CHAPTER 17
BRIONY MOVED QUICKLY, eager to be away from those four walls, even if it meant spending time with Serena Hearst.
The blond woman said nothing as Briony joined her in the hallway. She only turned on her heel and walked slowly toward the stairs. Briony followed, glancing over the paintings and the tapestries she’d glimpsed in the darkness on her way in. Mrs. Hearst kept a slow pace, and Briony was grateful. Six days locked in Hearst Hall after six days recovering from electrocution after a week in the Trow dungeon...She wasn’t quite herself, physically.
Mrs. Hearst swept down the staircase as Briony leaned on the railing. Her breath was thin, and she became aware of her hunger finally.
They passed a large window overlooking the back of the estate, and Briony’s gaze caught on the large pond she’d seen on her first night. She wanted to ask Mrs. Hearst if it was magic-made or natural but refrained as the woman glanced back at Briony in frustration.
“Come,” Mrs. Hearst said.
They twisted into the wing opposite where Briony’s room was, and Briony had a host of new doorways to examine, some cracked open, some locked tight. She spied a formal dining room, an informal dining room, a study, and a sitting room—and those were just the open doors.
Finally, they arrived at the kitchen, and Briony almost laughed at the emptiness of such a grand room. There was so much food, but no servants, and only three in the house to feed. Four now, she supposed. Mrs. Hearst swept her hand over the counters, gesturing to the fruit and cheese, honeyed pastries, spiced meats, and boiled vegetables.
“Eat,” she commanded. Her face was set in boredom, like she was beginning a long list of chores for the day.
A teacup steamed on the counter, and Briony sipped from it, beginning slowly. Her stomach growled as she approached the fruit and cheese. Mrs.
Hearst stood in the corner of the room, her hands folded in front of her, waiting for Briony to obey. She nibbled on cheese and apples, but the fruit basket made Briony think too much of the Trow dungeon and the women who were so far from her now. She moved to the vegetables and meat.
“Toven says there are no servants in Hearst Hall,” Briony said softly, testing the waters.
“No, there’s no need,” Mrs. Hearst said simply. Briony thought that may be all she would say, but she continued. “The hall was built from the Starksen stones, before they were declared magically protected.”
Briony turned to look at her with wide eyes, her fingers in the middle of reaching for the serving spoon. The stones from the country of Starksen were from the early magic, predating even the system of magical gestures that magicians learned in school. The stones’ very existence perplexed scholars and were at the root of phrases like by the stones or stones’ blessing on you.
The Starksen stones were very rare over in Moreland and usually appeared as honored marble statues or powerfully protected gatehouses.
“The entire hall is made from the Starksen stones?” Briony repeated.
Mrs. Hearst’s cool gaze flicked over her. “Eat, Miss Rosewood.”
Briony turned back to the food, ready to ruminate on that later. As she reached for the carved meat, her eyes lifted to the kitchen wall she faced.
On the wall hung a page from the Journal, the news source for the continent. Most households in Evermore and Bomard had at least one Journal page that updated daily. Her own household staff had one hung in the kitchen as well, but Briony was shocked by what was on today’s page.
Sammy Meers’s face stared back at her, and Briony’s heart lurched.
It was a crude rendering, with sunken evil eyes and hollowed cheeks, but it was him. She’d know those curls and the shape of that jaw anywhere. The headline read: Meers Most Wanted, Dangerous.
Her mind whirled. Sammy wasn’t dead. He was on the run and causing havoc, apparently.
That same spark she’d felt in her chest when she heard that Finola was still alive flickered again. How many more secrets could she learn from the Journal?
She glanced at Mrs. Hearst, finding the woman staring out the window without interest. Briony hovered at the spiced sausages, willing to eat twenty of them if she could just stand here and read the news.
Above the drawing of Sammy was today’s date, and below the headline was a jumble of words Briony hurried to devour.
In the latest of killing sprees, a village on the northwest side of the Fadyen mountain range was brutally attacked last night by Sammy Meers and his gang of insurgents.
“Are you finished?”
Briony jumped. Mrs. Hearst tilted her head at her. Briony didn’t know how to delay this visit long enough to read more of the journal pages.
“Yes,” Briony said, grabbing one more bite and glancing through the words again for any other familiar names or locations. She saw descriptions of people, but nothing stuck to her.
Mrs. Hearst gestured for Briony to follow her out of the kitchen. She hadn’t noticed Briony’s attention on the Journal page. Briony let her gaze rest on Sammy’s face one last time, determined to find a way back to the kitchen and the source of information.
Briony was still considering how likely the chances were of Mrs. Hearst bringing her to the kitchens again if she staged a hunger strike when she realized they were walking in a different direction than before.
Her eyes took in more of Hearst Hall, trying to track which side of the castle they were on now.
“Where are we headed?” she asked finally when Mrs. Hearst led her past a sitting room before turning around the way they came.
“I’m walking you,” Mrs. Hearst answered stiffly. “Seeing as you can’t be bothered to do so yourself.”
Briony pressed her lips together at the presumption that she could take herself for a walk, then followed the blond woman past a door ajar. Mrs.
Hearst flicked her wrist, and the door closed with a click. Briony’s pace stuttered before continuing. No other door had drawn Mrs. Hearst’s attention like that. Letting her gaze take in as much of the corridor as possible, Briony memorized where they were—near the kitchens in the northwest wing, facing the back of the house next to a tapestry of the Ash Wood forest.
Briony stayed three paces behind Mrs. Hearst as they continued, finally pouring out into the entry hall with the staircase again. She glanced up at the sun cascading brightly through the domed ceiling, feeling the warmth of it on her skin and below her feet on the marble.
But instead of taking her up the stairs again, Mrs. Hearst walked her through to the other wing. Her mind spun with all the new paintings and tapestries and doorways to memorize. They were in the same wing as Briony’s bedroom, but the floor beneath. A large set of double doors to the left were open and inviting, and Briony gasped as Mrs. Hearst led her past
them.
A library.
It was the size of a small bookshop. Perhaps a large bookshop, as Briony couldn’t see to the back wall. Tall as a grand ballroom with stacks reaching high to the ceiling, there was a half staircase up to a landing that housed even
more shelves.
“Come.”
Briony jerked her gaze to Mrs. Hearst and realized she had stopped to stare. Mrs. Hearst’s expression was neutral but impatient. Briony gave the grand room one last glance before following Mrs. Hearst down a hall and up a simple staircase to the second floor. They twisted back to Briony’s bedroom door, and Briony’s breathing was labored by the time Mrs. Hearst led her inside.
“Please wash today, Miss Rosewood,” she said in a voice that brooked no argument.
Briony nodded, embarrassment flooding her at Mrs. Hearst’s gaze over her hair and oily skin. Mrs. Hearst stood in the doorway, and Briony wondered if she would wait for Briony to start the water.
“You must accustom yourself to this place,” Mrs. Hearst said suddenly.
“It may feel like a prison, but it really is not so bad. It is an elegant cell, is it not?”
Briony felt a cold wind inside of her, settling around her ribs. She nodded in agreement for lack of anything else to say. Her mind was far away, on that Journal page in the kitchen, wondering how she could get walked around again.
Mrs. Hearst sighed, standing tall. “I’m sorry for all that you’ve lost, but I cannot offer you more than the assurance that Hearst Hall is the safest place for you.”
It was the second time Briony had heard those words, and she understood them no better. Mrs. Hearst’s gaze was even, and though she offered some comfort in her words, her tone did not show it.
Briony needed to gain this woman’s trust somehow. Perhaps the “grateful prisoner” act was best.
“Thank you for lunch, Mrs. Hearst,” Briony said softly. “The walk and the conversation did me some good, I think.”
She was just about to smile and promise to bathe when Mrs. Hearst spoke.
“You may call me Serena.”
Briony’s eyes almost flew wide. For the first time on the woman’s face, there seemed to be a hint of a smile there.
Mrs. Hearst—Serena—left the room, closing the door with a soft click.
Briony stared at the spot she’d stood, waiting for the moment to make sense.
She sat in the armchair, thinking of how best to force Serena’s hand to
“walk” her again, when she realized— Briony hadn’t heard the lock turn.
Jumping to her feet, she moved to the door, and with a shaking hand she pressed the handle.
It turned. It opened.
Briony’s heart was pounding as she cracked the door open and peeked out.
She heard footsteps on marble down the hall, and she quickly closed it again. After five minutes of tense silence, she tried the handle just to be sure.
It turned.
Had Serena been so distracted by her words of comfort that she had forgotten? Would she remember later?
Briony moved to the bathroom and filled the tub in a daze. She would try in the evening, when the house was asleep.
She would spend all night with the Journal page, draining it dry of information. Her chest burned with the possibilities.
* * *
At midnight, Briony stood barefoot in a clean dress, twisting her fingers and watching the clock move too slowly.
She waited a handful of minutes before opening the door and slipping out.
Following the same path Serena had walked back with her, Briony took the small staircase instead of the grand one in the entry hall. She passed the library and paused only a moment before deciding her first priority was learning what was happening outside these walls.
The shadows of Hearst Hall taunted her every step, and the dim sconces seemed to flicker once she’d gotten close to them. She paused at the entry hall that she’d need to pass through to get to the other wing. The glass dome in the ceiling cast moonlight in odd angles over the walls and statues.
On quick feet, she silently skittered over the marble. It was easy to find the kitchen again. She made sure she was alone before grabbing a forgotten candlestick on a shelf and tilting the candle’s wick to one of the barely lit sconces.
Briony hurried to the page on the wall, finding that day’s news still up with Sammy’s pictures. Vindecci himself had created the Journal nearly six hundred years ago to connect people all over the continent by sending news and information directly onto each household’s page.
Touching her fingertip to the page, she whispered to the thick parchment, asking it to show her the news on the date of the eclipse—the day Rory had died. The ink drained and re-formed.
She read page after page of Bomardi propaganda, trying to find the cracks in the celebrations and successes. She skimmed the passages about the burning of Rory’s body, unable to read the details, and focused instead on looking for three names: Sammy Meers, General Billium Meers, and Finola Rosewood. The day of the auction was reported on with information matching the list the house had given her. She noticed that Sammy Meers’s fate was not mentioned in the Journal, either, despite him being the first to be auctioned.
Briony’s skin tightened with a realization. Sammy had been on the stage when Larissa had attacked that guard and started the scuffle backstage. He must have escaped in the chaos. She breathed deeply, thanking the waters that something good had come out of that failed attempt.
The first mention of Sammy Meers came eight days after the auction.
Briony counted the dates in her head, remembering that she had just come from visiting Mallow with Toven two nights before.
BREAK-IN AT BURKIN ESTATE
Del Burkin is dead this morning after a horrible tragedy at his estate last night. This coordinated and ruthless slaughter took place in the
middle of the night and resulted in the kidnapping of Burkin’s heartsprings.
Sammy Meers, escaped Eversun prisoner and known rabble-rouser, along with an unknown assailant skilled in “cloaking,” or mind-control
magic, killed Del Burkin in his bed and absconded with his two heartsprings.
Briony’s fingers curled around the edge of the counter in desperation. Her eyes flew over the words again and again. Del Burkin was somewhere on the line, wasn’t he? Someone’s successor, she thought. The unknown assailant had to be Finola. Briony knew no one else on the run who was skilled enough
in cloaking to be of note. But one other thought swirled in her mind: Burkin had bought Didion and Velicity Punt at the auction.
Sammy, Finola, Didion, and Velicity...Her throat clicked on hope as she swallowed it down. With Sammy’s wily scheming, Finola’s connections and skills, Didion’s loyal bravery, and Velicity’s tenacious fight, Briony would put money on that team in a heartbeat.
Her fingers were shaking as possibility bloomed in her chest. The rebellion was building.
She skipped ahead in the dates, finding another mention of Sammy and a description of Velicity: dark-brown skin, missing left forearm.
She pressed her eyes closed, sucking in a short breath. The tattoo. If Briony cut off her arm, she could get around the tattoo.
Briony tried to imagine it. Tried to think of Velicity at the boundary line of some gothic structure, staring at Sammy until she gave him the go-ahead to mutilate her. Sammy and Finola would have killed Burkin first, thinking that would do it—that the heartspring would be free if her master was dead.
Another piece of information to file away: The death of the master didn’t free the prisoner.
Had Didion cut off his arm as well? Her eyes welled with tears.
And did they have their magic back after Burkin died? Briony searched for mentions of a collar on Sammy or Velicity in their descriptions but found nothing.
Briony considered her own options. She could steal a kitchen knife right now and hack her way through her own flesh and bone.
Where would she go—armless and bleeding without magic? How would she find Sammy and Finola? Surely there had to be another way around the tattoo that didn’t involve putting herself in such a vulnerable position.
Briony took a deep breath and whispered, “Next page, please,” to the Journal.
The sconces flared to life in the kitchen.
She whipped around and found Orion Hearst leaning in the doorway, his shrewd eyes on her.
“Ah,” he said. “It’s always so disappointing to find vermin in the
kitchen.”
