“Dreadful,” Charlotte agreed, waving a filthy hand through the air. “Positively peasant-wear. I would not have used the hem of her gown to buff my own shoes.”
It was so nice to talk to someone sensible—someone who understood the way of things. The dungeon was quiet, save for their hushed laughter. It was almost like being back in her sitting room, sipping tea, plotting the rise and fall of lesser houses.
“Mother?” That question sliced through the air beyond her cell, sharp and intrusive.
Charlotte frowned, irritated at the interruption. “Hush now, someone is coming,” she whispered to Gisela.
“Mother? Who are you talking to?”
The voice came again, closer this time. Charlotte squinted, turning her head toward the bars, but the torchlight swiftly approaching was too bright. It stung her eyes. She looked back to Gisela to warn her to hide lest Igor try to take her away, but her friend was already gone.
Just damp stone. Just shadows.
The lavender silk, the laughter—gone.
Dead.
The memory slammed into her chest with the force of a battering ram. Gisela hung from the wall. The rope. The sway of her body in the wind. They were all dead. Every single one of them.
Charlotte’s breath hitched, turning into a jagged rasp. She turned her head slowly, her neck protesting the movement, until her eyes locked on the figure standing beyond the iron bars. The torchlight flickered over his face, casting deep shadows beneath his eyes and highlighting the tension in his jaw.
Edmund.
A snarl ripped itself from her throat. She didn’t think; she simply reacted. Like a feral cat cornered by a hound, she scrambled across the straw-littered floor and flung herself at the bars. Her hands, curled into claws, struck the cold iron, reaching for him.
“You!” she hissed, baring her teeth. Spittle flew from her lips. “You let her kill them! You let that witch slaughter them like pigs! Gisela! My guards! My friends!”
She shook the bars, weak as she was, fueled by a hatred so pure it burned hot enough to melt the iron. Not hatred for him. He was still her son, coward though he was.
A hatred forher. The witch who had ruined everything.
“How dare you show your face here?” Charlotte spat. “You worthless, spineless worm! You let her hang them from the walls!”
Edmund did not flinch. He did not step back. He merely stood there, staring at her with eyes that looked too old, too tired. He said nothing.
Instead, she heard the jingle of metal.
A key slid into the lock. The tumblers groaned—a harsh, grinding sound in the silence—and the heavy door swung outward with a squeal of rusted hinges.
“You had best hurry, Mother,” Edmund said, his voice flat, devoid of the simpering affection he used to shower upon her. “There is not much time.”
Charlotte froze, her hands still gripping the bars of the open door. Her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She blinked, the red haze of her rage receding just enough to let confusion seep in.
“Time?” she croaked, her voice cracking. “Time for what?”
Edmund hooked the keys back onto his belt and turned, lifting the torch high. “Time for me to get you out of here.”
Her son didn’t wait to see if she was following. He simply turned and strode into the darkness of the dungeon corridor, the pool of light moving with him.
For a heartbeat, Charlotte remained paralyzed. Was this another cruel trick of her mind? Or was Edmund truly keeping his promise to her? But the receding light beckoned her.
With a scramble of limbs, she pushed herself off the floor. Her legs shook, trembling under her own weight as if she were a newborn foal, but she forced them to move.
Stumbling out of the cell, squinting against the gloom, she chased her son.
“And what about your witch of a wife?” Charlotte softly demanded as she caught up to him, her voice echoing off the stone walls. She grabbed his arm to steady herself. “Does she know youare down here? Or is she too busy murdering the rest of our kingdom?”
Edmund didn’t look back. He kept his pace brisk, forcing her to trot to keep up. “I slipped her one of your vials, Mother.”
