CHAPTER 30
FIRE WAS IN HER BLOOD as Toven finally excused them from the arena. Her feet wobbled under her, and there was a ringing in her ears.
Briony quickly ate the grape Ilana had given her, as if it were a forbidden correspondence that needed to be destroyed. The sweet juice of it slid down her throat as she searched for Phoebe’s eyes again, but she wouldn’t look back at her.
Toven’s fingers wrapped around her elbow as he led them to the small section of the garden overlooking the sea that had allowed portaling in her father’s reign. Her mind was elsewhere as he sliced open the tip of his finger and cast his hand for a portal. Her body was squeezed and pressed, and then she was suddenly in the Hearst drawing room.
Breathing heavily, Briony still felt the atmosphere of that arena hanging off her body like a beaded gown. She could still hear the crowd, taste the smoke in the air. And she could feel Toven’s eyes on her, waiting.
She turned away from him, feeling simultaneously exhausted and energized. She tucked Phoebe and Ilana and grapes into a book on the shelf in her mind, and refocused on the questions she could get answers to.
She would begin where she needed the most clarification.
“Sacral Magic,” she said slowly. “Am I correct that it has to do with sex?”
She could hear him swallow from across the room.
“Heartspring magic is meant for love matches,” he began. She nodded, already aware of this. “When heartsprings are properly used...lovemaking strengthens the bond.”
“You heart magicians love your metaphors. Not all romantic relationships include sex.” Briony sighed. “So you’re telling me that when Carvin has sex with Phoebe, against her will, she strengthens him.” Acid dripped from her words.
“No,” he said. “Sacral Magic is still sacred between willing parties...But...”
She turned her eyes on him for the first time since they’d arrived back.
His lips were twisted as if he’d tasted something sour.
“But Canning Trow’s elixir has made things interesting,” she finished for
him, remembering Katrina’s explanation.
He nodded.
“What lovely friends you have, Toven,” she muttered. “I’m so glad to know it’s not just rape. It’s rape for magical power.” Her molars ground together. He remained silent. “Who were all of those heartsprings?”
He slipped his hands into his pockets. “Most are from Eversun families who still flew the Eversun banner after Bomard had taken their lands. Some were part of your court on the day of Bomard’s triumph, as you know,” he said. Briony nodded. “Some were found assisting Sammy Meers.”
She blinked at him but soldiered on. “And who are the Barlowes?”
“An Eversun family from near the border who flipped allegiance the moment your brother died. They have been assigned Biltmore Palace.” His voice was clinical.
She swayed on her feet at the mention of Rory.
“And the silver-collared heartsprings are owned by the Barlowes?”
Toven’s eyes flickered over her. “You should sleep.”
“Later. The collars? Gold and silver.”
“Gold collars are for the heartsprings who are privately owned—the ones who were auctioned, I mean.” His eyes dropped to the floor. “And yes, the ones wearing silver collars are owned by the Barlowes. They can
be...borrowed on Friday evenings, but they live at Biltmore. Some of them are also non-magical, to be rented for company.”
Briony remembered the strawberry-blonde and nodded. She crossed her arms in front of her, hating that she was still in this stupid dress.
“The private dinner party. Those were all the successors of the line, minus the women,” she said. Toven lifted his brows in agreement. “So every man at that dinner table owns a heartspring?”
“Canning owns Jellica Reeve, Lorne owns his girl—”
“Octavia,” she snapped. “Her name is Octavia.”
He dipped his head in a nod. “Octavia. And Collin has a heartspring at home, but if you’ll remember, he was quite taken with Cecily in school. He has spent a lot of gold renting her from the Barlowes every Friday.”
“Renting her,” she muttered to herself, shaking her head. The bile in her throat bubbled again, and whenever she closed her eyes, she saw Cecily’s hands shaking as she opened Collin’s trousers. A slow chill spread over her shoulders, like an ice cube sliding down her spine. “And Finn? He was named a successor?”
“Cal Gidrey’s daughter defected last month, leaving him without a successor as tenth in line. Finn was of great assistance to Gidrey during the last few months. As a reward, Finn was offered the position as successor to the tenth in line, superseding his own father as fourteenth.”
“What did he do?” Briony asked.
Toven tilted his head at her. “You’ll have to ask him.”
She huffed. “Last I heard, Lorne Vult was still vying for a successor position. Looks like he got one.”
“He is to replace Burkin as Cohle’s successor.”
Briony’s mind spun with all the names and positions of the line. She needed to write herself a list.
“But it hasn’t been made official yet? Is that why Lorne didn’t have a gemstone on his ring?”
He blinked at her, brows lifting slightly. “Yes. Good catch.”
At his impressed look, her chest warmed without her permission. Briony had to focus, even as her thoughts tumbled through tangents.
“What is required to make it official?” she asked.
“An oath to the Seat, signed in blood.”
She paced away from him, longing to take off the heels. “Is that generally the tone of those dinners?” she asked, remembering how Jellica was humiliated and Cecily was forced to her knees.
“Things were maybe a bit heightened with your presence, but generally, yes. Canning brings his elixir around to small gatherings like that.”
She glared at him as the heat and anger unfurled in her chest. The men had acted out more than usual that evening simply because she was there?
And in the past, when she was hidden away, did Toven have another woman at his side?
Suddenly her blood felt white-hot again.
“And how did you manage when your heartspring had the pox?”
“Vesper came with me. The pox made you ‘too weak to pull from,’ so it was an easy excuse—”
“No, not magically,” she said. “I assume you still had a girl on your arm.”
His throat clicked, and his eye twitched infinitesimally as he said, “I used a Barlowe Girl. Or I borrowed from someone.”
She wanted to breathe fire.
“‘Borrowed.’ Like a cup of sugar,” she hissed. She watched it land on him, like an arrow finding the center ring.
“It’s late, Rosewood. I’ll send up an elixir—”
“I don’t need an elixir—”
“—and we can talk in the morning.”
“I want to know who you pulled in your lap and groped while I had the pox—”
His eyes flashed. “You want an itemized list? What does it matter!”
“It matters because you’re telling me that my presence alone tonight made it worse for those women. It matters because while I’ve been locked away in Hearst Hall, other women had to suffer through that—that vile display—”
She choked, her throat closing as a single tear betrayed her by rolling down her cheek. She slapped it away, furious with herself.
There was silence for a few moments as he studied her. She glared back,
lifting her chin. He watched her carefully.
“Your experiences this evening have been traumatic,” he said simply.
“You should sleep and regroup your thoughts.”
Scanning his perfectly impassive features, she wondered again how strong his mind barriers were. His face was like looking at a mask. Was he the one who used the meditation chamber in Hearst Hall? She pressed her lips
together. “I have more questions.”
“They can wait.”
“You’ll answer any question I have tomorrow?”
He stared at her blankly and said, “Yes.”
“Eight in the morning,” she demanded.
“Noon.”
“Nine.”
“Rosewood, it is after one. You will be up for another two hours writing a list of things to ask, and you will spend your morning meditating,” he said, his eyes gray and empty. “You need sleep.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling her heart pound with anger at his assumptions, and irritation that those assumptions were correct.
“Is that an order from ‘Master Toven,’” she snarled.
He didn’t react. Some switch had flipped inside of him. He was no longer rile-able.
“It can be, if it needs to be,” he said calmly.
She wanted to scream.
“You better clear your afternoon, Hearst,” she hissed, and stomped toward the staircase.
* * *
The next day, as the clock ticked toward twelve, Briony was certain Toven was going to avoid her.
But at noon on the dot, there was a knock on her door. She stood from the chair in front of the window and said, “Come in.”
Toven strolled in, wearing a pale gray sweater. As she prepared to ask
questions, she realized that he’d managed to strengthen his mask overnight.
He stared at her, a slight tilt to his head, with eyes cool and gray.
That’s just fine. I’ve strengthened mine as well.
“General Tremelo’s presence last night,” she said, jumping in without greeting. “What does that say for Bomard and Daward?”
Toven twisted his ring around his middle finger, and her eye caught on the muscles in his hands, before she remembered to focus.
“Biltmore has hosted several officials from across the sea. I can only say that Mallow is ‘courting’ them, in a way. There are countries who are adamantly against her, fearing that she will try to cross the sea, but she has her ways of keeping them in line.”
Briony turned her head to gaze out her window, thinking, noting these answers down on her mental checklist, stowing them into a tight corner of her library of shelves.
“You touched my tattoo as we crossed the threshold at Biltmore, just as you do here at the hall. Is it the same magic?”
“To my knowledge. The barrier keeps out undesirables and...keeps in the heartsprings.”
She tucked the information away for a future escape plan. Taking a deep breath and centering herself, she prepared to ask the one question she knew she didn’t want to hear the answer to.
“And Cordelia?” she said, and the words floated to him like a feather.
“Tell me.”
She watched him swallow and turn his eyes over her shoulder again.
“A few weeks ago, she broke a champagne glass and sliced the neck of a guard, killing him.”
Briony scarcely breathed, the words like a bucket of water over her head.
“Cohle decided to enter the arena. He and Carvin battled, and Cohle
didn’t stop until Cordelia was husked.”
“And so what happens to her now?”
“She is alive, but...no longer a heartspring.”
Briony reached between the words he wasn’t saying. “Now she’s just a woman, held captive in a man’s estate.”
Toven met her eyes. “That may be true.”
She spun away from him, blinking until her eyes stopped burning and she could see clearly again.
“Will she ever have magic again?” Briony’s voice cracked on the words.
“It depends. Her heart magic is gone, but she could possibly use mind magic...if that option were ever returned to her.”
She nodded to herself, slapping back her tears. There would be another time to process what had happened to Cordelia. But for now she had a role to play. She’d convinced him she could handle the truth, and that’s exactly what she intended to do. Ignoring the buzzing in her ears and the tightness in her chest, she forced her shoulders to relax.
She’d been given signs of hope by women who had no business hoping. A grape. Her hand grabbed under the table by seven others with glass in their knees.
And Phoebe was waiting for her. She had to talk to her.
“Now that I know what to expect,” she said, her voice clear and strong, “I will play my part better. The next time we go, I will be better prepared to—”
“We’re not going again.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in. She spun to him, eyes wide.
“What?”
He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets, eyes dead and empty.
“We’ve made our appearances. You’ve been seen.” He swallowed. “You won’t go again. Not for a long time, at least.”
Her heart pounded. These parties were her only chance to communicate with her friends—her only connection to what was happening outside Hearst Hall.
“So I’ll just contract the pox again?” she sniped.
“I’ll speak to my father, and we’ll come up with something—”
“They’ll see through you in an instant. It will be far too suspicious—”
“Listen,” he said quietly. “If we go back, Canning will make you take the elixir.”
She rolled her eyes, feeling the fire burn in her belly again. “Who do I belong to? You or Canning?”
“We can’t go to the Biltmore and not participate in those private dinners.
If I refuse, they will suspect something is off about our relationship.” His eyes flickered up to her. “Canning already suspects.”
“And whose fault is that?” she said. “If you hadn’t told all your friends about the wonderful amounts of consensual sex we’ve been having, we wouldn’t be in this position, Toven, but you did—”
“You underestimate how desirable you were to those men back in school,” Toven said softly. Something about his voice silenced her. Her cheeks flushed as he continued. “If I hadn’t implied our relationship had progessed, and therefore taken you off the market—so to speak, their interest would be tenfold what it is now. The only mistake I made was dancing with you at the estate dinner after the first school year. You were marked in their eyes from that moment forward.”
Briony narrowed her eyes at him. She wanted to argue it, but she also remembered the way Liam and Canning had cut in. All of them strutting around, trying to get one over on each other.
But she also knew she wouldn’t trade the memory of waltzing with Toven Hearst for the world.
She shook her head, trying to refocus on the problem. Canning’s elixir.
Briony thought of Jellica, how she’d thrown herself at Canning the moment she could. The way her body swayed to him.
“I’ve seen the elixir in action now. Was Jellica’s behavior standard?”
His breathed heavily through this nose. “Rosewood, if you mean to mimic this elixir—”
“We can figure out how to get around the actual drinking of it,” she said, beginning to pace. “Perhaps we say you gave it to me ahead of time.”
“I’ve already said we’re not going back!”
“Toven, I don’t know how you expect to keep me hidden for the rest of our lives. You said it yourself, it’s your entire social calendar at this point!
Something drastic will have to happen to me to keep you from bringing me along.”
He clenched his jaw, gaze lingering on her face before looking away.
“Every eye will be on you the more often you come to Biltmore. Not just
Lorne and Canning and the others. And it’s not just at Biltmore Palace. There are other, very secret gatherings where it’s more encouraged to...partake in your heartspring.”
Her lips curled in disgust, but she refocused.
“I see,” she said, voice dripping with disdain. “Do you all have sex in front of each other often then?”
He rolled his eyes. “They don’t want to watch us have sex, Rosewood.
They want to see you humiliated.”
She swallowed, listening to her throat click loudly in the small room. Her cheeks were hot, and her fingers shook as she clasped her hands.
“That’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make as long as you and I are on the same page,” she said, more confidently than she felt.
Toven stared at her. “You must be joking.”
“I watched Jellica tonight. I understand the basics—”
“‘The basics,’” he said, laughing. He crossed to her window, and she tracked him, indignation burning in her gut.
“Are you suggesting that because I haven’t had sex, I’ve never lusted after someone? That I wouldn’t understand those urges?”
He tilted his head, cracking his neck with his back to her.
“I’m sure you have an idea of it, but this elixir is no joke, Rosewood.”
Briony glared daggers at him. She remembered the simpering smiles Phoebe gave Carvin. The flirty laugh from Ilana to Canning. Those women were capable of playing the game just fine without an elixir confusing their senses. She needed to prove to him that she could do it, too, or else he wouldn’t take her back.
Briony released the tension in her body from their argument and focused on a different kind of tension. Her gaze swept over his back, remembering the skin she’d seen when Vesper had attacked her. Her lips parted, imagining what it would be like to have him all to herself, with no reason to stay apart.
Toven turned from the window, ready to give her another excuse.
Briony bit her lip, running her eyes over the front of him, remembering how Jellica seemed to press her thighs together, desperate for relief.
Words caught in his throat as he met her hot gaze. She stepped forward.
“Toven...”
His mouth opened in understanding, and then he closed his eyes. “You’re out of your mind, Rosewood, if you think—”
“Please touch me,” she begged, voice breathy.
She reached for him.
His quick reflexes caught her, hands coming up to her elbows. She imagined the heady feeling of having his skin on hers after hours of begging, and she moaned softly, leaning her forehead onto his chest.
“Rosewood,” he said, voice firm.
She couldn’t hear him over the want pounding in her body. She pressed her mouth to his sternum, kissing his chest over his clothing.
He grabbed her shoulders and shoved her back. His eyes were wide and
hot, almost scared.
“What are you doing?”
She panted and let her eyes glaze over. “Toven, please. Don’t make me wait any longer.”
His eyes widened, and she caught a glimpse of black pupils before he backed away. She stumbled forward, reaching up to pull his head down to her, but before she could connect their lips he pushed away again.
“That’s enough—”
“I need you. Please, Toven.” Her fingers wound into his hair, and she rose up on her toes, aiming for his lips and murmuring, “Touch me.”
Quick as lightning, her hands were off him and her body was pushed against the windows. He was across the room in three strides, heading for the door.
“So?” she asked, breaking character and letting the wild look fade from her expression. “Was I convincing?”
His eyes hardened on her, and then he swept from the room, leaving her alone with lips tingling from where she’d touched him.
* * *
Toven diligently ignored her for the next six days. The first few days, she told herself that it was a good thing, but by Wednesday night, she started to
get nervous. She had to go back. Regardless of how they might feel about each other at the moment.
She finally sought him out on Friday morning, finding him in the kitchens taking an apple from the basket.
She placed her hands on her hips and said, “I assume we’ll be leaving at ten tonight?”
He turned, and his eyes scanned her before replying, “No. No party
tonight.”
She lifted a doubtful brow. “Why?”
“It’s been postponed.” He tossed the apple between his hands, keeping his eyes away from her.
“You can’t avoid me forever, Hearst. We’re in this together whether you like it or not, and the sooner you—”
“Did you hear a word I just said? It’s not happening tonight.” He brushed past her without another word.
Briony huffed at the empty kitchen, fists clenched. He was clearly lying.
So at ten o’clock that night, she cracked her door open, waiting to hear the sounds of him leaving the hall. After half an hour with her eye on the door, she moved to her balcony windows and looked for the light coming from his
bedroom.
It was dark.
She glared and stomped into her bathroom, deciding on a bath while she waited for him to return. As she relaxed into the warm water and bubbles, she tried to think of ways to convince Toven to bring her back to Biltmore. He didn’t think she was capable of the sexual challenges they would face, but she could convince him. She had to.
She had to get back to Phoebe. She needed to figure out who Ilana was and whether that grape meant what she thought it did. She’d been stuck inside Hearst Hall for more than six weeks now, and Biltmore was the closest she’d gotten to her people.
Briony had to prove to him that she could handle herself. Whatever it took.
After midnight, she dragged an armchair to her window and read a book
with one eye on Toven’s balcony, waiting for a sign of life from inside the room.
At a quarter past two, her bleary eyes drifted up from her pages. Light was pouring from inside his room onto his balcony. She jumped up, wide awake, the book tumbling on the carpet. Without a thought to her pajamas, she marched out her door and to his.
She rapped on his door and waited, anger unfurling in her belly.
When no response came, she knocked louder, more insistently.
She was just raising her fist to pound against the wood again when it swung open. Toven stared down at her, leaning forward on the doorframe
with one hand still on the door.
“Why are you still up?” he demanded.
She glared at him, lifting her chin. “I should be asking you the same thing.
You haven’t been out, have you, Hearst?”
He swallowed and said, “I have, but not to Biltmore.”
“Then why do you smell like cigars and whiskey,” she hissed.
“I was at a private party, if you must know. I convinced the boys to play cards this evening instead.”
Something about his posture made her doubt him. Who had he pulled into his lap this evening? Which poor woman had to sit through that vile dinner party this week? She would have this out with him and would demand that he take her next week.
Briony stepped forward to push past him into his bedroom, but Toven stood in the way, blocking her. She blinked up at him, scowling. After lying egregiously to her, the least he could do was let her in his damned room.
She stepped to the side and he moved with her, obscuring her vision. She stared up at him, a pale horror cracking over her skin.
He had a guest.
Her mind conjured a rapid-fire sequence of images of a Barlowe Girl sprawled across his sheets—the activities she’d just interrupted.
“Is there someone here?” she whispered.
He stared down at her, shook his head once, and said, “No. Just in the middle of something.”
“My goodness,” a familiar girlish voice called from inside the room.
“Does she often visit your bedroom at two in the morning? How fascinatingly desperate of her.”
Briony’s mind whirred, struggling to place the voice that sounded like
—that sounded like...
Toven closed his eyes in resignation.
And then the door was pulled open wider by a well-manicured hand that she knew so well—the same hand that she used to watch running fingers through Toven’s hair, dancing pathways over his ribs, and squeezing quickly at his backside.
Briony’s breath left her as a woman stepped into view.
Larissa Gains joined Toven in the doorway, her self-satisfied smirk firmly in place and her eyes running over Briony’s body like a predator.
