Chapter 28
Rosabel La Rouge
Taland, Taland, Taland.
When they opened the office doors for me and let me through, I briefly considered running back just to see if he was awake—and then I was shoved down that fucking tunnel again, and Madeline’s office was not the only thing I could see, but my bedroom, too. Through the eyes of the guard—Lind—who stood by the bathroom door, I saw the bed and I saw Taland, sleeping, exactly as I’d left him minutes ago.
Then I was spit back into my own body—that’s exactly what it felt like. Spit back out of that tunnel, and the office in front of me spun, and it was a miracle I didn’t lose my balance as I walked ahead.
Still, I was completely disoriented, and so I made a big mistake.
I looked to the left of the office knowing full well that that’s where Madeline’s oval mirror was mounted on the wall. The reflection shocked me all over again, paralyzed me in place. I saw my face and my wet hair and my pale skin and my white eyes, and they held me captive for a good second. No air went down my throat as I looked at myself, at what I had become. My heart pounded and my hands shook?—
“Rosabel.”
Madeline’s voice rang in my ears, pulling me out of my trance. Breaking whatever spell the sight of myself had put on me. I turned to find her waving her hand at the armchairs—the same ones where we’d sat when she brought me here from the Blue House. When Taland called her to come save me from his brothers.
Goddess, that felt like ages ago.
The new armchair—because I’d made the old one dirty by sitting on it, she’d said—looked even less comfortable than the old one had been. I didn’t want to sit in it—I would rather stand when speaking to her.
She looked so different to me now—like a little child as she waited for me to respond. She looked…harmless, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why I’d ever been afraid of her. Terrified. In need of her love and affection—and most importantly, approval.
She was just a woman, wasn’t she? She couldn’t hurt me, couldn’t even come close. Not anymore.
“I’m fine right here,” I said, turning my back to the mirror slowly because I needed to be present, not lose my shit, and I needed to get this over with sooner rather than later. It wasn’t just her—this place was full of bad memories. Not just because of when I came back from the Iris Roe, but the last time I was here as well. I could still hear the sound of her pouring her whiskey as she held me down on that couch on the other side of the room and ordered me to tell her everything.
“Very well. You need food. Fiona will be here any moment,” Madeline said and sat in her precious armchair, with that cup in front of her, her tea still steaming, the golden design on it, the oversize saucer just teasing those bad memories I had of the last time I saw them.
“What happened at the chambers?” I asked, and my voice sounded steadier already. I could focus on her. I could focus on the past rather than the present. I could… put off having to deal with myself right now, just for a moment longer. Just until it became a little easier.
“You won,” Madeline said, and that smile on her face…
“Explain,” I said, and half my mind was on Taland, but now my curiosity was the size of a monster, too.
“What’s to explain? Your boyfriend killed most of the Council with the”—her cold amber eyes fell behind me, on the soldiers who refused to move a single inch, and her smile turned up a notch—“Delaetus Army itself. Helen, George, and Nicholas survived. They’re locked up, Helen and George completely drained, and Nicholas—well. He already was.” She leaned in, grabbed her cup. “You won, Rosabel. With my help, of course.”
There was a knock on the door behind us, and suddenly I felt like I should start running. The soldiers moved on their own, or perhaps pushed by my own thoughts, to the sides of it immediately, and when it opened and Fiona walked in, she stopped dead in her tracks, almost dropping the tray full of food in her hands.
Stand down! I thought and almost screamed out loud, and the soldiers stepped back again, right behind me.
Fiona, the elf who’d served my grandmother her entire life, and who’d always been nice to me, looked at me with a brand-new light. With pure, raw fear.
“We’ll take it, Fiona. Thank you.”
One of Madeline’s guards was already there, taking the tray from her hands.
Fiona couldn’t look away from me at all.
Hi, Fi, I wanted to say, and wave, and smile, do anything at all to get that look off her face. I know how it looks, but it’s me. It’s just me!
Except she didn’t wait around for me to gather myself. She moved back and the guard closed the door before he took the tray to the table without a glance my way.
I kept staring at that door for a good moment after, and the image of Fiona’s terrified face remained with me for years to come.
“Sit, Rosabel. Eat. A healing spell is only as good as the energy your body has to spare for it,” said Madeline, her voice so lightweight. So…carefree. The kind of voice she’d never before used when I was around.
I sat down because I needed my strength. I sat down because I needed to be doing something .
“Speak,” I told Madeline, and it seemed I couldn’t bring myself to say more than a word or two at a time right now.
Madeline drank her tea and continued to smile as she looked at me. The shock had passed, and she was most definitely not afraid of my white eyes. If anything, I’d say she was admiring them. Admiring me.
“Well, the young Tivoux challenged the Council to a fight—I’m sure you remember that part. And they accepted because they were arrogant enough to think they would win and take over these…”
Once more her voice trailed off, her eyes moving to the soldiers behind me lightning fast.
“ Men,” she concluded. “They were wrong, so they lost. The elder Tivoux and the Mergenbachs burned down the chambers afterward, imprisoned Helen, George, and Nicholas. The soldiers took them to Headquarters, secured them in the jail cells. It’s still pretty chaotic?—”
“Wait, wait, hold on a moment,” I said, and my head was already buzzing, and fuck, I felt so…light. The room was starting to spin, too, so I had no choice but to reach for a piece of bread on the tray that Fiona had brought me. I didn’t check under the silver dome still, afraid the smell of whatever was on that plate would make me want to throw up. I hated the taste of bile.
“When did they burn the chambers?” Because as far as I could remember, that building had still been there when I passed out.
“Right after you were brought home.”
This isn’t my home, I thought, but didn’t say.
“By your soldiers, you were brought home. They can drive—did you know that? They drove that bus across the city and to the mansion.” She seemed fascinated by the fact.
“And the civilians?” I asked, then bit into the piece of bread, and taste exploded on my tongue.
Fuck, I was hungry. So hungry my stomach was screaming at me now as I chewed.
“All well. Nobody died,” Madeline said as she sipped her tea.
“Soldiers?”
“Back in their homes, I suppose.” She shrugged. “Right after they locked up Helen and the others. I released them until further notice.”
I released them, she said. I swallowed the bread. “You really were in charge of them.”
“Of course,” said Madeline. “There’s nobody else who has the power or the knowledge to command an army except for me. Only IDD directors are trained in that area, and since you took Hill out, it was a no-brainer. I was in charge and I foresaw the whole thing from Headquarters.” The way she looked at me, her unblinking eyes wide…I held my breath. And she said, “I chose not to engage in the fight. Would have been useless, anyway, don’t you think? And the soldiers knew it, too.”
I shook my head again and again as that specific memory reared its ugly head—of Helen Paine shouting to attack, yet none of the soldiers standing in formation had moved. None had even shot their guns or called for spells.
“That was you ,” I breathed, and I don’t know why I hated that so much.
“It was,” Madeline said. “Like I said—there was no point in killing soldiers when the results were obvious the moment Flora was torn apart. They were incredibly valuable to Selem afterward, anyway. They helped in clearing the civilians, arranged transportation for them and the surviving Council members to Headquarters. They handed over Agent Martins, and let them into the building, too.”
My heart fell all the way to my heels. Cassie . The reason why we’d gone to the Council so soon in the first place. She’d been captured and beaten half to death, tied to a chair, and they’d sent us her picture.
“Is she okay?” I asked in a breathless whisper, so damn guilty that I hadn’t thought to ask about her first. Cassie had been my friend, my only true friend.
“She is. Healing in the infirmary, last I heard,” Madeline said.
“Which was when?” How long had I even been out?
“About three hours ago.” My heart slowed down the beating instantly and I took another bite absentmindedly—just the relief giving me a false sense of relaxation for a moment.
“And when did the fighting end?”
“Just last night. You…” She put her cup down, shook her head at me once. “You’ve exceeded my expectations, Rosabel. You’ve truly outdone yourself. I have never in my life been more proud.”
That’s what she said—those exact words. Those words that I thought I’d die to hear my whole life, and I waited now, breath held and hands fisted. I waited to feel… something.
Maybe a sense of accomplishment?
I felt absolutely nothing.
So, I ignored the words easily and instead said, “Radock and the Mergenbachs have taken over Headquarters?”
“They have,” Madeline said, not surprised in the least by my change of subject. “They’ve declared democracy, believe it or not. They’re planning elections for the new Council— elections ,” she repeated and even laughed a little. “The people are going to choose the new leaders now. They want balance.” She shrugged. “I suppose we could try. I don’t think we ever have before.”
“And the IDD?”
She looked up at me, those old, curious eyes. Greedy eyes.
“Well, they know as well as everyone that the IDD is very much needed. Without it, none of us could ever dream of order on any level.”
I nodded. “As an independent institution.” Something the Council would collaborate with, but not control.
Madeline arched a silver brow. “ Independent,” she repeated.
“Yes,” I said. “And you will stay far away from it from now on.”
I braced myself. This was Madeline Rogan, and power was her oxygen. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d betrayed the Council the moment she saw that they were not going to win. And she did it just so she could make claims after. She gave command of the IDD soldiers to Selem because she wanted something out of it—possibly wanted to run the IDD again. She thought she was more than capable—and I agreed. Physically, old age had yet to leave a mark on her.
But she would never, ever take that position again. No matter what she did or how she planned to go about it, she was not going to be in charge of the IDD, and now I was going to feel her wrath, so I prepared myself. Prepared to push back against her arguments, threaten her if I needed to.
Except…
Madeline raised her hands in surrender, crossed a leg over the other, and smiled. “Done.”
Every thought in my head died a quick death. I blinked and I waited for her to start laughing or tell me that I was being silly or something— anything but her silence.
“Done,” I repeated when she refused to say anything else.
“Done. I am retired, am I not? I am not fit to be in charge of the IDD anymore. I will stay far away from it.”
She spoke the words and I heard them, saw her lips moving, too, yet I still couldn’t believe them.
“What I can do, though, is bring the richest Iridian families of the world on board with this new… regime, if you will. They are powerful people, and they can cause a lot of trouble for you if they so please. I can help you bring them over to your side.”
Impossible.
No fucking way in hell—no way.
“I don’t…I don’t understand,” I said truthfully after a good minute because I was more shocked now than I had been in any other situation so far.
“What’s not to understand?” Madeline asked—cheerful, so fucking cheerful I wanted to run from her. Her smile scared me more than her sneer.
“Power,” I choked. “You…you’ve always wanted power.”
“True,” she said, folding her hands over her thigh. “I always have. For me. For our family. For our blood—and we have it.” Her eyes scrolled down my body slowly, and for the first time in my life, she wasn’t disgusted by me. She was in awe. “Power falls on you—more of it than I ever had, more than I imagined. Our bloodline will continue to rule the world whichever form it takes. I have faith in that,” Madeline said. “I have faith in you .”
My eyes closed and I wanted Taland so much that I was dragged into the tunnel once more, and I saw him lying there, sleeping, through the eyes of all four soldiers who were watching him in my bedroom.
Fuck, I was never going to get used to that.
Drawing in a sharp breath, I looked at Madeline again, focused on her face. Her eyes. Her smile.
She was a monster—I knew that my whole life. It was just confirming it that hurt especially deeply. I hated that I was related to her, but I will not lie and say I wasn’t relieved that she wouldn’t make me fight her. I would have—don’t get me wrong. I would have fought her tooth and nail.
But, fucking hell, I was exhausted, and I just didn’t want to.
“So long as you take over the IDD, of course,” Madeline added a heartbeat later, and this time I smiled.
I stood up. “Maybe.”
She stood with me, her smile suddenly vanished. “Not maybe, Rosabel. You will take over the IDD. You’ve earned it.” She came around the table, and I knew she wasn’t going to attack me or anything—of course not. Not now, at least.
But even so, I had this strange thought, this strange desire—to see fear in her eyes.
The soldiers moved. They moved so fast they could have materialized on either side of her, and the way she moved back…
Tongue between my teeth, I called for every ounce of my willpower to stop from smiling. Her guards were behind her, but they didn’t engage. They looked just as scared as Madeline, in fact, and she turned three shades paler right in front of my eyes while she looked up at the soldiers, one then the other, then back at me.
“They’re very protective of me,” I said—this I couldn’t keep inside. And I was going to reach for the tray on the table, except the soldier on the left—his name was Iohannes—leaned down and grabbed it before I could move.
Damn, they were good. So fucking good it terrified me.
Meanwhile Madeline took a step back, shook her head. “We can talk later if you need more rest,” she finally said in half a voice.
“No, Grandmother. I will be leaving soon.”
“Surely you can stay. This is your home. Where are you?—“
“ Not my home,” I said, exactly like I thought it when I first came into this office. The same office where so much of my life had changed through the years.
Today, it changed again—and for the last time.
“Rosabel,” she said, and she had the audacity to sound sad.
“I’ll be taking this with. Taland might want to eat before we leave.” I pointed at Iohannes, as if I really thought she would even look at the tray in his hands—she didn’t. She just stared at the soldier, at what little of his eyes she could see through the helmet, and she turned paler still.
One of the highlights of my life.
“Think about it,” Madeline said when I turned around to leave. “Just…just think about it. The IDD is power. With it you can?—”
“I already have more than enough power—just like you said.” I pulled the door open, walked outside and the soldiers followed me. “And if I do decide to work with Selem, you’ll be sure to hear about it.”
She called after me, Madeline, as if she really believed she had any right. She told me to reconsider, that she would teach me how to be a good director, that she would show me everything I needed to know about the IDD.
On my way back to my bedroom, I smiled, but not because I was happy. I smiled because I’d come to a point in my life where none of what I ever considered to be worthy was anymore.
It occurred to me to go knock on Poppy’s door and see her—she was probably awake—but I couldn’t. I was too exhausted, too impatient to talk to Taland.
Too much of a coward to see the look in her eyes when she saw mine.
So, I went back to my bedroom and I sat on the bed, and I ate some food while I watched Taland breathing.
I tried not to think at all about anything—until he finally woke up.