“I am not my father,” she said. With effort, she turned away from the view of the windows, putting the castle’s shadow out of sight. From her vest, she drew out the document Jenny had helped her shape. “I wrote a new peace agreement, one with true freedom for magic, one without brands or registration of any kind.”
Widow Morton took the parchment, but rather than reading it, she cast it aside. It fluttered to the ballroom floor.
“I told you.” The widow’s expression hardened. “It’s too late.”
For the first time, Aria noticed something in the woman’sexpression, something beyond the anger. There was a familiar sallowness to her cheeks, a deep color beneath her eyes.
In horror, Aria whispered, “Is the curse ... affecting you too?”
She remembered Widow Morton’s last visitation in her water mirror, the night of Eliza’s awakening. Something had seemed off about the widow’s appearance. Tiredness, she now realized. The widow had demanded to know how Aria resisted the effects of the curse, perhaps because the Cast was not behaving the way its Caster had anticipated. Perhaps because it had turned on its master.
“Is itkillingyou?”
“Lettie,” said the widow. “Leave us.”
“End it!” Aria said. “This is madness. Please, listen to me—we can resolve this peaceably. End the Cast, and let’stalk.”
The widow’s expression darkened in response. It was like talking to the king.
“I will end it,” the woman said. “Lettie,out.”
When her daughter didn’t move, Widow Morton gave her a firm push toward the door. The girl stumbled. She looked at Aria with haunted eyes, and Aria recognized the expression—that of a child without a voice.
“You don’t have to do what she wants,” Aria told the girl fiercely. “You don’t have tobewhat she wants.”
Lettie looked away. She hurried to the door with her head down, ducking into the hallway.
Leaving Aria alone with a woman intent upon killing her.
Move,” Baron repeated. “Please.”
Sarah stood firm. “I can’t. Listen to me, son, your father had—”
“You don’t get to call meson. Ever.”
“Your father had a beautiful vision and a silver tongue. When Marcus and I first met, and for years after, he convinced me to see that future world he imagined, where you brought a voice of reason to court, where magic slowly became accepted. I was willing to wait, to work. Until I realized there wasn’t time.
“Haven’t you seen what’s happening in the kingdom? First Corvin with his transformation, then Leon with his. Your friend Silas. Charlie Morton. Others, many others. Affiliates aren’t this common; they never have been. Lettie was the tipping point—a forgotten type ofCaster, Baron, think of it. In a single generation, something happened to magic within our kingdom. It runs rampant in secret, and every day it does, that secret threatens to be exposed. Lives are in dangerevery day. Charlie was only the first, and Clarissa saw that, so she accepted what had to be done.”
“You’ve planned this for years,” Baron realized. “You, not Widow Morton.”
“I tried to convince Marcus first”—her expression hardened—“but he cared more for loyalty to hiskingthan to hischildren.”
“Don’t youdarespeak of loyalty when you left us,” Baron snapped.
“Everything I’ve done I did for your sakes. Marcus wanted to abide the law, no matter how horrific that law was. He let them brand his own son!”
“Not without my permission.”
“Permission? You weresix!”
“And I already knew something of sacrifice. Perhaps I didn’t understand the details, but Father explained his reasons to me, and he gave me a choice.” Baron gestured to the cramped basement room. “Tell me—what choice did you offer me in this?”
Sarah’s mouth set in a hard line.
“You say you tried to convince Father of your plan, but I doubt you gave him the full picture. Did he know the truth about you?”
“My parents sacrificed greatly to spare me a witch’s mark. If I’d told anyone, even my own husband, it would have negated that sacrifice. Sometimes we must put on appearances, even when it hurts us to do so.”
