Chapter 24 #3
No. My eyes had adjusted now. It wasn’t stained glass at all. Along the wall were hundreds, if not thousands of tiny vials, each filled with a measure of crimson liquid. Each vial bore its own label: names printed in a delicate, elegant hand.
It was blood.
This was what Raleigh had meant when he said the Queen kept the blood of everyone she had ever turned. I’d pictured something more scientific – a library or a vault. I never imagined something so grotesquely beautiful.
‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Every piece is a dear member of my precious family.’ She ran a finger along the length of one vial at eye level.
Even from this distance I could make out the name: Raleigh Linford.
‘No matter how far they stray, there will always be part of them at home with me.
And as long as I have a part of them, they will always obey.
‘I always know my family are safe when the wall remains red,’ she said, returning to me. ‘For the last fifteen years I’ve lived in fear that I’d find Raleigh’s vial full of ash. But now he’s back.’ Her expression cooled. ‘And you want to take him from me.’
She vanished, and then I could feel her behind me, so close that the puff of breath from her short laugh pushed against my neck.
‘Did you know that human hearts beat faster when their host is lying?’ She ran an icy finger along my jugular. I fought the urge to shove her away. ‘So tell me the truth, Clara Wagner. Do you really love him? Or are you just a whore he hired to fool me?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t speak to my betrothed like that.’
Raleigh. I didn’t have to feign my relief as he strode into the chamber, each step accented with the armour of false arrogance he wore as the Prince of Rostenburg.
He stopped as he came within an arm’s length of me, close enough for me to realise that I never wanted to be on the receiving end of the look he gave the Queen.
It wasn’t far from how he’d regarded me when we first met – any weakness was caged in several layers of detachment – but there was something else too.
A hardness I could only decipher through context.
Hatred. Terror. The aching echo of centuries of wasted love.
‘Raleigh.’ The Queen said his name like it was oxygen, and in that moment I understood.
If Raleigh had spoken my name that way on the day we were betrothed, I never would have tried to run.
I never would have wanted to. A flicker of hesitation crossed him.
But no more than a flicker. What good was a siren’s song to one who can already see the monster?
‘Let her go,’ he said.
‘My love, it’s been so long.’ The Queen pressed her cheek to my hair. ‘Is that really how you would greet the love of your life?’
‘The love of my life is standing in front of me, but it isn’t you, Your Majesty.’
I could almost hear her smile widen as Raleigh spoke. Her fingers danced up my throat, resting where my pulse fluttered against her fingertips. ‘And what of you, dear one? Do you truly feel the same about him?’
‘I’ve told you how I feel.’
‘Of course you have. But have you told him?’
I knew she felt my heart lurch.
‘Why not tell him now?’ She pressed harder against my throat – a bruising reminder that she could push all the way through if she pleased. ‘You have nothing to hide.’
I breathed. She was right. I had nothing to hide.
My eyes met Raleigh’s, carving a path through the vault walls. He was already retreating further into himself. They were the eyes of a man already mourning.
‘I love you,’ I said. ‘More than you know.’
I held his gaze until the Queen tsked, letting her hand drop away. Only then did Raleigh’s expression shift. She pushed me away from her, sending me staggering into him. I righted myself before we collided, but he caught me anyway, dragging me to him, engulfing me in his embrace.
‘And I you,’ he whispered. If we were all human, I would have thought only I could hear. But he wasn’t, and his words were never meant for me.
He lingered only a moment after we pulled apart, then turned his attention back to the object of his deceit. ‘Well, there you are, Your Majesty. You’ve heard it for yourself. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have a wedding to plan.’
He turned to leave, spinning me around with him. But we had taken no more than a step before the Queen was in front of us again, nose to nose with Raleigh, grinning terribly.
‘You’ve hypnotised her.’
Raleigh’s breath hitched. ‘What?’
‘You entranced her. I felt it before.’ She placed her hand flat against Raleigh’s cheek. ‘You broke our rules.’
Raleigh’s carefully constructed mask couldn’t conceal the panic that crept into his eyes. ‘Only to protect her. I never twisted her emotions.’
Her smile didn’t falter. ‘Are you sure?’
Raleigh’s hesitation might have cost us everything.
‘I’m sure,’ I cut in.
‘You’re entranced, pet. You can’t be sure of anything.’
No. Our plan was crumbling around me. I cursed myself for ever making Raleigh agree to this. He’d known the hypnosis was a mistake. Why hadn’t I listened?
‘I never altered her emotions or actions.’ Raleigh’s words were carefully measured, but with shaking hands and an unbalanced scale. ‘I only enchanted her to prevent anyone else from doing the same, because your man hypnotised her first.’
‘Yes, Lukas played his part wonderfully, didn’t he?’
My heart sank. It had been deliberate. All of it. She knew that Raleigh would put me under protective hypnosis if Lukas tried to enchant me. But he never would have done so if I hadn’t insisted on it. It was my idea. I had led us into her trap.
Raleigh’s face betrayed nothing, but I could feel the terror rolling off him. ‘Our deal is done. You can’t make me stay.’
‘You forget, my love. I can make you do anything.’
She clenched her hand into a fist and suddenly Raleigh was on his knees, crying out in shock. I threw myself at her, but she caught me by the front of my dress and shoved me away. I landed heavily on my back near the throne, my ears ringing, wondering if I’d broken every bone in my body.
I dragged myself up when the world stopped spinning, wincing as my shoulder skimmed something cool. The glittery tinkle of glass rang out behind me. The vials. I tried to still them before they could fall and shatter, when one caught my eye.
I shot a glance back at the Queen. She was standing over Raleigh, his chin cupped in her hand, his teeth bared as he fought against her invisible bonds.
She’d said it before. The only way she managed to maintain such sway over Raleigh was because she kept a piece of him.
So what if I took that piece away? I closed my hand around the vial, hoping she wouldn’t turn around, and slipped it into my pocket.
I wasn’t deluding myself. I knew holding Raleigh’s blood wouldn’t give me any control over him – we’d tested that once without any result. But I could take away what little control it gave her for at least as long as it took for me to do what I had to do next.
It was sheer arrogance for the Queen to keep her back to me. What could a little pet of a human do against her? She really thought I would sit here on the dais, a timid flower, while she took her time breaking Raleigh. It was that arrogance that would kill her.
She kept her back turned as I reached through the slit in my skirt, through the gap between the gown and the opening of my pocket, and carefully unsheathed my dagger.
Raleigh caught a glimpse of the carved handle as I dragged it out, eyes wide in a cocktail of emotions I didn’t have time to contemplate while I crept ever closer.
I raised my arm high over my head and brought the blade sailing down.
She was gone.
Laughter surrounded me, echoing through the hall, rebounding off every mirrored surface. I turned and turned again, searching for her, trying to ignore my desperate reflection spinning in an empty room.
‘Do you think you can hurt me?’
She was behind me. I whirled around, slashing, but she was gone again.
This was getting me nowhere. I flicked the knife, flipping it so that I gripped the blade rather than the hilt, leaving the crucifix carved in the hilt on full display.
She stopped laughing. I spun fast enough to catch her this time, and found her doubled over, teeth extended, pupils narrowed to slits.
She hissed at me like a cat, then vanished.
Actually vanished. Her laughter didn’t echo. She was gone without a trace.