CHAPTER 6
BRIONY GASPED INTO CONSCIOUSNESS. Her body shot upright, and she blinked her eyes open into a dark room. It was moving, undulating, writhing.
And then Cordelia was in front of her, holding her face between two cold
hands.
“Briony, it’s me!”
Sound slammed into her ears. The room was shifting and slithering toward her.
No. It was bodies. The room was full of bodies. People. She wasn’t alone.
“Are you all right?”
“What does she remember?”
“Is she injured?”
Briony shoved Cordelia away and gasped for air, feeling suffocated by the
darkness.
“Water!” Cordelia shouted.
Briony’s eyes adjusted, and a silhouette moved in the meager light. There was the sound of water being poured.
Briony held her hand over her chest, trying to slow her heartbeat. She was
no longer at Claremore Castle.
“Where am I?”
“We don’t know.”
Briony turned to the dark-haired woman on her right. It was Phoebe, one of the cousins of the Rosewood family. Finola’s younger sister.
Cordelia grabbed the water cup from someone and pushed it to her lips.
Briony reached up to take it from her and found her hands shackled. She coughed, sputtering the water.
“What is this?” She tugged at her hands. The chains gave her only a few inches between her palms.
That might limit the spells she could cast— “There’s something special about the neckpiece,” Cordelia said.
Briony spied a collar on Cordelia’s neck. She reached for her own, a cool metal with no discernible lock. Every woman in matching collars and chains.
“It might be infused with the Gowarnus herb from Shurtarth, or it might be something entirely new, but whatever it is, it cuts off our magic.”
Briony blinked at the collar, mind whirring. The Gowarnus herb worked to dampen and dissolve the connection between the magician and their magical thread. Briony had never experienced it firsthand, but her father had described his meeting in the Shurtarth region as unsettling. I’ve never felt more vulnerable in my life than while that damned herb cut off my magic.
She breathed deep, trying to find the string behind her eyes, the hum of her magic. But reaching for it was like trying to pull back a dream upon waking. It was gone.
Briony looked up at Cordelia and found her own devastation reflected back to her from blue eyes. What were they going to do with them?
She assessed the room. There must have been fifty people. All women, and most she recognized from her court. Katrina sat across the room with her arms around a girl who could be no older than sixteen.
“Where is everyone else? The men?”
Phoebe reached for her arm and said gently, “Rory isn’t—”
“I know Rory is dead,” Briony said sharply. She listened to the silence echo afterward. She cleared her throat. “Didion and Sammy? The generals?”
“They’re holding them separately. We caught a glimpse of them a few days ago.”
“Days?” Briony’s eyes widened. “How long was I unconscious?”
Cordelia and Phoebe exchanged glances. “You were just dropped off today,” Cordelia said.
Briony’s jaw dropped. She scanned herself. No injuries. But there was something on her arm. Black ink that seemed to glisten gold when she twisted it under the moonlight.
Hap Gains. A tattoo of sorts. It was his signature.
The blood drained from her head.
“That’s who captured you.” Phoebe nodded at the tattoo. Briony’s eyes drifted down to Phoebe’s arm, where she saw Lag Reighven.
Cordelia cleared her throat. “What was the last thing you remember?”
Briony’s mind flickered through images—Rory’s boundary falling; Anna’s body on the stairs; the maid who helped them; Toven Hearst’s eyes inches from her own, the speckles of blue in them— “The day of the battle. The boundary falling.”
A collective gasp shivered through the room.
“Briony, that was days ago—”
“Three days? Maybe four?”
“Have you eaten at all?”
Phoebe hushed the room, jumping to her feet. “Let’s get her some food.”
Her voice was authoritative, and Briony saw a glimpse of the older cousin who taught her defensive magic in the days following King Jacquel’s
assassination.
Briony’s mind cleared. “Food?”
And suddenly a tray of fruit was pushed in front of her face. Grapes, apples, pears.
“They’re feeding us?” Briony asked. “What in the name of the waters are they planning on doing with us?”
“Oh, someone just tell her. This is maddening.” The voice rang out as clear as a bell, and Briony recoiled in recognition.
She leaned around Cordelia and Phoebe, and there—across the room, in a corner by herself, with no friends surrounding her for the first time—was Larissa Gains, collared and shackled like the rest of them.
Briony hadn’t seen her in the four years since the war began, but it was
clear she would recognize that perfectly symmetrical face underneath any amount of dirt and blood. Her hair was still lustrous in the minimal light, though limp. Larissa’s cold eyes glinted at her.
Her mind tripped over the possible reasons Larissa was in this dungeon with them, but she refocused on the conversation first.
“Tell me what? Why are we being held here?”
Larissa smiled cruelly. “It’s for the auction.”
A shiver crested over her skin. She wished she could say, What auction.
But memories bubbled up to the surface of her mind, and she was once again in the familiar hallways of the Bomardi school.
It had been just over six years ago, only a few weeks before the man on the Bomardi Seat was assassinated. Veronika Mallow’s name was hot on every tongue in Bomard already, and that would have been the first clue that change was coming if only it didn’t seem a completely preposterous idea. A Bomardi Seat hadn’t been assassinated in ten generations.
But Veronika Mallow had found a way to speak to the hearts of the succession line. We are the true magic, she’d said. Mind magic isn’t an evolved magic. It is conniving and duplicitous. The Eversuns want to keep you weak, to take away your familiars, and to sever your heartspring bonds.
But we are stronger than them, and they know it. We must do everything we can to keep them down.
In their third year of study together, all the Bomardi were humming her words, threatening the Eversun students around every turn.
It had been Liam Quill who’d brought up the idea of an auction first.
“My father says it’s only a matter of time before we chop off King Jacquel’s head,” he’d said loudly one day in late spring, when it was just warm enough for everyone to eat lunch outside. They were gathered in the farthest corner of the Bomardi school’s courtyard, where the sun was strongest and the breeze nonexistent. He was reclined back on his tan elbows, chewing thoughtfully on an apple, shaking his raven hair out of his eyes every few moments. “And what do you think will become of you, Princess?”
Briony had been reading in a covered alcove. She’d been there first, and Liam, Finn, Toven, and a meaty, thick-headed, pale-skinned Bomardi named
Collin Twindle had all sat down not ten feet from her. She turned a page instead of responding.
“We’ll chop her head off, too,” someone said.
“I have a few better ideas of what to do with her head—”
“You’ll have to come into quite a bit of gold for those ideas, Collin,”
Toven had said, stretching catlike.
“Haven’t you heard?” Liam said, more to her than to Collin Twindle.
“We’ll be selling them off to the highest bidder. Just like they used to do in Daward in ancient times.”
Briony snapped her eyes up to find them all grinning at her. Toven’s shirt had pulled free of his trousers, baring a sliver of pale skin as his arms reached over his head. Now at eighteen, he was becoming impossible to ignore in the hallways with his towering height and shock of white-gray hair that seemed to gleam silver. Her gaze landed on his stomach before looking away again.
If she left, they’d win.
“Wouldn’t mind having my own Eversun,” Liam continued. “I’d make ’em clean my house and clean my cock.”
Briony pressed her lips together as laughter reached her ears.
“You’re missing the point, Liam,” Toven said disapprovingly. “You’re not buying a whore. You’re buying power. A heartspring to keep all for yourself. A secondary supply of magic to pull from.”
“I think you’re missing the point, Tove,” Collin said, chuckling. “You’re forgetting about Sacral Magic.”
“Yeah, Tove,” said Liam. “That heartspring magic will be good, but Sacral Magic will only enhance—”
“—when freely given,” Toven finished, correcting them. “Good luck getting your Eversun to beg you for it.”
Briony snapped her book shut. “You’re talking about people. Human beings.”
“An Eversun isn’t a human being, love,” Liam said.
The only person who didn’t laugh with him with Finn, who was peeling his apple with a knife. His mother was Eversun.
Briony shook her head of the memories, refocusing, readjusting to the
dark of the cell.
Cordelia didn’t even turn to Larissa. “Don’t listen to her. If she knew what was going on, she wouldn’t be in here.”
“What is she doing here?” Briony asked, voice hoarse.
“She was dropped off when you were,” Phoebe said.
Briony watched Larissa examine her nails as if there weren’t dirt underneath them.
She turned back to Cordelia. “What happened to you?”
Cordelia blew out a breath. “The passageway collapsed, and that maid and I tried for a bit to get the rocks cleared. She finally ran when I said I wasn’t leaving without you.”
Briony closed her eyes, feeling tears blossom. “You should have gone.”
“Too late to be helped now,” Cordelia said, brushing Briony’s hair away from her face.
Briony’s fingers flew to her mother’s brooch, hidden between the folds of her dress. She said a silent thank-you to the waters that she’d kept it with her.
Glancing to the only door, Briony said, “What do we know? How often do they drop people off?”
“In the beginning it was every hour, but now it’s once a day.” Phoebe sniffed and then wiped her nose with the backside of her pale wrist. “They bring a tray of food every morning. We’re rationing.”
Briony nodded. She stretched out her legs and brought herself up to standing. She was still in her flowing dress from the day of the battle, though it was covered in grime. Every eye in the room locked onto her movements.
“Has everyone tried their magic?”
The room of women looked around, nodding yes.
Briony ran through the possibilities. The Bomardi weren’t going to kill them if they were feeding them. If there was to be an auction, there was only so much time until they were separated—until their strength in numbers was gone.
“Is anyone combat-trained? Hand-to-hand?” Briony asked the room.
Larissa laughed deep in her throat, and Briony glared at her.
“You want to kick and shove your way out of here?” Larissa said. “In
these chains? You’re absolutely mad.”
“Why are you here?” Briony snapped. “To spy on us?”
Larissa rolled her eyes. “You’re not important enough to spy on. Not anymore.”
“So, you’re a traitor then?” Cordelia said, joining Briony in standing. “I don’t buy that.”
“Believe what you want.” Larissa dismissed them, glancing down at her nails again.
A woman stood up in the far corner of the room. She was tall and broad- shouldered with deep-bronze skin. She reminded Briony of Anna in the way she stood at attention. “Miss Rosewood, I’m Velicity Punt. I’ve served in the Eversun militia for the past seven years,” she said. “Most of my training was with defensive and offensive magic, but I will gladly serve you as I served your brother and father before that.”
Briony swallowed. She’d never received sworn allegiance from anyone but Anna. All allegiance was given to the king and his male heir in Evermore.
Before she could tell Velicity it wasn’t necessary, another woman stood.
“I only have one year with the militia, but if we’re doing hand-to-hand, I want in.” She had a black eye already and long raven hair that she kept in a braid.
Briony began weighing the options, wondering how many guards there were outside the cell.
“I’m really fast,” said a young voice. It was the sixteen-year-old girl that Katrina was comforting. She had curly hair and a gap between her teeth.
“Like, really fast. My brothers can never catch me.”
Briony opened her mouth to tell her she needn’t worry, that they wouldn’t
force her to fight.
Bang!
The room jumped and the women clung to one another. They faced the door where bolts were unlocking with a groan. When it opened, two men in blue coats stepped inside.
Lag Reighven was tall and thin, with thick black eyebrows and a twisted nose. He was at least fifteen years her elder, and every altercation she’d had
with the man had given her nightmares. He had ties to the magical black market and was known to be in the business of buying and selling heartsprings—human familiars. The old Seat of Bomard used to regulate him, but Veronika Mallow gave him permission to do as he pleased as long as he served her. The use of humans as heartsprings in Bomard had exploded over the last four years, and it was well known that Reighven had both led the charge and profited handsomely from it.
The other man was Hap Gains, fourth in line to the Seat and the man who’d captured her on the day Rory died. Not to mention, he was also Larissa’s father. Briony glanced at Larissa and found her looking down at the floor.
“Medical examinations today.” Gains’s voice was thick and low. He had a pink scar over one blond eyebrow that hadn’t been there before.
Reighven was staring directly at Briony with a leering grin. “Look who’s
awake.”
Briony raised her chin in response.
“You five,” Gains said with a lazy point to a group that included Phoebe
and Cordelia. “Come.”
No one moved.
“I’ll drag you if I need to.”
Phoebe stepped forward slowly, volunteering to be first. Cordelia and the other three got into line, the chains between their hands clicking. There was a heavy thudding in Briony’s heart as Cordelia glanced over her shoulder to Briony just before the door closed on them.
It was quiet in the room afterward.
“This is good,” said Velicity. “They can tell us what to expect out there.
And it will be two of them against two of us.” She nodded at the black-haired woman.
“Three of us,” the young curly-haired girl said, reminding them she was willing to fight. “I’m Eden.” She introduced herself, trying to mimic the way Velicity had stood at attention in her greeting.
Briony didn’t know how to pick and choose who would risk their lives today. She turned to Larissa.
“Larissa, can you help us at all? Do you know where we are?”
She was quiet, her eyes unfocused. Finally, she looked up at Briony. “I think it’s the Trow estate. They have a dungeon.”
Briony’s heart skipped. “Can you tell us anything about this place? Is there a way out that you know of?”
Larissa sneered. “Oh, so you can skip out the door leaving me behind? No thank you.”
“Who said I’d leave you behind?” Briony stared her down until Larissa looked away.
“I think...” Larissa cleared her throat. “I think we’re five floors down. I think the main exit will be up four staircases.”
Hope leached out of Briony a little. That was too many floors. “Thank you,” she said. She glanced to the other women, all waiting with bated breath
for Briony to tell them what to do.
“Is Rory really dead?”
Her head snapped to the left. A voice had come out of the mass of bodies.
She couldn’t tell who, but someone had spoken the question in her heart.
She swallowed. “I don’t—”
“He is.” Velicity looked at her and then away. “He is.”
“But how?” a woman asked. “What about the prophecy?”
Briony wondered the same. Six hundred years ago, at the outbreak of the civil war, one of the seers had delivered a prophecy: When the sun shines at night, he who will bring an end to war on this land shall be victorious. He shall be an heir, twice over, and a rightful sovereign over the continent.
But one hundred years later, when Briony’s ancestor sat down with the first Seat of Bomard to accept the secession of Bomard from Evermore and sign the Spring Treaty, no “heir twice over” brokered its terms or played any role at all in its making. The prophecy had been forgotten, as most unfulfilled prophecies would be.
Until this mess with Mallow. Until Rory.
As her father’s only male child, Rory had been the heir to Evermore. Ten years ago, their father had quelled a dispute on the largest of the three
southern islands, winning the self-governed island’s allegiance. Rory became the heir presumptive to the island as well.
This made him an heir, twice over, just as the prophecy had stated.
“It was an old prophecy,” Briony said softly to the women. “It wasn’t accurate the first time the Moreland continent went to war, either.”
It tasted like ash in her mouth, like betrayal. How many times had she told Rory he was the one. How many times had she promised her people that the war would stop on the day of the eclipse and that Rory would bring them together in peace?
She reached for him on that vein in her chest, aching to feel his magic respond. But nothing. Briony took a deep breath and locked Rory away in her heart.
The air was thick as they waited for the first group to come back. Only the sound of one woman sobbing cut through their silence.
When the bang of the door unlocking came again, everyone jumped and turned their eyes on the door. Cordelia, Phoebe, and the others returned freshly bathed, looking no worse for wear. Gains and Reighven took five more women and left them alone. Once the door was locked again and the footsteps receded, Phoebe turned her attention to the dusty floor and began drawing a map from memory with her shoe.
“Showers first,” Cordelia said, pointing as the map took shape. “Then medics. Showers are two floors up. You’ll have to strip down while they watch.” Her voice broke, but she continued. “They keep the chains on you the whole time. Medics on the same floor. They tested us for pregnancies first, which was...unexpected.”
Briony swallowed thickly. Phoebe dropped to her knees and reached for the grapes and berries to mark where the guards were.
“And Reighven confirmed it,” Cordelia said. “There’s to be an auction for heartsprings. They’re going to use us.” Her voice wobbled for the first time.
“They’re going to take our magic and use it for themselves.”
Cordelia glanced at Briony with a sniff, then at Larissa—the only person who hadn’t moved to watch the map be drawn.
“Is there nothing you can say to your father?” Cordelia snapped, her
patience clearly worn thin.
Larissa glared back at her. “Is there anything you can say to yours?”
The room gasped collectively. Cordelia’s father had been murdered a year earlier. The primary suspect was Hap Gains.
Cordelia stepped forward with a snarl on her face, but Phoebe jumped up and pushed a hand against her shoulder and said to the room, “Here’s what we know.”
Briony moved closer, standing at Phoebe’s side. Velicity and the other woman with the black eye joined her.
“There is a window on this floor and on the floor with the showers. I have no idea about the floor between—we didn’t see it from the staircase.”
“A window?” Briony turned to Larissa. “I thought we were five floors down in the dungeons?”
“The Trow property was built into the other side of the Tampet Mountains, just like the Bomardi school. We are in the dungeon, but every floor still has a view.”
“How high is the property? How far up from the base of the mountain are we?” Briony asked.
Larissa pressed her lips together. “Hundreds of yards.”
A muttering passed through the women. Hope was swirling down a drain.
How could anyone get down a mountainside with their hands chained?
“All you’ll have on your side is the element of surprise,” Phoebe said quietly to Briony. “Don’t waste it.” She turned to Velicity. “Get Briony out.
Don’t come back for us.”
Briony’s head snapped to her. “What? No. We’ll find the men, and we’ll —”
Cordelia grabbed Briony’s hand. “You have to go, Briony. You have to find whatever’s left of Rory’s forces. They need a Rosewood to rally behind.”
“My line doesn’t matter anymore,” Briony whispered. “A woman cannot be ruler of Evermore.”
Before Cordelia could argue, the first bang of the doors unlocking sounded.
Phoebe and a few others gathered the fruit from the floor. Velicity grabbed Briony’s elbow and dragged her across the room to where Gains had been choosing women for the next round of medical exams. The woman with the braid and black eye joined them. Just before the second door unlocked, a figure dashed across the room, almost knocking into Briony in an effort to join the next group. It was Eden. Katrina was hot on her heels.
The door opened, and five women were readmitted into the cell. One of them was shaking so hard that she fell to her knees.
Gains gestured at the next five: Briony, Velicity, the black-haired woman, Katrina, and Eden.
Velicity stepped forward, volunteering to be first in line, and Briony suddenly realized that they had no plan. Just...fight? It wasn’t enough. They had no signal. And what did she know about combat without magic?
Katrina moved in line next, then Briony. Eden and the black-haired woman fell into line behind her.
Reighven clicked his teeth at her as she passed him.
Her eyes flickered over every detail outside the dungeon as they stepped into a small antechamber of dark walls. The light was almost too bright after that darkness, and she had to squint against the torches. As Reighven locked the door to the cell with a twist of his hands, Gains opened the next one.
Briony tried to remember the floor plan—the fruit against the dirty stones.
They followed Gains out of the second door and found a labyrinth of hallways. She had no idea how Phoebe had remembered it all. And a sudden fear struck her that she hadn’t. What if she’d made mistakes? Two left turns should take them close enough to that window, but what if it didn’t?
Reighven locked the second door with a heavy thunk, and Briony turned to watch what kind of locking gesture he used so she could replicate it once she got this collar off. He caught her looking and smiled with yellow teeth.
“Don’t be smart now.”
Briony hurried to follow Katrina’s yellow hair as she left the antechamber.
Gains led them around the two left corners, and there— Briony could see the window. It was dawn.
They were ten paces from it when Velicity reared back and swung her
chained hands at the back of Gains’s skull. He fell sideways with the strength of it, smacking into the wall.
Briony spun as the black-haired woman delivered a hard punch to Reighven’s stomach, doubling him over in surprise. Eden darted the ten steps to the window and started working it open.
Gains recovered and shoved Velicity’s body back with magic, pinning her against the stone wall. Briony moved to swing her chains at his head in the same way Velicity had, but she felt a hook around her waist, tugging her back on a string. She smacked into a hard chest, and Reighven’s pale hand wrapped around her stomach to hold her against him by her throat.
She kicked, trying to maneuver him into releasing her. He grunted and held firm, pinning the black-haired woman to the wall with magic. Katrina kicked Gains in the stomach, and Briony watched his hold on Velicity
release.
Eden got the window open.
Reighven reached out, and Eden was yanked from the window by her hair. She screamed as she flew, landing hard on her back.
Briony curled forward as far as she could and then flung her chained hands over her head. The metal connected with Reighven’s face with a crack, and he released her with an oof!
Eden scrambled back to the window, nimbly dodging every body part in the hallway and every spell cast. She was fast.
The raven-haired woman had her chains wrapped around Reighven’s neck, choking him. Blood dripped down his head from the smack her shackles had given him. Eden was gesturing for Briony to run to the window, but Katrina and Velicity were struggling with Gains.
“Enough!” Gains bellowed. He reached out and contorted his arm.
Velicity screamed and dropped to the floor. Her knee was angled wrong.
He’d dislocated it.
Gains grabbed Katrina by the neck and slammed her head against the stone wall. Briony gasped as she crumpled.
Briony’s heart pulsed with rage and fear. Without logic, she sliced her arm through the air, a magical instinct.
Something thrummed in her chest.
Gains gasped, grabbing for his sternum. Blood blossomed bright red against his blue coat.
Time seemed to stand still as Briony looked between Gains and her own hand. The hand that had just sliced his chest open with magic. Velicity’s pained face was slack with awe.
Briony spun, finding Reighven standing over the black-haired woman, giving up on magic and kicking her in the ribs. She flicked her fingers, and her heart sent magic down her veins. Reighven’s body flew from the ground, hitting the ceiling. She pinned him there.
Gains stared at her in shock as he started to heal himself, pulling his skin back together.
Velicity jumped at him, digging her fingers into the slice to tear him open again. Gains yelled in pain, and Velicity screamed, “Briony, go!”
Briony tugged on her magic—heart magic—and cast a shield around herself, the strength of the Rosewood bloodline. She ran to the window, feeling magic bouncing off her shield.
Briony joined Eden at the window, looking down. It was a steep drop onto jagged rocks.
There was a scream from next to her as Eden was yanked away from the window again. Briony whirled around and found Velicity on the floor barely conscious, Katrina out cold, the black-haired woman rolling in pain, and Reighven standing in the center of it all, Eden held against his chest like a shield.
One hand was holding her throat; the other was held out in front of him, palm up.
Briony’s eyes widened as she recognized the beginning of the Heartstop cast—the spell to crush a heart.
Gains was pale but healing his wound on the ground as Briony stared down Reighven.
“Playtime is over, Princess,” Reighven growled. “Don’t know how you’re resisting the collar, but it’s two of us against one of you. Step away from the window, and this one lives.”
The black-haired woman came to her feet with unsteady movements and tried to rush at Reighven. He kicked his leg out, and his heavy boot caught her hip, sending her flying into the wall.
Briony watched his fingers begin to curl in toward his palm. Eden gasped, squirming as her heart began to collapse in her chest.
Eden’s eyes begged her. Briony began to leave the ledge.
Velicity’s voice stopped her. “Don’t—”
Reighven crushed his fingers into a fist, and Briony screamed as Eden took one last breath—her heart crumpled, her eyes never leaving Briony’s.
Reighven let her body drop and began moving toward the window. Gains was just coming to his feet again.
Guards appeared at the opposite end of the hallway, and Briony took off to her left, up the stairs. She’d find the window on a higher floor, and maybe it would give the women a chance if they were separated.
She heard Reighven’s heavy footfalls hot on her heels. She felt several of his spells rebound against her shield.
She spilled out onto an identical floor. A chunk of stone broke off a wall and slammed into Briony’s side. She tumbled to the floor. Her shield was for magic, not physical force.
Her ribs burned in pain, but she rolled back to her feet. The balls of her feet slapped the stones as she ran down the hall, searching for the next staircase or the next window. She tried to find the thread of her mind magic, but it was still silent. It was her heart she was casting from.
Briony threw herself down a corridor and skidded to a stop. It was a dead end. She tried the two doors, but they wouldn’t budge.
When she spun back around, Reighven was at the entrance of the corridor, panting and smiling at her.
“You’re going to be fun to break,” he said. He didn’t bother moving down the hall. He had her cornered.
Briony reached her hand out, palm up. She tugged on the vein of magic in her chest, ready to rip her heart if it meant taking Reighven out of this world.
Reighven’s eyes flew wide.
She’d never cast Heartstop before, but she thought the mechanics of it
were clear enough.
Briony curled her fingers into a fist, concentrating on what it meant to kill him. To kill someone.
Reighven’s body went still, and Briony waited. Even with the pulse of magic in her chest, nothing happened.
His yellow teeth smiled at her from under his twisted nose. “You have to really mean it, Princess. You’ll get it next time,” he mocked her.
His hand shot out, and magic as sharp as knives sank into every inch of her skin. She heard herself screaming through the tunnel of the pain. She dropped to her knees, trying to grasp onto any magic inside herself to make it stop.
A slim body with hair the color of straw crashed into Reighven, throwing
them both out of sight. Katrina.
Briony’s mind released the pain.
She pulled herself to her feet and ran toward them as Katrina screamed.
Reighven had Katrina by her hair, tugging her up to the same position Eden had been in when her heart had stopped in his hand.
“No—”
“Let’s try this again, Miss Rosewood.”
Gains was behind Reighven, gasping from running up the stairs.
“Hands above your heart, knees on the ground,” Gains demanded.
Briony’s mind raced as Katrina’s ribs dragged in air.
“I already owe Caspar Quill and Riann Cohle a few thousand gold for this little stunt,” Reighven said. He grinned. “Trow won’t mind this one going to waste, too, I’m sure.”
Eden was dead. Another one, too? Velicity or the black-haired woman?
Katrina here, about to die. Fifty magicless women locked in a room two floors down.
The men were alive somewhere, but Rory was dead.
“On the floor, Rosewood,” Gains bellowed.
He closed in on her as her eyes flicked between him and Reighven. Her hands were held out as far as the chains would allow, prepared to engage either of them.
She could kill them both. It might take some fighting, but she could do it.
And then what? Who was left?
“I’ll kill this one, too, Princess.”
She could try Heartstop again. Take out Gains. But not before Reighven ended Katrina.
She could kill Gains, then Reighven as Katrina’s body dropped.
And then she’d be alone.
“It’s okay, Briony.” Katrina smiled at her. There was blood on her teeth.
Briony blinked at the friend she’d never been kind enough to.
Katrina nodded. “Don’t think of me. Go.”
Reighven snarled, starting to curl his fingers toward his fist. Katrina
gasped but tried to smile through it.
“Go, Briony,” Katrina wheezed.
She had to—She could—She— Briony dropped to her knees and moved her chained hands above her head.
Katrina fell from Reighven’s grip, gasping on the floor. Alive.
Gains grabbed Briony’s chain and threw her onto her back. He put his boot on her chest, holding her down.
“Go tell Orion we need that Gowarnus elixir, after all,” Gains ordered Reighven. “And clean this up.”
Briony winced as Katrina coughed, clutching her chest. Had she done the right thing?
She didn’t know why she had magic. Had this been her only chance? Had she wasted it?
Gains reached down for Briony’s chain and dragged her down the hall on her back and then tumbling her down the stairs. Briony watched Katrina breathe, knowing the blonde would have done the same for her, tenfold.
She held on to that thought until she was dragged out of sight.
