“Let Vivienne go.” I grasped Alaine’s necklace, the silver warm against my palm.
“Gardinier is under arrest, as are you two.” The soldier made a cutting gesture with his hand, and the one to his left stepped forward.
The moonlight caught in the soldier’s short sword—an arrow notched, a bloody arm—and I ducked. An arrow ripped over my head. The soldier behind me screamed and stumbled, the arrow lodged in his arm. I licked my lips.
“Madame Royale, Boucher.” The captain stabbed his sword into Vivienne’s side. “I won’t ask again—surrender.”
I froze. Coline growled, throwing the guard who had tried to grab her aside. Vivienne’s head fell back, her eyes steel in the moonlight, and magic flickered in her hands.
“Fine.” He twisted the blade.
Blood bloomed across the front of her dress, and the magic in her hands died. Vivienne slumped forward. I screamed, sure my throat would tear, and Coline threw herself at the closest soldier. Her fist slammed into his jaw. He fell.
I flung myself at the one nearest to me, magic forgotten. My knees hit his chest, my nails raked his eyes, and we went tumbling down till his back was in the dirt and his blood was on my hands. Flashes—arms closing around me from behind—rippled in the steel of his fallen sword. I dove, dodging the arms. I grabbed the sword.
Another pair of hands ripped me up. The sword fell from my grip. I dug my heels into the dirt, dragging us to a stop. The hands tightened.
“Move again,” the soldier holding me said, “and they’ll put a bolt through your friend. You are the only two we need, and she is no one of consequence.”
A history lesson in four words.
“Fuck off.” Coline’s voice cracked. A soldier wrapped an arm around her throat. Three soldiers were sprawled out at her feet. One had a knife in his neck and wasn’t breathing. “If you touch her, I’ll kill all of you.”
“With what?” the soldier who had me asked. “A silver spoon?”
“If I must.” Her breath escaped in foggy huffs. Frost crackled along her captor’s lips. “Isabelle?”
Isabelle didn’t—couldn’t—hear. She’d eyes only for Vivienne, her body still, the grass beneath her red. An empty, aching wail whistled through her lips, and she collapsed to her knees, taking the soldier holding her down too. Tears gathered in the dip of her chin. Her mouth moved.
“We’ll go with you,” I said softly. The soldier loosened his grip. I didn’t move. “Leave her here, and we won’t fight you.”
The guard holding the crossbow looked to the soldier behind me, paused—face wrinkling, eyes wide—and lowered his crossbow. The three soldiers loaded us into the wagon, dragged their friend with his clawed face inside, and shackled us to a bar in the back. Coline pressed her side to mine, blessedly cold, and whispered through her tears. I couldn’t hear the words. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t letting go.
Not today.
Isabelle turned and watched us go, the smear of her hair in the blur of my gaze so familiar, I laughed as we crested the hill and left her out of sight.
“Run,” I whispered, and the word vibrated from my throat to the silver of Alaine’s moon, to the silver cuff around Isabelle’s ear. “Run.”
And she did.
I collapsed, and the guard I’d tackled laughed.
“Well,” he said, slurring. “Between you two, the lot in Segance, and Charron, gallows are going to be full.”
Estrel?
“Good,” I heard myself say, braver than I felt. “I always wanted to be like her.”
And she’d have surely given them every fight she could manage.
Twenty-Three
Emilie
They’d threatened Madeline. I stopped fighting after that, afraid they would arrest her too. Waleran locked a pair of spectacles around my head and dropped me in the back of a wagon, his varlets and apprentices telling me all about the trial Annette and I would have in Serre. The spectacles stopped me from seeing magic, a hood stopped me from seeing anything, and after an hour with only my captors for company, he clamped a pair of shackles around my wrists that burned so badly, I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to channel magic again. I wasn’t sure if it even mattered.
Rainier was dead. Annette was arrested. I was bound and gagged and on my way to Serre.
“You will confess, of course,” Waleran said to me as we prepared to leave Segance. “This terrible business with Gabriel Choquet. He died fighting for your country, and your use of him as some martyr for your cause is blatantly disgusting. You and your compatriots are surprisingly creative liars.”
“Physician Pièrre du Guay and his apprentices killed Gabriel in order to restore the king.” I swallowed. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t move. “It wasn’t a lie, and I will confess to nothing.”
“Most people say that at first.” Waleran’s footsteps paced before me on the dirt floor. The door to the small building I was in clanged shut. “We’ll see how long you hold to that.”
I slumped against the stone wall at my back. We had traveled for half a day perhaps, and we were still in Segance because we had not crossed the Pinch yet.
I was in the dark for days. Every few hours, Waleran or one of his apprentices would return to question me. They didn’t hurt me, and they always called me Madame. My sight, my hands—tangible forms weren’t necessary for channeling magic, but they made the actions easier and I was so used to them. My hands were shackled behind me, only tight enough to keep me from moving, and I rubbed my cheek against my shoulders until the hood slipped off. Blood from the rough fabric rolled down my cheek, leaving an itching trail all the way down my neck. One of the apprentices wiped it from my face with his sleeve, even though I refused to answer any questions about Laurel.
Annette was certainly not receiving the same treatment, and I had made a promise to her. I could not break it.
After three days—I counted the hours by the alchemistry of my body—of little water, no food, and barely any sleep, I was no closer to escaping than I had been previously. They came to question me too often and undid all the work I had done. Either way, I had no idea where we were. We had traveled intermittently and stopped this morning. The room I was in was as nondescript as the last.
“I need to speak with her.” It was Sébastien, his voice muffled by the door. “It is of the utmost importance.”
What an appendix of a person.
The lock clicked. The door opened. My head was still bound in spectacles that made seeing magic impossible and wrapped in a hood, but sunlight burned through the weave. I turned my face to it.
“Monsieur,” I said, voice cracking, “how kind of you to join me. How can I be of assistance?”
The door shut. Even without channeling magic, I could hear the thump of his heart in his chest.
“You put everyone in danger.” His feet shuffled in the dirt, closer, farther, closer, closer. Dust settled on my outstretched legs. “You have to say you’re Laurel.”
“I feel like you’re not understanding what’s happening.” The hood choked me with each word. “I have already been arrested for it, and the girl who took my place—her name is Annette Boucher, and you must know that because you put her in danger—has been arrested, and we are certainly going to be blamed for it. I’m all right with dying in Laurel’s place and letting them tear you down once I’m gone, but I have to figure out how to get Annette out of this. I don’t have time for you.”
His knees cracked. His breath puffed around my side—he must have been kneeling next to me—and he ripped the hood off. I blinked and flinched. My eyes took time to get used to the light.
“You—” He closed his eyes and covered his mouth with a hand. His skin was sallow, stretched across his round cheeks as if he hadn’t slept in days, and the whites of his eyes were as red as the chewed skin around his fingernails. “I turned you in because
you were putting people I care about in danger. It wasn’t personal.”
Endure.
I didn’t even scowl. No anger leaked into my tone. I was flat and cold, and he was beneath me and my fury. “My father used to say it was never personal, which seemed odd since his politics only affected people who weren’t like him. Of course it wasn’t personal. He didn’t consider them people.”
It was good that he was dead. My mother wouldn’t have been able to fix Marais if he were alive.
“I’m not here to argue politics. Demeine needs to change. It does,” Sébastien said, “but you put Charles and Laurence in danger by involving them in this.”
“Charles involved himself,” I said. “He’s capable of making his own decisions.”
Sébastien shook his head and laughed. “He makes terrible decisions. He needs looking after, and you must tell them it was all you. Officially. Clear Laurence and Charles.”
“What did they offer you, Sébastien?” I asked softly. “Or is this your moment to be better than your brothers and make your parents love you?”
He pulled away as if I had hit him, and I knew it was true.
Sébastien left and didn’t return, but neither did Waleran or his people. They moved me from the room to the back of a wagon, my pale skin burning in the hot sun. After another day, we crossed the Pinch, and I was left hooded and shackled in the hay-filled stall of a barn somewhere in Monts Lance. The next morning, one of the guards made me drink beef broth and water till I thought I might be sick. Another loosened my shackles.
“Madame,” someone said, too far away for me to really answer, but another voice did.
“Who are you again?” my mother asked, voice so steady and even, I could picture the exact expression on her face. “If you are so worried about her escaping in my care, perhaps your true concern should be how poor a chevalier that would make you. She’s not even a half-trained hack, my artistry lies in minor illusions, and you are an apprentice to Chevalier du Ferrant. What could we possibly do?”
The guard muttered something, the blush evident in his voice, and hurried footsteps tore toward me. The hood flew off my head.
“Emilie?” My mother touched my face, my neck, ran her hands down my bruised arms and rattled the shackles, and wrapped me in a hug. The spectacles bit into her neck, I knew, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her tears soaked my collar. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”
“No,” I said. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t smell of flowers. She always smelled of flowers, always dabbed perfume along the pulse of her throat and wrists. She always wore freshly cleaned clothes and her mother’s silver, but her dress was wrinkled and dusty from the road. Her hands were bare.
“It’ll be all right.” My mother swallowed. Nothing in me knew the tense, empty expression on her face. “I can’t get you out of here yet, but they have very strict instructions about your care.”
She touched my scratched cheeks. My bruised hands.
“It’s fine,” I said again, and instead of looking at her face, I closed my eyes and urged my body to heal. It was easy, even without my hands to guide the magic. “See?”
She kissed my scalp again. “You can do all of that, even with these on?”
“It takes longer. I’m not used to it. What are you doing here?”
My mother shrunk, shoulders rolling down and hands retreating to her lap. They curled into fists. “You are my daughter. Of course I’m here.”
“No, really, why?” I shrugged and nodded to our surroundings. “I have done everything you wanted me to avoid, so why are you here?”
It made no sense. I had dishonored the family legacy. Finally.
As we both knew I would.
“Of course I’m here. I love you,” she said, crying and softly laughing all at once. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m not as oblivious as you think I am.” I sniffed. “I am nothing like you wanted, and you can finally be rid of me.”
“What?” She pressed her hand to my forehead, expression tight. “I don’t want to be rid of you, Emilie. I’m here to—”
“You always tried to get rid of me. Piece by piece. All those little parts you hated—the things I liked, the friends I made, the way I looked, how I spoke, the arts I did. You rid me of them every day growing up. You wore them down till sometimes I hated them. How can you love me and say that, if every part of me is something you hate?” I sobbed and dropped my chin to my chest, her hands slowly sliding from my shoulders. There it was—debridement and Lord did it hurt. “Do you know how often I tried to show you what I could do and was met by punishment or horror? You looked at me like I was a monster! I was never good enough for you. I know it. I have known it for years. So stop lying to me and tell me why you’re here.”
She stared, mouth open, eyes so wet and wild, she looked nothing like herself, and whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
“I have finally done something I’m proud of,” I said through clenched teeth. If I moved any more, I would break. “Responsibility demands sacrifice, and if you want to be a good mother and comtesse, you will do whatever you can to stop Waleran because so many people are going to die who don’t have to. If you help them, if you help His Majesty, disown me in death because I don’t want your name on my grave. And if Annette is hurt for this, I will rip myself from death to make you pay.”
“Emilie.” Her fingers curled around my shoulder, loose and trembling. “Annette is fine. Vivienne Gardinier is dead, and Annette’s arrest is more complicated than you think, but she is fine. I made sure of that.”
“Well,” I said, rubbing my wet face against my shoulder, “at least there is that.”
“And you’re not being executed. Laurel made a deal.”
“What? No, no, no, they can’t do that.” I jerked forward, shackles weighing me down. “Mother, you have to stop them.”
“Darling, they made the deal yesterday.” She swallowed. “Laurence du Montimer and Estrel Charron confessed to starting Laurel and forming the group, and they provided quite a lot of evidence to prove it. They agreed to turn themselves in peacefully so long as certain conditions—like ensuring you, Annette, and anyone else arrested were allowed to live—were met.”
“Laurence is Laurel?” I laughed, breath a whistle between my cracked lips. “No, he’s not. He hates politics, and it’s his name. He’s not foolish enough to use his name for that. He bad-mouthed those flyers from Delest to Segance.”
“It’s his name and Estrel’s,” she said softly. “They started it when they were younger, right after the fights with Vertgana when Laurence abandoned his training as a chevalier and returned to university.”
Laurence du Montimer and Estrel Charron—each one a half of the original Laurel.
“Laurence stayed out of politics in order to avoid suspicion while he funded the rebellion, and he exaggerated his feud with Estrel so when he was asked to find Laurel, he could clear her name. Then, when she began scrying and divining for the crown against Laurel, all she had to do was lie. The revolt has been years in the making, but Estrel gave it a name and—”
“She and Laurence agreed to take the blame if the revolt was ever in danger, didn’t they? That’s why they named it Laurel.”
Laurel would die, the crown would be sated, and the revolt could live on and rise up, unsuspected. The crown could be taken by surprise, thinking Laurel was dead, and overthrown.
She nodded.
“They couldn’t broker peace with Kalthorne, but no one else is to be executed for their roles in Laurel and, within the week, war or no, the crown must address Laurel’s complaints and appoint a council elected by countrymen, not nobles. There are very strict stipulations that Demeine must follow.” She took a deep breath and shuddered. “They designed a failsafe, you see. If their demands are not met, even after death, the artistry they did for His Majest
y, the chevaliers, the university, and members of the noble houses will be undone. All of Laurence’s healing will fail and Estrel’s texts on disasters and futures and how to avoid them will burn. Her illusions at the borders keeping us safe will fall. Given how dependent we are on them, the court pressed His Majesty to agree.”
Endure, she told me once, but how could I live like this when my lungs didn’t work, my throat grew tight, and my heart was a hole in my chest.
“Is Laurence dead?” I asked.
“Not yet.” She glanced behind her to the door of the barn. “He was transported to Serre for execution at noon today.”
“Can you scry it?”
“Emilie, no.” Her hand fluttered to my cheek, my hair, to the metal band of the spectacles around my face. She leaned her cheek against my crown. “You don’t want to watch that.”
“I need to.” I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what I wanted now. “I have to.”
My mother pulled her silver hand mirror from her pocket. The power in the air shifted, gathering in her and channeling through her hands. The silver flickered, reflection wavering, and she held it up between us, so we could both see the image rising to the surface of the silver. Serre, gold in the noonday light, burned into my mind.
There was Laurence, reedy figure towering over the others. His coat was gone, and he wore only a plain white shirt and brown breeches. His image blurred.
My mother’s hands shook, the effort of channeling so much power rumbling through her, and I leaned against her shoulder. The magic spilled into me, my body sharing the burden of the channeling with hers. There were no sounds.
Laurence looked up once, face to the sun, and closed his eyes. His long hair had been gathered in a braid and wrapped around his head. An attendant rolled the high collar of his shirt down. There weren’t many people near the scaffold at the top of one of Serre’s towers. Most were members of the court. His Majesty stood, golden and scowling, next to the kneeling block where his nephew would die.
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