Chapter 18
Rosabel La Rouge
Present Day
“You poor thing.”
Poppy was outside the door in the hallway, waiting for me with one of her maids and two guards wearing shiny black suits.
By then the world was spinning so fast in front of my eyes that I had to hold onto the wall just to keep from falling on my face.
“Help me!” Poppy whispered to the maid, and they both moved to either side of me, grabbed my arms and put them around their shoulders, and took me forward carrying all my weight.
Fuck, I must have been feverish again—or maybe just terrified? Even more terrified than when I read that text, or when I had a seven-foot catfairie looking down at me, or when the Tivoux brothers argued about whose turn it was to torture me, or when Madeline was looking down at me, telling me that my life had an expiration date?
Yes, that last one did it for me. It was the cherry on top of this cake I’d been served these past few days.
Yet I still managed to remain somewhat conscious while Poppy and her maid dragged me down hallways and up stairs. I didn’t miss how the guards followed us close behind, and I most certainly didn’t miss the other two who were already in my room when we entered. Sunlight streamed through the windows, so I saw with perfect clarity, and the two hulking men stationed in each corner at the sides of the doors were very hard to miss.
I burst out laughing.
How very unlike Rosabel to not be in control of her emotions at all times. How very unlike Madeline’s granddaughter to lose it, to laugh hysterically while tears streamed from her eyes. How very rude of me to let go of my body and let Poppy and the maid carry me to the bed and sit me down because I just couldn’t keep it together anymore. I couldn’t.
“Guards,” I thought I said between laughter and tears. “They are…they are…” Guards. Inside my room.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, turn around! Give us some privacy!” Poppy shouted, and the guards listened. Of course, they did—it was Poppy giving the order.
Madeline didn’t hate Poppy. On the contrary—she loved Poppy. Poppy’s mother, my aunt, had married the man Madeline had chosen for her—the right man, so now Poppy was worthy of having Rogan blood in her veins.
Unlike me.
But the guards turned to face the wall, and Poppy’s maid went to my bathroom under her orders to fill up my tub, and then Poppy promised me that if I stayed very still, the pain was going to lessen in no time.
That’s why one of the guards from the outside was near the bed now.
We had no studies, no clue what happened to a Mud when exposed to magic, or to an Iridian performing magic on a Mud—but the guard, apparently, had been permitted by Madeline to do a healing spell on my leg anyway.
Taland hadn’t cared about what could happen. He’d already healed the worst of my wound, had gotten rid of the infection, just so he could get to kill me instead—and he’d been fine afterward. This Bluefire guard who was waving his wand as he whispered a second-degree healing spell for me would be fine, too.
I imagined Taland was pissed right now. I imagined he was furious that he had me in his hands, that I went to him on my own like a damn fool, and then I was taken away again. I imagined he was going to be twice as angry now when he came for me, but the joke would be on him because Madeline would have already killed me.
Well—a player in the Iris Roe would.
Then the world would continue to be unaware of what my grandmother’s true face really was, and it would have forgotten about me by the week’s end.
Just like it did my parents.
And perhaps that was for the best.
I lay down on the bed and I closed my eyes as the Bluefire magic slipped under my skin. The spell was done and my body felt…uneasy. It felt wrong for that magic to be there, even if it was healing me. It felt unnatural, unlike a healing spell should.
But I took it. I no longer laughed, only cried my tears silently. And by the time the guard began to whisper the second spell—his magic must not have been particularly strong, so he’d need a couple to make it work—I was halfway gone, wishing with all my heart that I somehow never woke up again.
Iris, I was tired.
So fucking tired of everything—and sadly that’s all I could think about while I sat in the tub, hugging my knees to my chest, resting my chin on them, crying still—but you couldn’t really tell because Poppy kept pouring water over my head, and it was impossible to separate it from my tears.
“Remember when we were in fifth grade and I scratched my back so bad I couldn’t move my shoulders at all?” Poppy said. Not unusual—she loved to fill up silence with memories whenever she could. I said nothing. “We didn’t dare tell Grandma, and we were too young for spells, but it was bad.” She laughed. Her laughter was warm. Flowers and summer, and crackling fire in the fireplace in winter. “You bathed me like this for two weeks. Remember that? Remember how you used to torture me?” She filled up her jug all the way and poured the water over my head all at once, laughing again.
I wanted to join her, too. Poppy was sweet most of the time, and the times when she wasn’t, it was because of Madeline. Naturally, she’d grown up to love Madeline because Madeline took care of her. Spent time with her. Went on vacation with her. Always took her with to important dinners and celebrations, whereas I, whenever she decided to take me with, was reminded of just how different I was from Poppy all the time .
“Cheer up, Rora,” she said with a sigh. “C’mon, you’re still alive.”
“I’m Mud.” I said it more for my benefit than hers. I said it so I could teach myself how to say it out loud at least for this day. I’d been terrified to think it first, then to spit it out for the world to hear, but it was useless now. Useless to have such silly fears in the face of my future.
Or lack thereof.
“But you’re alive,” Poppy insisted. “And I, Penelope Rogan, swear it on my Prada collection, that that is the most important thing.” I snorted. She slapped the surface of the water and it sprayed me on the face. “You know I don’t just swear by my Prada for nothing. I read it in like three books! ”
I wanted to laugh. I really did. I was just too… dead inside at the moment. Which seemed fitting, considering I was going to be dead on the outside soon.
“I’m serious, Ro. I opened my third eye while you were in the office with Mad-Mad, and you wanna know what happens in the future?” I looked up at her. “You. Live! ” she proclaimed dramatically.
“The third eye hasn’t opened for you once in your life.” It had rarely even opened for me, and I couldn’t read anything I saw for shit.
That was complicated magic even for senior Iridians. If one could open their third eye, it could see magic more clearly, see a bunch of stuff and energy signatures nobody really knew the meaning of, as well as— sometimes —the future. Far less clearly than a Bluefire clairvoyant could.
Which reminded me of Cassie, and my stomach fell again.
I wondered if she got caught. I wondered if anybody found out she’d helped me make it out of the headquarters, but if I asked Poppy, she might go to Madeline to ask about it, so I didn’t. Cassie could handle herself—much better than me. I trusted she would be just fine, maybe even sad to hear of my death when I entered the Iris Roe—but I digress.
The future wasn’t set in stone, and some people just got seconds at a time through their third-eye, like a glimpse into their lives or the lives of their loved ones, but it never had to come true. It was just one of the variables ahead of us.
Poppy rolled her eyes, but at least she wasn’t pouring water on my head anymore. “Well, I have two real eyes right here”—she showed me with her fingers—“and I know for a fact that you can get through the Iris Roe. I’ve seen you fight. I’ve seen you shoot those awful things that time I came to the academy, remember? You’re going to win this baby easy.”
I wished I could believe her.
“Sure thing, Poppy. Of course, I’ll win.”
She beamed because she did believe me. “There. That’s more like it.” She grabbed the jug again and moved to the back of the tub, sat at the edge, and proceeded to pour water on my shoulders slowly.
Little by little, the sound of it, the silence in the background, those tears that kept on spilling, made everything seem…not so gloomy.
Yeah, it was the end for me, but it was an end I could live with. An end I could chase on my own feet. And maybe it hadn’t been my choice to end up here. Maybe I’d have loved to be dead already, for Taland to get this over with, but it wouldn’t be long now. Not long at all.
Poppy began to hum some melody under her breath.
I lowered my forehead to my knees, and I cried in silence. His face, the way he smiled while his brothers tortured me was imprinted on the back of my eyes, and I deliberately kept them closed so I’d get used to the pain—pain I had no business feeling. Pain I had no right to carry.
But he could have at least left the basement.
He could have stopped smiling.
He could have told me he was sorry.
He could have understood why I did what I did that awful night.
You betrayed me, sweetness.
Even the constant stream of tears didn’t lighten the weight of those words, and like I said—I was so tired. So exhausted of feeling so much, of having to be me. This skin I wore suffocated me.
And now I didn’t have the one thing in the world that offered me any warmth, any safety, any choice. I didn’t have my magic anymore. I was Mud.
Eventually, I moved and washed myself, then wrapped my body in fluffy white towels. Eventually, Poppy convinced me to eat the food the maids brought to my room. I was so hungry, but I hadn’t eaten in so long that the idea of food scared me.
But I ate anyway. And I drank fresh orange juice and lots of water.
Poppy lay down on the bed with me and held my hand until I fell asleep.
“You’re going to be just fine,” Poppy whispered in my ear as she helped me put on a shirt, looking at me in the mirror on my closet door. When I refused to say anything, she proceeded to smooth nonexistent wrinkles down my arms, smiling all the while.
Always so damn positive and it pissed me off .
Couldn’t she see my face? Couldn’t she see all that I felt in my eyes? Because I could. It was clearly depicted in that mirror—my fear, my confusion, my survival instinct that wanted me to try even now, even when I knew that the end was inevitable.
It still wanted me to fucking try .
I focused on the physical aspect of my person—my light blonde hair was combed back behind my ears. My eyes were a brown so dull I didn’t recognize them at all. They were usually much lighter, almost orange, just like my magic used to be. Fiery, Taland used to say. The embers that sparked me back to life.
My toes had curled then, and I’d found his words magical on their own.
Now, I just wanted to hide in a corner for the rest of my life until I wasted away into nothing.
My skin was dull, too, and the bags under my eyes were very prominent despite having slept for twelve hours straight. All that blood loss was no joke, apparently, especially when the wound had also been infected, and I hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours, had barely eaten, had fought catfairies and Iridians, and had been subjected to a shitload of Blackfire magic that had been about to fry my brain cells completely.
That’s not counting my emotional and mental state at all.
Funny how my grandmother didn’t talk about any of it. How she didn’t mention the Tivoux bothers more than once. How she wasn’t surprised that they were out there, that Taland had been with them.
Had they caught him?
My stomach fell all the way to my heels at the thought.
This I had no choice but to ask about .
“Did they…did they catch the Tivoux brothers?” I asked Poppy as she combed my hair next, humming that tune under her breath.
“No, they got away. I heard Mad-Mad complain about the agents they sent after you for not being able to track them properly,” Poppy said, throwing a look back at the door as if to make sure that nobody was coming through. “Apparently, they seem to have just vanished into thin air, but lucky for us, the agents were able to pull you out of that place without trouble.”
“Yeah,” I breathed in relief, despite my better judgment. “Lucky.”
“Don’t you worry your pretty head about a thing, Ro. They’ll catch that criminal. He won’t be able to hurt you anymore—especially while you’re in the City of Games. That place is better guarded than the White House.” She winked at me through the mirror.
She was right on that, at least. The City of Games was indeed very well guarded, and Taland and his brothers couldn’t get to me in there.
Too bad every other player who planned to win the Iris Roe at all costs would. Especially with my leg, which didn’t hurt so much anymore but wasn’t fully healed, either.
The next second, someone knocked on the door and opened it without waiting for a reply.
“What the hell?” I said, turning toward the man wearing a brown cowboy hat and a big leather belt on his jeans as he strode into my room like he owned the place—and he didn’t once look my way. Another man and a woman came in behind him, one carrying a suitcase, the other a whiteboard in one hand, and a tripod in the other.
“This is your surprise,” said Poppy from my side, clapping her hands as she smiled brightly at the stranger .
The stranger who had taken the liberty to tell his friends where to put that suitcase—on my vanity table, pushing back every bottle of perfume and some makeup items I had on there—and the whiteboard—in front of the middle window, right across from my bed.
“A surprise?” What the hell was she talking about?
“Yes—a surprise. Mad-Mad is not going to let you into the Iris Roe just like that. She’s going to prepare you first. Come on!” Grabbing my hand, Poppy pulled me toward the man, who’d finally looked up at me and, if I wasn’t mistaken, he was attempting to smile. It just made him look like he was in pain or constipated.
“Miss La Rouge, Miss Rogan,” he said, tipping his cowboy hat. “I’m Billy Dayne. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“ Agent La Rouge,” I said, looking behind him at the boy and the girl, both possibly younger than me, as they settled everything in place—the documents that had been in that suitcase, as well as the weapons the boy was arranging on my table. Guns and knives and daggers of different sizes, at least thirty of them that I could count.
Meanwhile the girl had set up the whiteboard and was drawing something on it with a marker.
“Of course,” Billy Dayne said. “My apologies. I’m here under the orders of Madam Rogan to give you some tips on the Iris Roe. Please, have a seat.” And he waved at my bed like he was in charge here. Like this was his room, not mine.
I shook my head, not entirely sure what to think, except that those weapons looked really good. Those knives were sharp, and those magazines fully loaded. Lots and lots of bullets.
My stomach twisted and turned. If I had all those weapons on me …
Could it possibly be that I could make it out of the Iris Roe alive?
“Come on! I’m so excited to learn more about this. Sit!”
Poppy had her hands around mine again, and when she pulled me to the bed and sat me down, I had no choice but to obey. Not only was my leg still sore, but my mind was in chaos, too. My curiosity had grown the size of this damn mansion.
And despite everything, against all odds, I began to feel hope.
“Now, as we know,” said Billy, stepping to the side of the whiteboard as the girl continued to draw shapes and lines that were slowly starting to come together into a circle. “The Iris Roe is held in the heart of the City of Games, in the biggest, most sophisticated playground within those walls. Pay close attention because the Council is very secretive about this game, so we don’t know a whole lot to begin with. That said, we can always be sure of one thing: it bends all the rules of magic as you know them, which means that anything goes in the Iris Roe.”
Without ever stopping to take a proper breath, Billy reached for the marker the girl handed to him, apparently done with drawing everything she needed to draw in that circle. Then she stepped to the side, folded her hands in front of her, and just watched us passively.
“The most important thing to know about this playground is that it is separate from the outside world. Part of it, but separate. Even though there will be an audience around you, nobody will see what’s really in the game except for you—understood?”
He didn’t even let me answer.
“This is what the initial stage of the playground will look like,” Billy continued, waving at the whiteboard. I looked at it, at what the girl had drawn, the lines and names and the volcano-looking shape in the middle— The Iris Roe , she’d written. “These are the five gates.” He counted each, tapping the back of the marker to the whiteboard as he went. “Players walk into the game through the gates of their coven, and land in their coven’s challenge first. From there, nobody really knows which is the second challenge, if it’s the same for all players, or different,” he continued. “We know three key things that are vital to you, Agent La Rouge, and you’d do best to remember them.”
That’s when it occurred to me—I was cheating.
No player who was about to enter this game had any clue what the inside of the playground looked like. I doubted they had weapons similar to the ones they’d set up on my vanity table. Nobody had someone like Billy Dayne here to explain whatever we knew about the game to them, either.
But all of them were still at an advantage because they had the main thing they’d need to complete this game— magic.
Magic that I lacked. Magic that I was going to die without no matter how much I tried to cheat.
“One,” said Billy, raising his index finger. “Dragons have been bred and trained for this game specifically. Higher grounds will be deadly—always stay low no matter what.”
Poppy gasped from my side, squeezing my hand tightly, but I wasn’t so surprised. Ever since Blackfire magic was able to bring back a dragon that had died possibly over a millennia ago, the IDD had reserved the right to breed them for whatever reason they deemed necessary. Of course, the Iris Roe would top that list. Just my luck.
“Two,” Billy continued, raising his middle finger next. “Cheating your way to the Rainbow is not an option. You must first master all magics to find the keys. Without the keys, the Rainbow is useless. Not only can you not drain it, but you cannot access it at all.”
“I don’t have magic,” I said through gritted teeth. My face was perfectly composed, though these past few days I’d let my control slip often—what would be the point in bothering, really, with the way things were looking?
“Yes, I am aware of that,” said Billy, rubbing the back of his neck as he stared at the floor for a moment, visibly uncomfortable.
“But you have skills,” Poppy insisted. “And weapons. You love weapons, right? You can use them!” She looked so hopeful I was tempted to think she genuinely felt sorry for me for ending up in this position. For having to go into that game knowing I would never make it out.
“Weapons are not magic. I cannot master anything with them.” I could kill people with them, sure, but how was I going to find those keys Billy talked about?
“I’m afraid I can’t help with that part,” he said, attempting another one of those awful smiles. “But, yes, you will most probably need actual magic to find all the keys before you reach the Rainbow.” Again, he turned to the whiteboard. “It’s useless to try to make it to the heart of the game without the keys. Judging by past games, though, players will still try. They’ll be sneaking in charms and cheats and they’ll think they can open the Rainbow without the keys—you can’t. Don’t waste time. Find each challenge first. Gather the keys.”
Suddenly all of this felt like a dream.
I could have sworn everyone in the room with me was moving extra slowly, and their voices were taking a long time to reach my ears, too .
That little hope that I’d felt when I saw those weapons? It was far down the drain now.
Without really thinking, I stood up and half dragged my leg to the whiteboard. I didn’t really feel what was left of the pain, not right now. I was too focused on what that girl had drawn, something I’d seen before at the IDD even though I hadn’t really analyzed it closely. Still, I knew how the Iris Roe playground looked, generally speaking.
The circle, the small mountain in the middle of it that said ‘ Rainbow,’ and all the other sections surrounding it, ending with the gates. Five gates for five covens. Five types of magic to conquer before I could drain that Rainbow of its colors, and hopefully that massive amount of magic was going to unstain me. Cleanse me. Make me whole again.
“Number three,” Billy said from my side, looking at the drawing. “The game is not over when the game is over. Once you drain the Rainbow, the Council reserves the right to declare the end when they see fit.”
I turned to look at him, though he wouldn’t tear his eyes from the whiteboard.
“Thank you, Billy Dayne. You’ve wasted enough time on a dead girl. You may leave now.”
My words surprised him. He turned to me, brows raised, blue eyes wide open.
“You might make it,” he said, and I could have laughed.
“How many Mud have entered this game since it was created?”
His lips parted. He had nothing to say, but it was okay. I already knew the answer: none. Because you needed magic to complete this game, and magic was what the Mud lacked.
“Exactly,” I forced myself to continue, pretending— always pretending—that I was not about to burst into tears. “ But thank you for the weapons. I’ll try not to die in the first hour, just to make my grandmother proud.”
“If you hide and use these weapons wisely, you can walk out of the game alive,” said Billy.
I’d actually managed to make him feel sorry for me.
Wasn’t that just great.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said because he didn’t need to know that Madeline would kill me if I made it out of that game—simply made it out alive, still Mud.
And we’ve already established that I would rather be killed by anyone else than her.
“We can’t be sure exactly what the games are but expect very basic things from each school of magic,” he still said. “Chaos from Redfire, speed and agility from Bluefire. Possibly some animalistic challenge from Greenfire, and Blackfire should be something dark and deadly.”
Poppy came to my other side, no longer smiling. No longer half as hopeful as in the beginning. “And Whitefire?”
We both turned to Billy. He shrugged. “ Healing is my best guess.”
Healing—which was done through magic. And those dark and deadly things he mentioned, chaos and speed and agility—all of it required magic to be completed.
“I appreciate your time, Billy.”
“My pleasure,” he said. “Arthur here will show you what you can take through the entrance wards. They’re not strong because they want people to cheat, but they’ll stop whatever hasn’t been properly shielded.”
He was already going over the pieces of paper that he’d had in his suitcase, while Arthur, the guy who’d arranged the weapons so neatly, smiled a smile so fake it hurt to look at it .
“I have two M-17s, two large daggers, ten knives, and?—”
“Thank you, Arthur,” I cut him off because the need to be alone right now was stronger than my people-pleasing tendencies. “I’ll figure out how I can put everything on my person myself.”
I knew weapons—he didn’t need to point out everything they’d brought me. I was thankful, really, but a heavy-duty panic attack was on the horizon, and I wanted to be alone when it hit me. I didn’t mean to be rude.
“As you wish, Agent La Rouge,” said Billy, tipping his cowboy hat again. “We’ll leave the whiteboard with you, in case you need, erm…inspiration.”
I’ll read a fucking book if I do. “Thank you.”
I went to the window, dragging my leg still, though it didn’t hurt, not nearly as much as I feared every time I put my foot on the floor. But I’d gotten so used to that pain that I now expected it. It had become normal for it to hurt when I walked, so fast. It was going to take me a little while to get back to my real normal, apparently.
And while the agents gathered their things and left my room, Poppy came to stand beside me, and we both looked out at the blue sky in silence. The view was that of the estate surrounding Madeline’s mansion, with acres and acres of green fields surrounded by pine trees on one corner, and a wall on the other. She had horses and cars and a lot of things I wasn’t allowed to use when I was a little girl and actually wanted to.
“Leather.”
I turned my head to Billy, who was by the open door, one foot outside in the hallway. His friends were already gone .
“Wear leather, preferably warded. You’re going to need it.” With that, he walked out and pulled the door closed.
Warded leather, like what my uniform jacket was supposed to be. Like my uniform leather jacket always was—except last time. Except when we went in the catfairie-infested woods.
Like someone had deactivated its shielding magic on purpose—someone like my team leader. Maybe he’d hoped I’d die on the mission so he didn’t have to get his hands dirty at all? Not that it mattered anymore.
“I’ll help,” said Poppy. “I can put wards on your leathers. Hold on, I’ll find you something.” And she ran to my closet by herself.
I suspected the guilt was eating her up, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. It wasn’t her choice that I was going to the Iris Roe. It wasn’t my choice, either, and we couldn’t do shit about it. We could only accept.
I turned away from the window, turned my back on the white fluffy clouds that dotted the morning sky, that wanted to promise me that everything was going to be okay. They were liars— everybody was a fucking liar, including me—and it was useless to pretend now.
Stepping in front of the whiteboard again, I looked at the drawings— gates, Redfire Territory, Bluefire, Blackfire… all of it magic. All of it colorful, including the Rainbow in the middle. A source of power people were going to kill to get to.
Funny how just that morning in the office people were complaining about this very game. Funny how it never even occurred to me, not for a single second, that I could ever be forced to play it.
My tears had dried so, even though I felt beaten down and broken into too many pieces to count, I didn’t cry. I just went to my vanity table and ran my fingertips over the shiny and matte metals, the rubbers on the handles of all those knives to ensure they wouldn’t slip from my fingers even when my palms were sweating. All IDD issued, very standard stuff. Weapons I’d been trained with and had used for over a year on the job.
They’d given me hope once. Now, as I looked at them and decided where to put everything I was going to carry with me, I realized that it had been foolish.
Weapons were great, but they weren’t magic.
And I most definitely was going to die in the Iris Roe without it.