and pours it into the mortar as well, mixing the powders as she makes her wish.

“I wish the effects of this poison are as lethal as possible,” she says.

Nothing happens, and isn’t sure it worked. Nigellus himself said she doesn’t have the same gifts other empyreas have with stardust, but she used it plenty of times before she knew she was an empyrea, so she hopes it works at least well enough.

She funnels the blended powder back into the now-empty stardust vial and reseals it, dropping it into her pocket. It feels odd to her, the poison strangely heavy, if not physically, then emotionally.

is going to use it to murder her mother. She is going to sneak into the empress’s bedchamber and mix the poison into her face powder before she, Pasquale, Ambrose, and Gisella leave the castle through the tunnel Sister Heloise told her about. No matter how many times she thinks through that plan, or even says it out loud to Pasquale, she can’t quite wrap her mind around it.

She pushes the thought aside, carrying the mortar and pestle to the washbasin in the corner and pouring the jug of water over them to rinse away the poison, scrubbing a bit with a rag hanging beside the basin and washing her hands thoroughly afterward. She finds a clean rag to dry the mortar and pestle with, then returns them to their place on the equipment table.

casts a final look around the laboratory to ensure everything is just as she found it and realizes she left the door to the stardust cupboard ajar. She shakes her head, chiding herself for her near slipup, as she crosses the room to close it.

As she does, her eyes fall on Nigellus’s desk, noticing a letter that has been shoved to the far corner near the cabinet. A word catches her attention, in an unfamiliar plain script: Daphne. Without thinking twice, snatches the letter off the desk, but before she can begin to read, footsteps sound outside the laboratory door. She shoves the letter into her cloak pocket with the poison and whirls to face the door just as it opens.

Nigellus stands in the doorway in the same formal suit she’s seen him in at every previous ball she can remember, his eyes fixed on her. He doesn’t look angry to find her here, which is a relief, but he is certainly confused.

“Princess ,” he says, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him. “I’d heard you were ill.”

thinks quickly. “And it took you longer to get away from the ball than I expected—don’t I have a lesson tonight?”

“I told you, your lessons are done,” Nigellus says, frowning.

“But the Glittering Diamond,” she says. “Has it reappeared?”

For a moment, Nigellus doesn’t speak, he just looks at her in a way that makes her skin itch.

“It has, yes,” he says slowly. “So has the Stinging Bee—that is the constellation you pulled a star from before, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” blinks, surprised. She asked the question as a way to explain her presence, but she’d assumed that if he had seen those constellations, he actually would have sent for her. After all, he might have put a stop to teaching her, but he’d said himself there was more for them to discuss. Why would he keep that to himself? But as soon as she thinks it, she understands why: because he wouldn’t tell her anything that would encourage her to use her gift. The gift he believes is a curse.

“That’s good to know,” she says. Part of her wants to confront him over keeping that from her, to resurrect their argument from a couple of days ago—not because she expects that either of them will change their minds, but because arguing feels so natural to her. A voice in her head cautions her to be pragmatic, to focus on the task at hand instead of getting distracted by her emotions.

Ironically, the voice sounds like it belongs to her mother.

clears her throat and continues. “I will, of course, exercise the utmost caution in regard to my power. I take it you still have no intention of teaching me any more.”

“I don’t think it would be wise to,” he says, stepping farther into the room, but rather than waving her out, he closes the door, shutting them both inside. The sound of the door closing raises the hair on the back of ’s neck—an outrageous response, she thinks. She’s been alone with Nigellus before, and all of their previous lessons have taken place with the door closed. But as he said, there will be no more lessons.

“In that case, there’s no cause for me to pester you further,” says, pasting a bright smile onto her face and moving toward the door, but Nigellus makes no move to step out of her way.

“Need I remind you what is at stake should you continue to use magic?” he asks.

“Oh, I know,” says. “My life, the fate of the world, stars turning dark. We’ve covered it.”

She moves to step around him, but he continues to block her way.

“Have you ever taken anything seriously in your entire life, ?” he snaps. The anger is back in his voice, still so strange after a lifetime of seeing him nothing but detached. But rather than feeling frightened, revels in his anger. She knows how to handle that, after all. She’s had a lot of practice.

“I can assure you,” she says, keeping her voice level, “I take many things seriously—my mother, for instance, and the threat she poses to me and the people I love. A few ominous words spoken by a stranger that may or may not have anything to do with me? That, I’m afraid, I can’t summon the same level of somberness for.”

Nigellus holds her gaze for a breath and prepares herself for more of a fight, but instead he steps away, allowing her access to the door. She reaches for the doorknob before his voice stops her.

“Then you leave me no choice,” he says softly.

knows she shouldn’t turn around. She should walk out that door and forget about Nigellus and his choices. She should follow through on the plan she and Pasquale hatched—use a wish to get Ambrose and Gisella out of prison, poison her mother’s face powder, and escape through the tunnel in her bedroom. There is no room for deviation.

Still, she can’t help turning back.

“No choice but what?” she asks.

Nigellus doesn’t pay her any mind, though. He begins to pace the laboratory, hands twisting in front of him and face drawn. Watching him, wonders when the last time he slept was. There is something haggard in his expression, a jerkiness to his movements, that she’s never seen before.

“The stars will forgive me—they must,” he says, though gets the feeling he isn’t speaking to her but to himself. “Surely it is a necessary thing.”

Dread pools in ’s belly. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but she knows it’s about her, and it doesn’t sound good.

He crosses to the telescope and follows, keeping a safe distance.

“What are you doing?” she asks as he fiddles with the dials, searching the skies for something.

“It has to be a large star,” he says, still not acknowledging her. “To accomplish this, it has to be.”

“What are you going to wish?” asks, her voice louder this time, though she suspects she has at least an idea of the answer. He can’t kill her—a wish can’t accomplish that, he said it himself—but there are plenty of other ways he can hurt her. If she lets him.

He straightens up and spins toward her. “If you won’t control your gift, you shouldn’t be in possession of it. You’ll thank me when it’s done—it’ll be a weight off your shoulders. A curse reversed.”

But doesn’t see her magic as a curse. Yes, it’s killing her, but it’s also the best weapon she has against her mother—the only weapon she has.

Nigellus turns back toward the telescope. “Ah, the Empyrea’s Staff—appropriate, I suppose,” he mutters to himself. “I wish—”

Before knows what she’s doing she’s lunging at him, knocking him away from the telescope and to the hard stone floor, then toppling after him. She scrambles to her feet and his hand closes around her ankle.

His voice comes out hoarse. “I wish…,” he says again, eyes turned up toward the stars shining down through the glass ceiling.

grabs a beaker off the worktable and brings it down against his temple, shattering it in the process. His eyes flutter, but he recovers quickly, pushing himself to sit up.

“You can’t stop me, Princess,” he tells her, his eyes level on hers even as blood trickles down his face. “You can’t stop me forever. And you will thank me one day, when this is all over.”

swallows, her mind whirling as her hand digs into the pocket of her skirt, pulling out the poison and keeping it closed tight in her fist. She can stop him, but she doesn’t want to—not that way, at least. Not with poison intended for her mother.

“Please,” she says softly. “Don’t. This is my gift. You created me, remember? And the stars blessed me—blessed us. ”

“The stars cursed you with a power you will never be strong enough or wise enough to handle,” he says, and flinches at the words.

She hates them, hates him for saying them, but she also wonders if he’s right. But he can’t be right.

“This isn’t about me, wielding power I can’t control,” she says through gritted teeth. “This is about you, not being able to do the same.”

There is a flicker of something behind his silver eyes—something that tells she’s hit close to the truth of it. But just as quickly as it appeared, it’s gone.

“I’m an empyrea,” he tells her. “You are an abomination. And if you won’t restrain yourself, I’ll have to do it for you.” He turns his face away from her, back to the stars above where the Empyrea’s Staff is almost out of sight. It doesn’t matter if his wish is granted—he’s right. He’ll keep trying, on another star, on another night. And won’t be able to stop him forever. He’ll take her magic, take the only weapon she has, and there is only one thing she can do about it.

In a single motion, smashes the glass vial of poison against the same temple she injured earlier, smearing the gray powder over the cut with her hand. His scream is instant and he recoils, his hands shoving at her, but it’s too late. In a second, his scream stops. A few more pass before his eyes close, though his body continues convulsing.

Gisella did say the poison would work quickly if it reached the bloodstream. swallows, looking down at Nigellus’s twitching body. She nudges him with the toe of her boot, but he stays still. She crouches beside him, feeling for a pulse she doesn’t find.

She doesn’t find regret, either, or any other feeling as she looks into his empty eyes. She knows she should feel guilt, or at least horror over what she did, but those are missing as well. This is what she was raised to do, after all, and her mother trained her too well for her to fall apart now.

“Triz?” a voice says, and she whirls to find Pasquale in the doorway, taking in the scene with wide eyes. His eyes go to the blood on her hands from where she touched Nigellus’s wound.

“It’s not mine,” she assures him quickly.

“I can’t believe he attacked you,” he says, closing the door behind him and coming toward her. “Are you all right? Is he…”

knows she should correct him—Nigellus didn’t attack her. Not physically, at least. This wasn’t an act of self-defense. She killed him for selfish purposes, to keep her power. She should correct him, but she doesn’t.

“He’s dead,” she says instead. “I had to.”

And even if that isn’t the full truth, it feels true enough to .

“I used the poison,” she says, shaking her head. “There are no more etheldaisies to make another batch—”

“We don’t have time for that,” Pasquale says, shaking his head. “We have to leave tonight, before his body is found.”

wants to protest—she can’t leave without striking against her mother, without killing her. Doing so, she knows, would be a grave mistake. Every day her mother continues to draw breath is a sword hanging over her head—over Daphne’s and Pasquale’s and so many others. But Pasquale is right—taking more time is too risky.

The logical side of ’s mind takes over as she crosses to the basin in the corner, washing the blood from her hands.

“Help me move the body to the cupboard,” she adds, nodding toward the cupboard on the far wall. “We might be able to buy a few hours at least.”

Pasquale nods, the movement jerky.

“Pas, I…didn’t have a choice,” she says, and that, at least, is true. She needs him to understand it, that she isn’t some sort of hard-hearted murderess, plotting to kill everyone around her—her mother first, now Nigellus. She might not feel guilt over killing him, but she does feel sad. He was no stranger, but someone she’s known her entire life, someone who helped her, even saved her life. She’s never trusted Nigellus, that is true, but she still owes him a great deal and that is a debt that can never be repaid.

Pasquale looks at her, perplexed. “Of course you didn’t,” he says before understanding dawns in his eyes. “You didn’t have a choice,” he repeats.

Hearing him say those words helps, and she gives a quick nod.

“Come on,” Pasquale says, placing a hand on her back in a way that feels like an anchor. “We’ve got a body to hide.”

—

sends Pasquale to the dungeon with three vials of stardust from Nigellus’s stash and specific instructions on how to use them, including the exact words he should say. One is to get past the guards, one to unlock Ambrose’s cell, one to unlock Gisella’s—though tells him whether he chooses to do so is entirely up to him, deal be damned. He also has a satchel full of servants’ clothes for them to change into in order to reach ’s mother’s bedchamber undetected.

“Will stardust be enough for all that?” he asks when she explains the plan to him.

“Nigellus’s stash is stronger than your average stardust,” she answers.

“But when you freed Lord Savelle, you needed your bracelet—stardust wouldn’t have done that.”

“The wish brought Lord Savelle to you and Ambrose. Unlocking a cell is smaller magic, and you’ll have to do the work of getting them to me on your own,” she tells him.

After he’s gone, finds a leather satchel hanging on a hook beside the door and fills it with the other vials of stardust in Nigellus’s cabinet—more than enough to ensure that their journey to Friv is smooth. As she does, she can’t help glancing at the cabinet in the corner where she and Pasquale stowed Nigellus’s body.

Despite all of her training and lessons on how to kill a man, she has never actually done it before. It was somehow both easier and more difficult than she imagined, and now it’s done. And despite the sick feeling that’s taken up residence in her stomach, she knows that if she could go back, she wouldn’t do anything differently.

Her mother taught her to eliminate threats, after all. And Nigellus was a threat.

That doesn’t keep her fingers from shaking as she closes the leather satchel and slings the strap over her shoulder. She is about to leave the room when her hand brushes her skirt and the sound of crinkling paper reminds her of the letter she pocketed before Nigellus walked in—the one with Daphne’s name on it.

She withdraws it as she makes her way down the spiral stairs, reading by the flickering light of the torches that line the walls.

Nigellus,

What you have told me about is even more troubling than I feared, and makes me even more certain that her power will turn the stars dark and ruin the world at large.

I confess, I sensed there was something not quite right about Daphne, either, since the first time I met her, though if she had any kind of magic it would have manifested by now, and since ’s power came from your foolishly creating her from the Empyrea’s Staff, I must conclude there is something else the stars are trying to tell me. I’ve felt the stars and their anger these last sixteen years—at times I believed it was my own meddling that caused it, but now I am sure the blame rests at least mostly with you and the empress, though I can’t even blame her for her folly—she didn’t know better. You should have. Creating people by bringing down stars, Nigellus! It is blasphemous, far beyond anything that we have discussed previously.

I wrote before of the prophecy I’ve been hearing for months—the blood of stars and majesty spilled. I believed it once to be a warning, but I am beginning to believe it is a demand, of me and of us to fix the mistake you made sixteen years ago.

Aurelia

finishes the letter just as her foot touches down on the last step of the stairway, her heart thudding in her chest. They’re the words of a madwoman, but a madwoman who apparently has access to Daphne, and from the sound of it, a woman who means her sister harm.

It is more imperative than ever that she reach Daphne as soon as possible.