Chapter Forty-Seven
I remain quiet in the dark room. Curtains drawn, hushed voices, a four-poster bed occupied by a shriveled fae: the Head of Illusion. At his side, Kassandra kneels, hands clasping the withered, spotted ones of her father. Their conversation stutters in fits and starts.
“Papa,” she urges. “Do you understand what has happened? Dominik has slaughtered a dozen fae and halflings.”
“Guards,” the Head of Illusion says.
“Yes, and Lord Tomas, his wife, and her unborn child. Our advisor is gone.”
“Mostly guards.”
I wince as Kassandra gapes at him. “We need…help. I need help. What should I do?”
Dry lips smack together. “Speak to your brother.”
“He will not listen.”
“Then stop him,” he says. “If he needs to be stopped, then stop him.”
The air in the room plummets, my mistress shifting, blinking.
“I…tried.”
Then, Iros Morella, the Lynx of the Lowlands, lifts a large head upon a withered throat. He looks his daughter in the eyes with a sudden clarity that takes my breath.
“The title of head of House belongs to the strongest fae.” His voice comes out deep and loud. “If you are too weak to stop him, then you must accept your role as its Heart.”
—
Kassandra and I march down the marble corridor for the Illusion fae. The hall is empty of halfling guards, scarce of servants. I open and close my mouth, unsure of what to say.
“What is it?” she sighs.
“Nothing, mistress—”
“Stop calling me that. Please.”
Please.
Spare them.
The images flicker through my mind, the blood still drying into the lines on my palms.
“We must contact outside help,” I say. “Lord Eli—”
“No,” she cuts in. “Illusion cannot look weak, not at a time like this.”
“Illusion is weak.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she seethes, wheeling to face me, teeth bared. “The advisor is dead, the head dying, and the heir murderous—”
“Then you must—”
“You heard my father. I tried—and I was not strong enough.”
“Dominik is half a century older. He has spent two centuries breaking you with your mother’s encouragement.”
Kassandra flinches. “Stop.”
But I can’t. Not when Briar’s bone is being set in the servants’ quarters, not when an entire family line has ended, not when a dozen people died, some by my own hand.
My own hand, which burned and cut under the idea that it was a necessity, that violence such as this must have a purpose and not merely justifications, but grappling for either, I only come up empty.
We walk in silence until we reach the grand door to her apartments. But I am not done.
“Let’s break Dominik back,” I whisper. “Then we’ll see if he’s a worthy opponent of yours.”
Kassandra glares at me. “We’re not speaking of this again.”
The truth in the tapestry. The bronze-haired faerie with her bronze-haired boy, Maxian.
The diamond dagger, I think. That was the beginning of the end.
“The coronation,” I say. “Your power—”
“People have died.” She throws her hands up.
“And they will continue to die unless you take action.”
“Why me? Why do I have to be the one to do it?”
“Because,” I spit, my heart wilting. “You are in the most privileged position—you have more power than any faerie. More power than most High Fae.”
“No,” she grits out, voice tense. “You barely survived this past week. Have you ever thought that perhaps we females get fucked because we’re meant to?”
But I refuse to accept this—not anymore, not after the oily feel of Dominik’s power, not after the king’s genius cracked at the right angle, not when the males have been trying so hard to push us down down down.
“Why are we on the bottom?” I snap. “If we are truly weaker, lesser, why do they create laws to enforce what is supposedly natural? Why harm and kill us over and over? Why does Dominik want you—yes, you, Kassandra—to bear his child?”
She covers her mouth, no doubt holding back vomit.
I feel it, too. But a plan falls into place in my mind that could save us both, that could free Benji and heal Briar, and prevent war between the Houses, avoid more bodies.
We won the game, even when it was rigged, and faced consequences.
We tried to rig the game back and faced more consequences still.
What if the only way to stop them is to become their consequences?
“Because he’s sick,” she says.
“Yes, and he’s weak,” I push. “Why hasn’t he married you to another? He could write up the contract tomorrow. If not the king, why himself?”
“He enjoys torturing me.”
“Why?”
“Because my mother told him so.”
“And what did they both see in you that threatened them so? If you are truly foolish and weak, why expend so much of their energy curbing yours?”
Kassandra watches me, eyes flicking to her hand on the door. “I don’t know.”
“You told me only last week that you seek to be untouchable.”
“And I have failed!” she cries. “Many lost their lives because of my desire to do more, be more. Dominik proved he will always control me.”
My heart aches for her. With my battered body, my exhausted genius, and the sea of blood on the other side of the door, I want nothing more than to curl up in bed and never move again.
Yet Lila’s words come to mind. We have been burned, badly, and what does it mean?
That we are closer to the fire than ever before.
I think of a moth in a mountain, chipping away away away at the right pressure points.
I think of Lila’s niche that she carved with years of patient, relentless work. We cannot give up now.
I try again, softer this time. “If you did not expend all your energy healing, then how large can you loom? Dominik said so himself—if there is ever to be an Illusion king, it will be because you have birthed one.”
“I don’t want to birth one.”
“So become one.”
Kassandra’s face blanches.
“Stop this,” she hisses. “This is treason.”
“This is truth.”
“There have already been enough deaths for tonight.”
Then she grips the handle and jerks it open. The metallic smell washes over me.
Death, in his cloaked garb, has cleared the bodies, but a room of blood remains. He directs faeries to clean up the broken furniture, the shattered mirror, the cracked dishware.
“Everyone out!” Kassandra shouts. “Please.”
The faeries begin to scatter.
“Do you wish for some aid?” the executioner asks.
“I do not care.”
There is no more anger left, only exhaustion. I sigh, gesturing at him. “Would a day like this not fuel you in some way?”
There, in the corners of his eyes, is an almost imperceptible tightening.
“Just because I am a Death fae does not mean I enjoy it,” he says. “I detest stolen lives.”
The feel of armor growing hot under my touch. They would’ve killed you. They were going to, I tell myself, but it is little comfort.
As the apartments clear, Kassandra strides to an abandoned bucket.
“Do you wish to wash up?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she summons water from the pitcher, a dripping river around her, and kneels in the drying blood. She dips a sponge in the water and slaps it against the tile. My mistress scrubs the floor.
I kneel, drawing out my own water, adding soap left behind by a faerie. I reach for a rag in my pockets—my clothes borrowed from Briar, I realize with a pang—and I wipe at the crimson, streaking the liquid across the floor and dyeing the rag.
We work in tandem, in solemn concentration, even when Death unclips his cloak, draping it across a chair, and grabs another bucket and rag.
Kassandra only gives him the smallest nod, in that moment, then returns to work.
Even when the sober silence washes away to sniffing and salty tears taint the soapy water, we rub at the spots.
It was them or me, I tell myself. The guards were choosing themselves. So I had to choose myself.
I had to.
I had to.
A refrain, a desperate chant with which I torture myself to keep from thinking about what I could’ve done differently. It’s alarming how easy it was: to take a life.
We dip and wipe and wring and wash again, over and over, an endless rusty river. As the twilight hour lifts to scarlet and finally, a golden wash, even when the silver room sparkles once more, we clean. We clean and clean and clean, and still the grout remains dyed pink.
Afterward, I lean against the wall, sipping water from a canteen that trembles in my raw fingers. My mistress sits cross-legged, pushing hair from her face. The executioner crosses his arms.
“When are the funerals?” Kassandra asks, voice hoarse. It is early morning, and we have not spoken in hours.
“This afternoon,” the executioner says. “I’ve delivered those whose wills state they must be buried in certain family plots. As for the unclaimed, I’ve cleared a spot in the Illusion grounds, as requested.”
“Paid for by my family, of course.” Silence. “Executioner?”
“We need approval from the head, the heir, or the advisor. We cannot proceed with the ceremonies until one of them has given permission to release the plots and the funds.”
My stomach twists.
“We don’t have an advisor,” Kassandra says numbly, rubbing her forehead. “My father may be able to give permission, but his lucidity is inconsistent.”
“We could wait on Dominik’s word.”
“How else can we accomplish this?”
He shifts. “If the funds cannot be paid for up front, then they can be put into the debtors’ system as an individual balance.”
“I will assume the debts.”
I gawk at her. “Mistress, I—”
“I said stop calling me that.”
Shoving up a sleeve, I protest: “You do not want this debt. It may be difficult to pay off, especially if Dominik is unwilling. When the interest collects—”
“Do it, Executioner. I will take on the cost of the funerary expenses personally.”
“Can House of Death forgive this one time?” I ask him. “Must we charge in a tragedy like this?”
The executioner’s amber eyes sharpen.
“Speak,” Kassandra demands. “Whatever it is, your secret will be protected. She’s under oath and I don’t have the energy to share.”
He clears his throat, shifting. “The…the House of Death does not dole out or reap any debts.”