Chapter 41
Lina
The clocks at Hampton Court had long since struck midnight, and the castle was quiet.
The only sounds Lina could hear were the taps of their shoes and the whispers of their gowns against the stone floor.
They wore a new glamour like assassins wore masks, and the few people they passed did not see undead queens but two unfamiliar women walking with the purpose of military generals on the eve of battle.
No one stood guard at the entrance to Henry’s suite, and the door handle turned easily under Lina’s grip.
Inside, Parr’s poison had done its work, and the handful of remaining courtiers, guards, and musicians were slumped over, unconscious, wherever they had been sitting or standing.
As they passed, Anne even kicked the foot of one of the privy chamber gentlemen—rather hard, Lina noted—just to be sure.
He didn’t so much as twitch. Lina felt Anne release her hold on the glamour a second later, the magick slipping off her face like water, and they marched forward as their true selves.
It was only at the threshold of Henry’s bedroom that Lina paused.
So many choices had led her to this moment, so many triumphs and losses.
What if she had never heard of the Hellebore Sisterhood?
What if she had let her anger win and hadn’t intervened to save Anne?
What if they hadn’t gone to Spain, or rescued Kat, or stopped Norfolk or Cromwell from ruining another woman’s future?
Lina did not think she had lived a happy life. There was too much sorrow and ice in her heart for that to be true. But these last few years, they had been good. Hard and tiring, but good.
She turned to Anne and took her hands. “I love you,” she said simply. “You are a wise and powerful woman, and it is my honor to call you my friend.”
Anne looked back at her, bloodlust and affection and anticipation all woven into the features Lina had come to know so well.
“I would not be here if not for you,” the witch said.
“You gave me everything—life and hope and purpose. I am the one who is honored to have gained your trust after all we’ve been through. ”
Lina squeezed Anne’s fingers, blinking away a sudden mistiness in her eyes. “We end this the way we should have started it: together.”
Anne nodded. “Together.”
Anne would be the one to kill Henry. They had discussed it, and it was the conclusion they both agreed to, even though Lina felt guilty that she was less willing to get her hands dirty.
But Anne wanted to do it, she’d said, and had researched the perfect curse, one that would stop his heart and leave the physicians with no suspicions.
His death would be swift, a mercy neither of them believed he deserved.
But at least it would come at the hands of the woman who had been not just a victim but a survivor. There was justice in that.
With a deep breath, Lina stepped forward and rapped her knuckles against the door in the pattern Parr had taught her. Short, short, long, long.
Parr’s soft voice answered. “Come in.”
The bedroom was dim, with only a candle by the bedside to offer a pale, flickering light.
Almost every surface—from the gold-spun tapestries to the gilt ceiling to the ancient, unsheathed swords decorating one wall—reflected the firelight back, casting them all in an unearthly glow.
At the sound of the door opening and closing, Henry sat up, peering into the darkness.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
As one, Lina and Anne stepped forward into the light, malevolent sentinels standing at the foot of the bed. Lina’s pulse pounded with anger and fear and something else she couldn’t name, a drumbeat echoing deep inside her. She watched as recognition dawned on Henry, followed swiftly by disbelief.
“N-no…” he stammered. “It can’t be.”
He looked to Parr. “Do you see them? Do you see them standing there?”
Parr nodded calmly. “I do.”
Her composure did not ease Henry’s fears. “Those are my wives,” he whispered to Parr, the word wives cracking in his throat. “They’re dead.” He reached for Parr, but she pulled her hand away.
“We all face disappointment, Henry.” Parr swung herself smoothly out of the bed and wrapped a dressing gown around her nightclothes. To Anne and Lina, she gave a businesslike nod. “Welcome, Your Majesties.”
“What are you doing?” Henry called. His voice rose in panic. “Get help! A guard, a priest—someone!”
Parr looked back over her shoulder. “I don’t think anyone could help you now.”
And with that, she walked out of the room, closing the door to make sure no one interrupted them.
Henry had pushed himself up to sitting, his face turning a mottled red. “You,” he said, extending a shaking finger at Anne. “You’ve done this. You’re a witch, I always knew it, always knew you were a lowborn, spiteful—”
Henry didn’t see the flash of Anne’s knife or hear her whispered curse, but Lina did. The words died in Henry’s mouth, and he clutched his throat as Anne’s spell pulled away his breath.
“Congratulations,” Anne said, her smile deadly. “You were right. I am a witch, and I can kill you far more quickly and creatively than you can insult me, so I recommend you keep your hate to yourself.”
Henry wheezed, the air still vanishing from his lungs, then nodded hastily. Anne hesitated a moment longer, and Lina thought she might just kill him then and there…but then she released the curse and Henry sucked in huge, gulping breaths.
“Have you come to kill me?” he rasped.
“Yes,” Lina answered. There was no point in sugarcoating the truth.
With painstaking slowness, Henry lumbered out of bed and onto his feet.
They all knew he couldn’t run. He couldn’t even fight them, not with Anne’s magick at her fingers or Lina’s dagger at her side.
But still, Lina was glad to meet her enemy face-to-face—she had not wanted to kill a helpless man asleep in his bed.
That felt like a coward’s work, and she was no coward.
“I’m sure you’re curious how we came to be here, to be alive,” Anne said, her bloodletting knife at the ready once more.
“But I’m afraid you’ll have to live the rest of your very short life wondering.
Still, I’ll give you the courtesy the priest gave to me before my execution. Do you have any last words?”
Henry stared at them. “This is a dream,” he said, mostly to himself. “I’m having a nightmare.”
Anne rolled her eyes. “Why does everyone always say that when they see us?”
It seemed to hit Henry then, the reality of his situation.
Maybe he realized no dream could so perfectly replicate Anne’s mixture of exasperation and disdain.
Maybe he had finally concluded that he was very much awake.
But either way, any command he had on his temper snapped, and the words Anne had deemed to be his last turned sharp and vicious.
“I should have killed you both myself,” he said, rage clouding his face.
“I should have throttled you in your sleep and no one would have cared. You always believed you were better than me, smarter than me, and yet I won. I rid myself of both of you, and your daughters too.” A hysterical laugh escaped him.
“Daughters! Useless and weak. Given to me by my brother’s cold, tiresome castoff and a treasonous witch.
You want to know my last words? I hope they grow up to be just like you, bitter and alone. ”
It happened again, the ice melting around Lina’s heart to give way to pure, burning fury. In a second, she was across the room, her dagger at Henry’s throat. She wasn’t going to use it—she didn’t think—but she wanted him to believe she could.
“I will be proud if Mary decides to be anything like me,” Lina proclaimed. “And even prouder if she’s nothing like you.”
Lina had seen Anne’s knife, but she hadn’t seen Henry’s.
He must have kept a weapon under his pillow or hidden on his nightstand.
As the blade bit into the tender place between her ribs, she slashed out with her dagger, cutting him across the chest, deep into the meat of his shoulder and skating along his collarbone.
With a bark of pain, Henry let go of his knife, leaving it lodged just below Lina’s frozen heart.