CHAPTER 37
ON FRIDAY, THEY FOLLOWED THE NOW-FAMILIAR PATH to the courtyard, though she fell in step with him easily this time. She refrained from playing with her collar as best she could, but she felt the note burning her skin.
That day, after a lot of trial and error to get words to fit on a paper so small, Briony landed on something that was at least an opening of
communication. safe, Biney Only Sammy, Didion, or Cordelia would know that “Biney” was what Rory had called her when he couldn’t pronounce Briony. She promised herself that the next time she had an opportunity to pass a note, she would have something solid from her research to pass on.
Caspar Quill had mentioned the Durlings, and try as she might, she’d hadn’t found a thing about them in the Hearst library.
They moved through the gardens with the reflection ponds and headed toward the entry hall.
Briony was in tight blue lace tonight, something that almost would have been reminiscent of Bomardi fashion if it hadn’t been so short.
Larissa had come by get her ready again, but she’d transmogrified herself into Juliana, the president’s daughter, for the entire hour. Briony and Toven both agreed she could attend the party tonight.
As olive hands had spread powder on Briony’s face, she asked Larissa, “Was Toven averse to physical touch at some point before he was comfortable with you?”
Larissa, in Juliana’s face, stopped what she was doing and raised a brow at her. “What?”
“He doesn’t like it when I play with the hair on the back of his head. And I tried kissing his neck and he pushed me off him.”
Larissa stared down at her from someone else’s eyes, but that same look of disbelief was there.
“So I guess, I wonder if he just doesn’t like physical touch, or—”
“I can’t with this.” Larissa had thrown down the brushes and left Briony to fend for herself.
They reached the doors, but Ilana wasn’t the one to greet them. A redhead with a large chest smiled at Toven and didn’t give Briony a glance.
She gave them champagne and that was it. She opened the curtain without giving Toven a guest sheet.
Briony found Phoebe hanging off Carvin’s arm across the entry hall, smiling as his hand drifted lower on her back. But Briony’s interest was elsewhere, her eyes wide and alert for any sign of the strawberry-blonde.
Before she could get a decent look around the room, Toven was leading her up the twisting steps, through the guard’s check, and into the dining room.
Briony swallowed her disappointment, wondering if she’d made a mistake by not telling him about the note she needed to pass.
The first thing she noticed was Finn Raquin laughing jovially at something Liam had said, and Larissa disguised as Juliana standing against the wall behind him. Her eyes darted behind Liam’s chair and found a different Barlowe Girl waiting quietly to pour the wine. She scanned, but there was still not a trace of Strawberry-Blonde in the room. The disappointment in her stomach twisted more heavily.
“Be still my heart,” a voice called out as the door shut behind them, and Briony turned to find Canning Trow bowing dramatically at her. “My lady approaches.”
She cast her eyes down, ready to play her part.
“Oh, love,” Canning crooned, “did Toven whomp you good and proper after last week? Never one to share, our boy. Why don’t you bend over my lap so I can kiss it better?”
The young men laughed as Toven took his seat, his jaw barely tensing before it loosened in a grin. As she assumed her position in front of the window, she glanced to the left at Larissa behind Finn’s chair.
The young woman Larissa was pretending to be was so small and young.
Her eyes were staring down at her shoes, her wrists thin and crossed submissively in front of her stomach. Briony didn’t know how much was an act and how much was sheer concentration on the magic on Larissa’s part.
Briony tore her eyes from her, determined not to attract suspicion.
The eight women stepped forward, pouring wine into crystal glasses, and before Briony could return to the wall, Toven’s arm was around her waist, guiding her to his lap. Other than Finn lifting a theatrical brow at them, no one else said a word about it. Briony was quite pleased with their “practicing” paying off, but she did have a moment of guilt for the extra minutes Cecily had to spend against Collin’s chest when he quickly followed Toven’s lead.
She crossed her legs in her little lace dress, tilting her knees toward Toven’s waist. His left arm slipped over her hip, holding her to him instead of clenching his fingers tight around the arm of the chair. When she shifted in his lap, nuzzling into his neck and letting her fingers play with the hair on the back of his head, he didn’t flinch. She felt giddy with success. Their time together had been worth it, just as she’d predicted.
Nothing noteworthy caught her ear in the table’s conversation after the first half hour. But then Liam’s voice rang out above the others.
“There’s a Summer Cannon tonight,” he said, lazily twirling his fork in the air.
A collective murmur of interest swept over the table. Briony narrowed her eyes at Liam, wondering what that meant. The Summer Cannon usually went off at noon.
Toven’s thighs tensed beneath hers. She dragged her fingers through his hair, rubbing circles in his scalp.
“I love dinner and a show,” Canning said, and the table erupted into laughter.
Toven’s hand squeezed her hip, shivering her skin pleasantly. She caught herself, refocusing. She had more pressing concerns, like whether this new event would cut into her time to find the strawberry-blonde.
It was a rather uneventful evening in the dining room, despite the hours they sat there talking and laughing.
Then a chiming sounded, amplified throughout the dining room, cutting off the music and silencing the voices in surprise. Briony looked up, searching for the source. The clock on the wall read quarter till midnight.
The men cheered, grabbing their drinks and gripping their women close, rubbing their hands together.
Toven peeled her off him, all tension returning to his body. Finn shared a look with Juliana—Larissa.
“What is it?” Briony whispered to Toven.
He shook his head at her in warning and followed the others as they descended the staircase into the entrance hall. She kept her eyes open for the strawberry-blonde, searching the crowd of people as they headed to the exits into the courtyard.
Her hand reached for her collar to adjust it, and she caught herself.
“I’ll get us drinks,” Toven announced to Finn and Larissa. “See you outside.”
Briony turned up to Toven as he steered them toward the hallway. Her mouth opened to ask— “Don’t,” he hissed. “Just trust me on this.”
Her heart pounded in her ears as Toven led them around the crowd, suddenly cutting left to the gardens where they could portal from.
“Not leaving already, Toven?”
Briony’s blood chilled. Toven stilled next to her. When he turned them around, she already knew who would be standing there.
Veronika Mallow wore flowing deep purple. Her hair was pulled back tightly, lifting her features into youthful surprise. She was flanked by two Bomardi guards.
Toven dropped into a deep bow, and Briony followed, taking a moment to grasp her meditations.
In her mind, she stuck the note she received under her collar in between the pages of a worn book and shoved it deep on a shelf. She wrote Larissa’s name on a blank page and closed it, locking it tight.
Once she’d risen, she met Mallow’s black eyes.
“Apologies, Mistress,” Toven said. “I was a bit zealous in my attempts to...get somewhere private.” His voice dropped seductively.
Mallow smiled, her gaze still on Briony.
“You can’t go just yet,” she said firmly. “You must join me for the show.”
Toven inclined his head. “It would be an honor, Mistress.”
Mallow whispered something to her guard as she turned, not even checking that they were following her.
Briony’s head spun as she fought back all the things she couldn’t let Mallow see inside her mind.
Toven wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her forward with him.
They moved into the chill of the courtyard, and she chanced a look to Toven’s face—stony, impassive. A cold horror began building in her chest as they walked into the crowd gathering at the base of the hill. The courtyard looked out over the horizon and was filled with blue cloaks and women shivering in flimsy dresses.
Toven walked her behind Mallow and her guards, and the crowd parted for them, watching them pass with reverence. Briony checked the skies, wondering about the “no dragon” portion of the note. There was no sign of the beast. The note under her own collar was itching, and she considered abandoning her plan. Was it too dangerous to pass notes under Mallow’s nose?
Mallow’s purple cloak followed her up three steps to a platform, and Toven and Briony did the same. Cohle, Gains, and Quill were there. They bowed deeply to Mallow, yet their eyes cast over Briony hungrily.
She was the only heartspring on the platform.
But while they were the ones elevated, she realized the platform was not
the set scene. To Briony’s left she saw light being directed toward the front of the crowd at the palace ledge.
Briony’s heart jumped in her throat. The strawberry-blonde stood at the front of the crowd, standing against the ledge overlooking the city.
She gasped breathlessly, stunned into silence. Sound disappeared in a vacuum.
The woman stood in a ragged slip, her hands magically bound in front of her. Her chin was lifted, and she was murmuring something, lips moving quickly. To her left, a boy with the same color of curls on top of his head stood shaking. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen—Strawberry- Blonde’s brother. He’d joined Rory’s army. The only non-magical person to do so.
Briony thought of the note stuck between her skin and the gold collar.
Had the girl been caught? Did someone know what she was doing with the collars? Briony tensed—was someone coming for her as well?—and flinched under Toven’s hand, squeezing her tightly in warning.
A man stepped into view, and the cheering hit her in full force. It was Mr.
Vein, from the auction. Vein smiled toothily and amplified his voice, greeting the crowd.
“To Mistress Mallow,” he boomed, lifting his hand to the platform.
The crowd responded, “May she reign forevermore.”
Mallow stood stoically with her hands folded in front of herself.
“A traitor to Mistress Mallow’s reign stands before you,” said Vein. “She and her brother—two servants without magic”—the masses snarled—“find themselves ungrateful for everything we’ve given them here, at the center of our mistress’s power.”
The booing and spitting rang in her ears. Toven stood behind her, a hand still on her elbow.
Briony knew what was to come. The girl and her brother were going to be executed, here in front of them all, as an example. Briony searched the crowd for someone, anyone. Her knees buckled as she tried to turn about, and Toven’s hand tightened on her again.
Her eyes finally landed on Ilana, passing drinks around on a tray, smiling
tightly. Ilana glanced to the front, a stab of sadness in her eyes that couldn’t be masked quickly enough. Briony brought her fingers to her collar again, without thinking, and when she looked back to the strawberry-blonde, the woman met her eyes.
Briony dropped her hand quickly, her heart splintering at the edges.
“This non-magical filth,” Vein continued, “showed no appreciation for what we’ve given her. We allowed her and her brother into our world.
Allowed them to serve us. And how does she repay us?”
Briony held her breath, watching the strawberry-blonde flicker her gaze between herself and Ilana. She could feel Mallow’s presence to her right, like oil.
“She was communicating with the rebels!”
The crowd hissed. Briony turned her gaze to Mallow quickly. Her lips were curved in a satisfied smile.
“She was caught at the gate! Not only speaking to the enemy, but also arranging for her brother’s escape!”
The sea of people jeered. The note Briony had tucked beneath her collar burned against her skin. This woman and her brother were about to die, all because she’d helped the rebels communicate. Would Briony be next? Was she on this platform next to Mallow so she could be killed on a stage?
“Mistress Mallow!” Vein called. “How do you sentence this slut and her brother?”
Mallow’s pale skin shone in the moonlight. Her jaw was sharp as Briony
watched it move.
“Death. Painful death.”
The Bomardi screamed and cheered.
Briony’s world tilted on its axis, and it took her several long seconds to realize that Toven was steadying her lower back, pushing her upright.
Through the pounding of her blood, a thought clarified: If Mallow suspected that she had a note under her collar—if anyone knew that the collars were being used this way—every woman would be searched on her way in. The parties at Biltmore would cease.
This woman’s sentencing had nothing to do with the note she’d passed to
Briony. Glancing back to Strawberry-Blonde, Briony watched her eyes move back and forth between Ilana and Briony, the intensity in them burning as her brother sobbed next to her.
Ilana moved to the base of the platform on which Briony stood.
The strawberry-blonde turned to her brother, speaking quickly, too low to overhear. He nodded solemnly, his shiny eyes never leaving his sister’s.
They were servants. Non-magical. They had no business getting involved in any of this horror. And yet, this was the woman who’d grasped her hand under the table with glass digging into her knees. A woman who had risked everything to get that note to her. Just as she’d risked everything to protect her little brother.
Briony looked away, blinking rapidly to stop the tears from falling.
Throughout the crowd, silver-collared women were frozen, many with silent tears trailing down their cheeks.
A wild cheering brought her attention back to the front. A cannon wheeled forward.
Terror gripped her as the old war cannon that announced the time every midday in summer spun slowly to face the two siblings.
“No!” she choked, but it was too loud everywhere—inside her mind and out.
A pair of hands landed on her waist. A firm chest against her shoulder blades.
Vein raised his voice again. “Let us prove how foolish it is for anyone to resist Mistress Mallow’s will. We will take the boy first and make his sister watch.”
Briony was frozen in place, heaving for air, Mallow watching her as she panicked. She looked away and a hand moved from her waist to turn her chin back, forcing her to face ahead as they aimed the cannon.
A sharp jaw pressed to her temple. Warm breath fanned across her cheekbones.
“There is a lake with still waters,” Toven’s voice whispered. “A mountain range surrounds it. The waters are deep with hidden secrets, but the water is still.”
She blinked, legs swaying, feeling her breathing even out as she let his words wash over her. His hands slipped around her stomach, pressing her close to him.
They lit the cannon, and she started to feel her panic drift away, like a leaf on a lake.
The courtyard screamed and stomped while they counted down.
“Think of your mind as a library. Shelves upon shelves of novels and journals and biographies,” the voice lulled. “Find an empty shelf for this moment.”
She pulled a book forward, her mind dissociating from the moment in front of her.
An explosive boom rocked the stones beneath her feet. Briony watched with a slack jaw as the spot where the boy had been a moment before smoked and crumbled, his sister speckled with his blood. The cannon was reloaded.
“An empty book in your hands. Its blank pages between your fingers.
Write this moment into the book. Give it a title.”
The Strawberry-Blonde, her mind supplied.
“Fill the pages and close the book.”
The cannon aimed at the woman. She shed tears slowly, mixing with her brother’s blood, dripping pink down her neck.
“Push it into a corner. Lose it within the piles and piles of texts and novels.”
A book’s pages fluttered shut in her mind. It locked. And she breathed deeply, stretching to her tiptoes to push it onto a shelf that was just too tall for her to reach. She imagined a hand with long fingers helping her reach the top.
A cannon was lit.
There was a woman crying.
A crowd cheered and counted the seconds.
The woman tilted her head back to the sky and screamed.
She disappeared in a spray of smoke and blood and rage.
There were hands on Briony’s waist, leading her backward, tugging her down the platform steps.
A beautiful woman with a silver collar and a tray of champagne glasses
stood at the last step. Briony’s mind was blank. She was nameless to her.
“Master Hearst, can I get you anything?”
“Thank you, Ilana. We’re on our way out.”
Ilana. The name was familiar to her, but there were books in her mind that refused to open.
Briony’s body jerked forward, stomach flipping over, the ground coming up to meet her face.
“Oh!” the woman—Ilana—caught her just before she landed. “Miss Rosewood, do be careful.”
Two fingers slid along Briony’s neck. A piece of paper was removed.
How had it gotten there?
“Have a good evening, Master Hearst.”
Arms around her again, moving her quickly past the screaming fanatics and wolves and other monsters. Pulling her to descend a sandy hill.
Reality ripped as a portal opened, and a man with pale hair pulled her into the void.
She stepped through and into a bedroom of grays and silvers, a bed of dark wood, and neatly organized trinkets.
She turned around, bookshelves swaying and buckling, and Toven Hearst stood before her in his bedroom.
His hands came to rest on her jaw, examining her eyes.
“Look at me.”
She blinked, and her bookshelf crashed to the ground. Free.
Shivers came over her skin, gasping breaths from her chest, a flood of tears down her cheeks. She sobbed, her hands clutching his elbows, keeping him close.
And without knowing how, she pressed against his chest, her forehead pushing into his sternum. Her cries shook her body. He enclosed his arms around her back.
There was a hole in her stomach the shape of a cannonball, filled with grief and rage and despair.
Toven didn’t say a word, simply holding her.
She pulled back when she’d finally exhausted herself, stepping away from
him. She knew she was red and swollen and wet. But he looked down at her with such a raw emotion that she couldn’t feel vulnerable.
“They’re going to pay for what they did,” she vowed, her voice hollow and misshapen.
His gray eyes stared down at her. He moved a curl behind her ear. And he nodded.
