Chapter 17
Rosabel La Rouge
Present Day
Sunlight on my face.
It was warm and soft, luring me out of unconsciousness little by little. Inviting me, promising me that I would like what I’d find when I opened my eyes and gave my attention to the world.
The sunlight was a fucking liar.
My eyes opened when I realized there was music playing in the background—a symphony I knew well and hated with all of my being. Hated, not the way the melody went, but what that melody represented. Who it represented.
It was Madeline Rogan’s favorite music, and she played it in the background at least once a day when she was reading her newspaper during breakfast or when she was having her afternoon tea .
Panic and fear settled in first. I was wide awake within the second, eyes blinking fast to take in my surroundings, part of me begging whoever would listen that I wouldn’t find what I knew I’d find. That I wouldn’t be in the room I knew I’d be in.
I begged in vain.
The room was big, decorated with reds and pinks and oranges, some paler and some more intense, with lots of gold on the door handles, picture frames, paintings, liquor bottle lids—and, of course, Madeline’s teacups. They were white with intricate designs painted in gold, with red flowers just barely there—undeniably her. The chandeliers on the ceiling were full of tear-shaped crystals, the windows wide and tall, almost as big as the entire wall to my left, the curtains at their sides a rich coral that complemented the blue of the sky perfectly.
The carpet under my feet was painted in a thousand shades of pink, and the dark wooden furniture, the white armchair I was sitting on—every little detail in this room was exactly right. Beautiful, luxurious—an illusion my grandmother covered herself in.
She was sitting across from me, a low glass table between our chairs. Her hair was perfectly done, her red suit and white silk shirt impeccably pressed, a clean French manicure on her fingernails that I’d grown to hate with my whole being, and the rim of her cup was stained red with her lipstick. She held it midair as she read her newspaper for a few seconds, then brought it to her lips and took a small sip before putting it down in its oversized golden saucer again.
She didn’t look at me, didn’t acknowledge me at all, even though I had moved. I was sitting on the armchair, wearing my torn clothes from two days ago, and my mouth was so fucking dry, and I was so hungry my insides sang, and my mind was a chaotic mess.
Images flashed before my eyes in rhythm with the melody of the music coming from the record player she’d kept in pristine condition since the nineties. It had its own stand in front of an oval-shaped mirror she’d bought when she married my grandfather.
Yes, she knew exactly how to look after the things she cared about.
She just never cared about me .
I pushed myself up, trying not to move my neck too much, trying not to freak out and start asking questions right away. Composed, just like she liked. No matter what I’d gone through in the past couple of days, I could not let it show on my face.
Breathing deeply seemed like the logical thing to do to try to calm my racing thoughts. I still had no idea what the hell was happening, but I was here. I was in the mansion, in Madeline’s office. I was alive somehow. My leg was hurting like hell, but it wasn’t bleeding. It didn’t feel like it would fall off me if I tried to move. The right side of my face felt tender and bruised and it pulsated with pain—right where Radock had struck me and had knocked me out.
Radock had struck me.
He and his brothers had tortured me with their magic, and they’d been about to get serious about it with electricity and knives and all kinds of tools , too. They’d wanted to make it hurt. Really hurt for what I did. Not just for putting Taland in prison and for not giving them Hill’s name, but for stopping whatever it was they’d tried to do.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve cost the world?”
Shivers ran up and down my body. Radock had been mad with anger, and I had no doubt in my mind that he would have showed me no mercy. But even so, they wouldn’t have killed me because Taland had claimed the right of my death as his prerogative. He would be the one to end me for good.
And that was the very reason I’d gone to the blue house behind the hill in the first place.
So how in the world had Madeline found me? How was I here when I’d been chained in a fucking basement what felt like seconds ago?! Had Madeline really sent the IDD for me?
Why had she cared enough to come get me, especially since she knew what I was now?
Calm down, I told myself before my thoughts got away from my control completely. There was a cup full of tea in front of me on the table, and I needed it. It was going to calm me down. It was going to wet my lips, my tongue, my throat. It was going to set things in motion for me again, press Resume on my life, on time, because right now in this setting, it felt like I was stuck on Pause.
So, I reached for the cup.
“ Don’t you dare ruin my cup, too, with your filthy hands.”
Her voice was calm, steady. Ice-cold, just like always.
Madeline reached for her own cup again and brought it to her lips, eyes on her newspaper. For a second there, I thought I might have imagined her speaking, but I hadn’t. Of course, I hadn’t.
“It’s enough that I have to throw away that armchair.”
She finally put the cup down, folded the newspaper, and met my eyes.
Ice-cold needles pierced my face—a reminder that I was to be as motionless as if I were frozen. I breathed in deeply through my nose, my body shaking, but I still tried .
When she was there, I still fucking tried. I couldn’t help it. It was some broken sensor or instinct inside me that I did not know how to fix yet.
“What happened?” I forced myself to say because the faster she got to the point, the sooner I could get out of here.
If I was ever going to get out of here…
I turned right, looked at the polished doors at the end of the room with suspicion. With longing.
Was I ever really going to make it out of here? Because Madeline had been very clear in that infirmary room. She said she wanted to be the one to take care of it — it being me— and I had no doubt in my mind that she was capable of killing me. Of course, she’d make it look like an accident and she’d be so thorough that the whole world would believe it, but she’d do it, nonetheless.
“What happened is that I was proven right,” she said, resting back on her chair with a sigh that said she knew she was about to be exhausted. “You are weak. You were never worthy of being an IDD agent.”
My eyes closed, but that’s as much as I let it show on my face how she got to me. “I was in a basement. There?—”
“Oh, yes, you were. Chained like a dog—you were. Because you failed to do your job. You failed to protect the one thing that was good about you—your magic.” Slowly, she raised one leg and put it over the other. The hatred in her wide brown eyes was something else. “And then you ran away from the IDD and got captured by the likes of the Tivoux brothers. Hmph. ”
“So, then how did I get here?” I said, and it was getting really hard to speak. “I need water, Grandmother.”
She pretended she didn’t hear that last part at all.
“Why, I sent for you, of course. ”
“How did you know? How did you track me?” I had no tracker on me that I knew of.
“I didn’t,” she spit. “Do you realize what you’ve done, Rosabel? Do you understand what has happened to you?”
I shook my head. If she didn’t track me, how in the hell did she find me? “Grandmother, I?—”
“You are Mud.” She whispered the word as if she was afraid of hearing it said out loud, even by her own voice. She visibly shivered, hands fisted so tightly her knuckles were white.
“Not by choice,” I said, though I wished I hadn’t bothered. “They attacked me. Michael and Erid—they attacked me. They tried to kill me. I was just trying to protect myself.”
Her thin brows shot up. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she told me. “Michael Perez was your team leader.”
“Yes—and he tried to kill me, Grandmother. He shot me.” I showed her my leg—bandaged and dirty and so goddamn painful, but I moved it up a bit anyway. “He and Erid tried to kill me.”
For a second there, I even considered that she might believe me. For a very short second.
“By Iris, what did I do to deserve such a fate?” she muttered. “Do not put your own shortcomings on other people, Rosabel. It’s nobody else’s fault you’re weak. You should have protected your magic at all costs.”
“I did,” I whispered, closing my eyes, shaking my head, trying to get those images out of my head—of Michael and Erid coming for me. The way they’d poured their magic on me and the way mine had sprung out of me, without aim or direction, just trying to protect me. “I really, really did, but Michael?— ”
“To try to blame a man, a true agent, for such heinous crimes?—”
“Grandmother, I swear it, he tried to k?—”
“ Enough! ”
The ring on her middle finger pulsated with light—a gorgeous golden piece with three rubies going vertically from her knuckle down her finger. I felt her magic, saw it so clearly it shocked me a little bit. I had never quite seen it so vividly before. Too vividly.
And it made this hole in my chest expand more—with panic, with envy, with regret. What the hell had I done?!
“You are a stained, good-for-nothing woman, and your only good fortune is that you carry my blood in your veins,” Madeline said, putting down her newspaper before she stood up, looking at me with so much hatred she could give the Tivoux brothers a run for their money.
“My hand was forced in a lot of matters when it comes to you, just like it was with your father,” she spit, then turned away from me and toward the windows to look outside at her vast estate.
Stabs at my gut. That was the reason why my grandmother couldn’t look at me—my father. Mainly my mother, her daughter, who married for love and didn’t choose the man Madeline chose for her. She chose to marry my father, loved him even though he wasn’t powerful, he wasn’t rich, he wasn’t related to the IDD in any way. She loved him and she defied her for him. And he defied Madeline regularly for me.
Madeline hated him so much that when they died, all that hatred transferred to me.
Not like she needed an excuse, really—she was bad to the core, I believed, and she would have used any reason to justify her actions to herself. That is, if she ever had trouble sleeping at night, which I doubted.
“You’re Mud, Rosabel. My own blood, and you are Mud,” she said in a tired whisper, eyes closed though she’d stopped in front of the window. I could barely see her reflection in the polished glass, and for a moment, I imagined running and pushing her right through that window, sending her to the ground. But we were only two stories high, and the fall wouldn’t kill her, even if I could somehow manage to stand up.
“It wasn’t a choice,” I repeated through gritted teeth, more to myself than to her. Because even though I knew exactly who Madeline Rogan was, her words still got to me. She still shaped my image of myself with her poisonous words and looks. I still saw in the mirror exactly what she saw when she looked at me—and I hated it.
It wasn’t a choice to become stained. I’d acted on instinct in that forest. I hadn’t meant to let out my magic the way I had— it was an accident!
And I’d regret it with all my heart until the day I died—but it was not my choice.
Madeline pretended I hadn’t spoken at all.
“You know I can’t have that. My name, stained— never .” Again, she shivered, then turned around to face me, and she genuinely looked terrified. I’d only seen her afraid a handful of times before, if that, but she looked really scared right now at the idea of her name, stained .
I don’t go by your name, I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. Because even though I had my father’s last name, everyone knew I was her granddaughter. There was no escaping her if I tried.
Madeline raised her chin as if to dare me to defy her even before she said, “You will be entering the Iris Roe tomorrow evening.”
My ears rang for a good long minute. I blinked and blinked, and watched her red lips, certain I’d heard her wrong. Certain all of this was wrong.
Then I shook my head. “I’m sorry, what?”
She flinched. Actually flinched. Took two steps closer, folded her hands behind her back and leaned down just a bit. “You will be entering the Iris Roe tomorrow evening, Rosabel. Pay. Attention. I don’t like to repeat myself.”
Oh, yes. She most definitely didn’t like that, never did. But I still needed her to right now because what she was saying made no sense.
“The Iris Roe,” I repeated just so it didn’t sound like a question outright.
“Yes, the Iris Roe. You will enter it tomorrow evening. A team will take you to one of the gates,” she said, clearly. Slowly. Very easy to understand.
“As…as a guard?” I wondered because that was the only thing that made sense. “As an agent.”
That’s what I did, that was my job. Screw the fact that nobody had ever asked me what I actually wanted to do or that I didn’t know what I wanted to do myself because I’d never had the time or the chance to wonder— I was an agent.
Madeline laughed.
She rarely laughed, and I was thankful for it because the sound was not pleasant. It was cold and sharp, coming at me like ice shards, attacking the inside of my mind relentlessly, yet I didn’t dare flinch or lean away.
“As a player,” she finally said, making the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention.
A player in the Iris Roe .
Once again, I shook my head. “It’s a game of magic.” Which she knew—very well.
Was that why she was messing with me, why she even brought it up? To taunt me? To mock me? Because not only was the Iris Roe all about magic—it was also deadly. People died in it regularly, and there was a shitload of forms to sign before you could even enter. It had an anything goes type of vibe, and the IDD allowed even the most absurd things to happen in Roe. The kind of absurd things that took lives and left people mutilated for the rest of their days. At that meeting about the catfairies in the Headquarters all the agents had been nervous. I remembered the statistics, too—sixty percent of all players had died last time, and the numbers grew with every new Iris Roe. Sixty percent.
A game of magic that I did not have anymore, and I still hadn’t even come to terms with it, hadn’t allowed myself to think about it, hadn’t really comprehended it—because when did I have the time for that?!—but she wanted me to play in the Iris Roe?
“It is, indeed,” Madeline said as she slowly paced in front of me with her hands still behind her back. “It’s a game of magic and skill—skill taught at the IDD Academy, if you bothered to pick up any of their lessons.”
I could have laughed.
How do you think I survived all this time as an agent?!
“Grandmother, I do not have magic.” That she made me say this was the most absurd thing yet. And those tears—angry, sad, enraged tears—filled my eyes but I refused to let them shed. Not in front of her. She could get pretty much anything out of me, but she didn’t get to see me cry again.
“Well aware,” she said with a sneer. “Which is why you’re going to compete in the Iris Roe—and win.” She stopped a few feet to my side and looked down at me. “The prize of the game is the Rainbow.” Yes, the Rainbow—an actual rainbow full of colors. Full of magical colors, which I needed magic to win. “There is a theory that suggests that enough chromatic magic consumed at once can restore color to a stained Iridian. It has never been tested before—but no time like the present, especially since you’re my granddaughter.”
My mouth opened and closed a million times before I was able to make a sound.
“I’ll never make it,” I said in a whisper. “The Roe is ruthless. The players are…” I shook my head again and again. “I’ll die.” There was no doubt about it—I would die in the Iris Roe without magic.
Madeline raised her brows just slightly. “Yes. Either that —or you earn your magic back. Those are the only options you have.”
By then I should have known better than to want to remind her of what she just said herself—that I was her granddaughter, her family, her own flesh and blood. Her daughter gave birth to me— how can you be so cruel ?!
Yet I still wished, for a second, to scream those words out at her, to shout them at the top of my lungs. I still wished, but I kept my mouth shut and just looked at her because it made perfect sense, didn’t it? True to her character, Madeline. She always stayed true to her character.
“Get some rest. Eat. I’ve given permission to the staff to perform magic on you. You will be taken to the Roe tomorrow evening, and you’re not allowed to leave your room until then,” Madeline said with a wave of her hand, looking down at my body like I was the vilest thing she’d ever seen in her life.
I will not cry.
“Grandmother, I can’t win the Iris Roe. It’s impossible. I can’t win without magic. I will die.” Just in case she didn’t think it through enough—which she did.
“I know, Rosabel. I don’t think you heard me: you either die or you come back with your magic. There is. No. Third. Option. ” With each word she leaned closer and closer, wide amber eyes never blinking, her minty breath filling my nostrils. “Consider yourself lucky. Your misfortune came at the right time, at least. If it wasn’t for Roe, there wouldn’t be a second option, either.”
Meaning, she’d have killed me. Or she’d have had someone else kill me for her. Just like she said in the infirmary room—she would have taken care of it.
Lucky for me, a game that was no game at all was going to kill me instead.
And you know what—I was glad for it. I’d chosen to go find Taland so he could kill me instead, but a power-hungry player in a deadly game was still a better candidate to end my life than Madeline.
I was glad.
“Noted,” I forced myself to say and stood up, forgetting the state of my leg until I almost collapsed on the floor. I would have if it wasn’t for the armchair to steady me.
“And by Iris, take a damn bath. You stink.” She wrinkled her nose like she smelled something foul.
“Will do.” I turned around, sweat beads lining my forehead already, and I began to hop toward the door. My leg didn’t hurt nearly as much as in the beginning, but I didn’t want to test it, not now when I was this close to being alone in my room.
Alone. It sounded like a fucking blessing.
“You forgot to say thank you, Rosabel,” Madeline said when I was still halfway to the doors. I turned my head to her, sure I’d heard her wrong. “For saving you. ”
Yes, I had heard exactly right.
“Thank you for saving me, Grandmother.” The words tasted acidic on my tongue. They sounded awful out there in the world, even worse than they did inside my head.
Madeline said nothing, only nodded her head, and a different look fell over her, one that said, well, at least she got one thing right.
She didn’t stop me again.