31
E XHAUSTED, HER EYES RED FROM CRYING , M ARISOL walked slowly up the path instead of allowing the carriage she’d paid for to carry her the rest of the way to Alta Lira.
She needed the fresh air to clear her head, and she needed the time to figure out how to explain all that had happened to Gaspar.
It seemed surreal that days ago she had been fighting the first friends she’d made since Yoselin died, that she’d been seconds away from putting a knife into one of their hearts.
It seemed surreal that weeks ago she had ignorantly believed that she was making friends even while she was lying to everyone.
It seemed surreal that months ago she had been sure that the Coronet would be easy.
The servant who opened the door to Ruiz’s summer home stepped aside for her immediately, and she saw another one run off, presumably to inform Lord Ruiz that his ward had returned.
Instead of going to find him, Marisol went to her room for a bath.
Sweat and tears and blood were caked onto her clothes and skin.
Her nose had bled on and off during the journey.
Her brain seemed to rattle around her skull until it was bruised.
She was in no state for a reunion. She was barely in the right state to breathe .
Once she’d traded her elaborate gown for a simple emerald nightdress, she finally, finally took apart her illusion.
She watched her true face appear in the mirror, as unfamiliar to her as a book in a foreign language.
Dark skin and darker eyes. A broad nose and plump lips.
A full figure and a heart-shaped face surrounded by thinner curls than she’d given herself as Marisol.
She was still beautiful, but it was no longer a disarming kind of beauty. She looked like a normal girl, nineteen years old and tormented.
Instead of lingering, Marisol washed her hair, her real hair, and then began the long process of detangling and conditioning.
It still hadn’t quite sunk in, that she was no longer the scion of the Vinyet family and engaged to the prince of Domingo.
The persona she had constructed was so persistent that she didn’t bother to force a change in mindset.
She would come back to herself in increments the longer she was home. She just had to be patient.
Once she emerged from the washroom, her dried hair in twists and wrapped in a satin scarf, Gaspar was sitting on the edge of her bed.
He’d regrown that awful mustache, but otherwise he was just as she remembered him.
His warm eyes and round cheeks, his olive skin and straight black hair.
He stood as she stared at him, and suddenly she was in his arms. She didn’t remember moving, but pressing her cheek against his black jerkin made her feel a certain peace.
“There you are,” he said, laying a hand on the back of her head. His voice was a fond rumble. “Did everything go as planned?”
“I didn’t kill them, if that’s what you’re asking,” Marisol whispered, feeling him stiffen before she finished, “but I got the final plant.”
She pulled back long enough to rescue the orange blossoms from her bedside drawer and hand them over. Her arms crossed over her chest, as though trying to disguise how hard her heart was beating.
“I thought I wanted revenge, but… you were right. I couldn’t do it.
I think that what I really want is belonging.
I want to remain your adopted daughter and live at Ruiz Manor.
I want to enter society for real, as myself.
” She swallowed hard, aware of how weak her voice sounded.
“I want to move forward, Gaspar. To remember what it’s like to actually live. ”
“Honestly, I figured that would be your decision. All that anger can only sustain you for so long, Marisol. You’ve always had a good heart,” Gaspar said with a smile. “I need time to work on these. Why don’t you get some rest, and we can talk about everything in the morning?”
“I lost my daggers,” Marisol told him as she climbed into bed, not because he’d told her to, but because she was drained. “I’m sorry.”
“They were a gift. There will be other gifts.”
She settled beneath the blankets, inhaling the scent of mint and letting it calm her breathing. “I think I stretched the magic too far. When I was—”
Gaspar hushed her. He tucked one of her twists back under her scarf. “Tomorrow. Rest.”
Marisol kept her eyes open long enough to watch him turn down the lights, whisper good night, and leave the room with the door closed. Part of her protested that he hadn’t acknowledged her wishes, not really. But the rest of her was asleep before the thought could fully form.
A servant woke her up while it was still dark outside. “Lord Ruiz wants to see you in his study.”
“What time is it?” Marisol yawned.
“He wants to see you in his study right now,” the woman said, giving Marisol another rude shake. “I’ll come back in ten minutes. Don’t be in this bed when I do.”
Marisol made a face at her back. After dressing in a linen housedress of ocean blue, removing her headscarf, and teasing out her curls until a waterfall of dark hair spilled over her shoulders, Marisol made her way to the study.
There was only one reason that Gaspar would have summoned her already, and her heart beat an excited rhythm as she thought of the great things they would do together.
He had been vague about the next phases of the plan, but after months in Coventry she understood his hesitancy.
She couldn’t complete her own scheme without the inconvenience of emotions making her doubt everything.
She would have to prove herself worthy of more trust than he’d given her.
He was, she knew now, the only person who had ever depended on her, believed in her. At this point, he was the only person who cared if she lived or died. She could be perfect for him.
She had to be, or she had nothing.
Gaspar turned as she stepped through the door, a triumphant smile on his face.
“We’ve done it. All three potions, all three antidotes, are right here.
” He gestured toward his desk, where six ornate bottles waited for her attention.
Two were reaper red, two morpher white, and two crafter green.
“It seemed only fair that we should take them together. After all, you should know how power truly feels before we take it all away.”
“Yeah?” Marisol couldn’t hide her smile. “You’d share this with me?”
“Of course. This is yours as much as it is mine.”
She sat down in the chair before his desk, watching him pour all three potions into a glass that he handed to her.
He poured the remaining three into a glass of his own, and, instead of sitting, he leaned against his desk with a sparkle in his eye.
Marisol gazed down at the liquid, which had swirled into a dull brown color, and then she looked back up at Gaspar.
He brought his cup to his lips. “Shall we?”
Marisol downed hers in three large gulps.
Magic like nothing she’d ever felt swelled inside her chest, as if it was larger than her body could handle.
She remembered to breathe through the ringing in her ears and the throbbing in her skull, waiting for the discomfort to pass so she could wield her new powers.
Seconds turned to minutes, and it didn’t pass.
Her breathing grew shallow. Her muscles grew weak.
Her vision blurred, and, when she blinked the dizziness away, she was on the ground.
Her chair was tipped over as if she’d fallen from it, and the back of her head ached where she must have hit it against the floor.
Her heart felt as if someone had reached inside her chest to squeeze it, every painful thump a warning that she was dying.
“Gas… par…” she managed, words burning her throat. “It’s… too much…”
But her guardian was not on the floor with her, she realized when she tried to reach for him. He was in the same place against the desk, his empty glass next to him, watching her with cold fascination.
Marisol’s heart stung in a completely different way. “You… lied…?”
“I find it makes people more likely to do as I wish,” he said, his voice alternately too loud and too soft as her headache grew worse.
“Each of your potions contained a slow-acting poison. For what it’s worth, there were times when I thought I might keep you around, but your youthful rage has made a mess at every step.
You are weak. A liability in the grand scheme of things. ”
Marisol felt herself cracking into a thousand pieces, and it wasn’t just the poison. “But… I thought… You trained me…”
“I have had years to plan, to think.” He glanced toward the bookshelves, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her.
“There was no amount of time I wouldn’t invest, no amount of money I wouldn’t waste, in order to form a weapon against the witches.
You went where I couldn’t without my absence being noticed, and you’ve served your purpose.
Now you know too much, and you act too erratically.
I don’t need another child, Marisol. I need a blade, and you’ve dulled yourself. ”
That’s not my name , she thought. Somehow, it was even more painful to know that he had killed her without even giving her the decency of dying as anything other than what he’d made her.
“With the Crown Coven in place, King Alvaro will be able to drain the witches bearing the mark of their magic, neutralizing them as a threat.” Gaspar picked up the two glasses.
“And with these potions, he’ll be able to give himself and his supporters that lost magic.
We’ll be the most powerful country on the continent, and we’ll soon be the largest empire in history.
Meanwhile, I have been named Witch-hunter General, leader of the inquisitions into their crimes.
They will answer for the deaths of my family at last. They will pay. ”
He stepped over her as though she was little more than trash.
Marisol was transported back to House Muerte, to how Bas and Teo had tried to warn her that King Alvaro and Gaspar had their own plans.
At the time, she’d thought they had just been trying to manipulate her, to get her to agree that their decision to go rogue was somehow for the best so close to the finish line.
But Gaspar had never planned to just depower the witches.
He planned to become one, and then he planned to kill the rest.
She was such a fool.
Tears burned her eyes. “Did you… ever… love me? Even… even a little?”
Gaspar paused by the door. “I need to go to the Palacio Real to uphold my end of the bargain.” When he looked at her over his shoulder, his expression was remote. He could have been looking at a wall, for all the emotion he was displaying. “Try not to vomit on my floor.”
Then he was gone, and she was nothing.
Again.
Too frail to even turn her head, she let the tears fall.
Teo had claimed to care for her, but he had created the Crown Coven on behalf of his family.
Bas had claimed he hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but he’d been a member of the Criterion, working to undermine her at every step.
Noelia had claimed to be her friend, but she’d also been a rebel, allowing them to be attacked in broad daylight just to pass supplies to her allies. Now Gaspar…
A scream was trapped in her throat.
Everyone she’d ever trusted had left or betrayed her.
She had loved people who didn’t exist; like the Seawards, who smiled at her over dinner while torturing her friend beneath the palace; or people who were glad to be rid of her, like the children and the matrons at Kindred.
Her parents were dead. Rodrigo was dead.
Marisol Vinyet was dead.
She wanted to be angry. Anger was safe and motivating. But her body had gone numb and the only thing she had room for was despair.
She was a fool, a fool, a complete and utter fool .
And now she would die like one.