33
I hide in the infirmary for days. If Queen Sybil is bothered by that string of disobedience, she doesn’t punish me for it.
I knew she wouldn’t. One can only be pushed—tortured—for so long before they snap. She has to back off for at least another week, otherwise I’ll fight to my death. I’m almost ready to do so as is.
Oona’s grip is finally firm and warm in mine, her leg wrapped in so much gauze that it looks like a cast. She sips a cup of steaming tea, the bergamot and cinnamon spice thick in the air.
At her bedside, flowers grow from cracks in the wood of a small, rickety table where a teapot refills itself whenever the contents begin to recede.
Beside it, cookies stack high on a crystal plate, and beside that , a bowl of sugar cubes whistles a merry melody for the entire infirmary to hear.
The magic in this place is far more beautiful than the queen deserves, but Oona… I’m glad. I’m glad she can have this.
Portia visited yesterday. She grew gardenias for Oona—her favorite flower—and brought her tomato soup for supper.
Another favorite. I hadn’t known that, but Portia did.
I haven’t been paying enough attention. I haven’t been smart .
I curl my legs into the uncomfortable, straight-backed chair that I’ve spent more than seventy-two hours perched on, untangling an enchanted blanket from my waist that wraps itself back around my legs the second I fling it off.
“If you frown any harder, even your werewolf genes won’t be able to smooth away your wrinkles,” Oona says with another delicate sip.
I wrestle the knitted, cream blanket away from my chair and hurl it across the room. It slithers on the floor toward us. “I don’t care about wrinkles.”
“You should.” Oona reaches out a hand, and the blanket slides over her skin, nestling on top of her body with a wistful sigh. “You won’t be youthful and lovely forever. Only for the next few centuries.”
I pull the soft tassels from her chin with a forced laugh.
Orange hair mats to her forehead from days of fighting a fever, her brown maid’s uniform turned to strips of dirtied, soiled rags.
She needs new clothes. A bath. But the cuts from the silver have kept bleeding—some kind of dark alchemy or curse designed to prolong her torment.
The fresh gauze is already soaking through again.
My hand fists around the arm of the chair and snaps it in half. The rest of the furniture in the room gasps.
“Stop it right now. You have spent days moping here,” Oona snaps. The arm affixes itself back to the chair, and the lump beneath me becomes all the more uncomfortable. “To no avail, might I add. Your glowering and grunting certainly hasn’t healed my leg.”
She lifts the makeshift, bled-through cast high in the air, and I can’t stop staring at it. “It was my fault—”
“We will not have this conversation again. We both made our own choices, and we both reaped the consequences.” Oona sets down the empty teacup violently and shoves it aside with a brush of her hand, where it falls, discarded, into the garden of gardenias.
It leaps back up onto the tray seconds later.
I can’t even imagine what sort of enchantments have made this room so sentient. I’m sure I don’t want to know.
“You should leave,” she says.
“What?” I gape at her now. “You’re not nearly healed yet. I have time.”
“You might have time, but I’m running out of patience.
Lingering here isn’t going to help you. It won’t solve anything.
You should be in your classes, attending mealtimes, participating in the court before the Ascension happens.
” She smooths out the tattered hem of her skirts.
“You shouldn’t be wasting your days on your maid. ”
“Oona, the classism is bullshit. Your life isn’t worth less—”
She glares at me. “Did you think to ask how I came to be a maid here?”
I glance around. The nurses are on their lunch break. Oona and I seem to be alone—though I don’t necessarily trust that anymore. Someone here sabotaged my journal. And I’m pretty convinced the furniture is alive. “We should lower our voices.”
“That is an armchair, Vanessa; it cannot hear you,” she whispers, with no less venom than before. “I am Oona Gallagher, daughter of Baroness Gallagher of Carlow, Ireland.”
I rub the throbbing ache between my brows. “I don’t understand.”
“Perhaps you should pay more attention, then. Do you know where our servitude of this court begins?” She doesn’t allow me to answer. “We maids were high enough in the hierarchy that any acts of treason have been forgiven in exchange for life debts.”
My arms fall limply to my sides. I shake my head. This doesn’t make sense. “You… you were a criminal?”
“A traitor.” Oona shrugs. “In my fourteenth year, I was courted by a human. My mother caught us together, exchanging love letters and flowers, and I was taken to the Countess of Leinster for my punishment. She wrote to the King of the European Court, who agreed that since no copulation had occurred, I could be brought here and spend the rest of my life serving the queen and her courtiers. Queen Sybil offered me a bargain to work for her, and I took it.”
“That’s bullshit,” I breathe. “You dated a human .”
“It is the law,” Oona says.
“The law only serves those in power. They bend it when it benefits them. They break it if and when they want.” My claws loose from my right hand, and I swipe them at the ground, chiseling away at the stone.
“Careful, girl, that’s treasonous speak if I’ve ever heard it. You don’t want to join me in here.” Oona’s gaze softens. She takes my hand, smoothing out my skin until my claws vanish. “Go. Return to your classes. I came to terms with my bargain long ago.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“What’s done is done, Vanessa.” She squeezes my hand. “Please, let me rest. You’ve kept me awake for days now.”
Lies.
I roll my eyes but concede with a sigh. Queen Sybil won’t allow me an eternity to be disobedient.
But my stomach roils as I walk away—as I glance back at Oona and see her pained expression as she grabs her bleeding leg and silently sobs.
My fault. Oona, the prisoners in the dungeon—they all feel like my fault.
Combat and Conquest awaits me, and for once, I’m glad. The field contained within the castle’s walls shimmers with late autumn rain, and the air tastes salty, like sweat and ocean spray and the possibility of throwing my fist into someone else’s face.
My classmates run drills: push-ups, sprints, sit-ups, and pull-ups on the portico roof, but by the time I reach them, most have finished.
In their tight black fighting gear, they stretch and break off into sparring pairs.
No transformations today. No claws or fangs.
Instructor Shepherd barks out that we’re playing one-on-one capture the flag, and then he ties an emerald ribbon to our sleeves.
“The goal is to be the last one with the ribbon,” Instructor Shepherd declares. “Then you’ll move on to another match with the next winner. And so on and so forth until there are thirteen losers and one victor.”
Katerina twirls a fiery curl around her finger. “What does the victor win?”
Instructor Shepherd’s gaze snaps to hers. “How about supper outside of the Great Hall for a week?”
Katerina grins. “Hell yes.”
It seems no one really enjoys the court niceties, though I doubt even Katerina would openly complain about them.
I approach the field, my sneakers laced tight and a cropped shirt cutting into my waist. Instructor Shepherd notices me first. “Glad you’ve decided to join us, Miss Hart.
” He tosses me his only spare ribbon. “Tie that to your sleeve.”
Sinclair turns at the sound of my name, and so does Calix. Both furrow their brows, their expressions so similar that they look less like cousins and more like brothers.
Where have you been? Sin mouths when I don the ribbon.
And I should have known his mother wouldn’t have told anyone. She’d want to keep my deception under wraps. To keep me under her thumb as a weapon and threat to the rest of her court. I couldn’t do that if everyone thought I was committing treason. I shrug at Sin and face the instructor.
It’s painful to see him. It’s painful to be here at all.
Instructor Shepherd pairs us off, but he saves me and Evie for last. With a cruel smile on his face, he snaps his fingers and draws us forward.
He must be someone in the queen’s back pocket , I think.
Sure enough he says, “Let’s make this interesting, shall we?
Evelyn, Vanessa, why don’t you take the portico for your match? ”
Fuck.
The weapon racks fill the portico to the brim with weapons both bronze and silver.
Evelyn’s eyes flash from red to maroon. She nods tersely.
“Absolutely.” Her black hair blows behind her as she stalks toward the portico.
She’s lean. A few inches shorter than me, so probably swifter.
Her gaze flicks quickly between the weapons available.
She’s sly. But I—I am not the girl I was three days ago.
Adrenaline courses through me. Strengthens me.
I will go down fighting if I have to. I will give this my all, even if it is no more than a game to the others.
Queen Sybil says I have untapped power? Perhaps it is time I tap into it, then.
Sinclair and Calix pair off across the field—another sadistic coupling on Instructor Shepherd’s part—and they look in my direction before their own match begins.
We have five minutes to snatch the other person’s ribbon.
If no one grabs it, then we’re both out.
Evie pulls a sword from a rack, tossing it between her hands with the dexterity of a professional juggler.
“What do you think? If I accidentally slit your throat, will the queen condemn me?” she asks with a bold laugh.