His head drooped. His limp fingers slipped on the neck of the bottle. I caught the carafe before it shattered to the floor.
He’d passed out. His eyes were shut, black lashes streaking lines of soot against his cheek. His tousled head lolled between drifts of snow. He looked too young to be so broken.
I stood, stoppering the bottle so I didn’t have to patch the cracks in my heart. There was a fur throw beside the ice gate—I picked it up and draped it over his prone figure, brushing his hair out of his eyes.
“I’d take it away,” I whispered, “if I could.”
I left him to his nightmares and went to find mine.
Istumbled to my room in Belsyre Wing and immediately kicked off my slippers, shucking away my jewelry as though the touch of it burned. Scion, but I’d been an idiot. How could I have possibly thought I could stay in control of a Nocturne whose very purpose was deception? How—
A sound like paper being crumpled dragged me away from my self-pity. I froze, then turned on my heel. The suite was as I’d eft it—the bed unmade, my Matin dress flung over the dressing screen, cosmetics and jewelry strewn across the vanity. Only … the skylight was still open, bloodstained light streaking the bed. It was well past second Nocturne. Usually the staff closed the shutters after Compline.
Again, that sound—like wet fabric being torn.
Trepidation shoved me toward the noise. The door to the commode yawned open, and I fumbled for the ambric globe. It blossomed. The ripping sound came again, from my right. On the floor. I turned, shoved the dressing screen open, and stared down at the thrashing figure of a dying girl.
I knew her. It was Elodie—one of my handmaids. She flailed against the tile, her hands scrabbling at her throat. The sound I’d heard was her heels pounding into a mountain of chiffon and tulle lumped on the floor. Her mouth silently worked as blood-tinged froth spilled over her cheeks. And around her neck—a choker in dristic and diamond, studded with beryls and emeralds.
“No,” I rasped. I fell to my knees beside her, then pushed myself back up. I shoved myself toward the door to my rooms, stumbling on my hem and knocking over a chair. Glass shattered.
“Help!” I screamed, dristic and poison shredding my throat. “Somebody help!”
I flung myself back toward Elodie. Time slipped and jolted—my hands at her throat, my fingernails stained red with blood as I pulled and pulled at the choker while she silently screamed and screamed. Her head in my lap—her hair a bright splash against the dusk of my gown, her frothing mouth scattering stars through the night. Her eyes on mine, pleading and desperate and full of hope—hope—how could shehope?—
“Mirage, what’s—?”
It was Oleander who burst into the room, long blond hair undone and a char of worry in her eyes. She measured the scene in one glance before striding toward us, nightgown flaring and determination forging her expression into dristic. She dropped to her knees, shoved me bodily out of the way, and cradled Elodie’s still-thrashing figure against her chest.
“This is poison,” Oleander said, curt. “How long has she been like this?”
“I don’t know.” Tears clogged my throat and turned the words to mush. “I just got back—she was already on the ground—”
Oleander didn’t wait for me to continue. She bent her head to Elodie’s, and kissed the other girl. No—notkissed. Her mouth closed over hers, and she pinched the other girl’s nose shut. Bloody foam frothed around their lips, and nausea rose in my stomach. I turned away, fighting the churn of bile. When I looked back, Oleander was—sucking.
Scion, Oleander was trying tosuck the poisonout of her. I pressed a fist to my mouth, but I couldn’t look away. Both girls shuddered. Oleander’s palm slapped onto Elodie’s chest, exposed above the neckline of her gown. The girl groaned. Lines of black spiderwebbed away from her mouth, pulling the contours of her face tight against her bones. Her veins stood out like ink on parchment, pulsing toward her chest. And I—I sat frozen and helpless beside them, unable even to pray to a Scion who had forsaken me.
I didn’t know whether it had been minutes or hours when Oleander finally lifted her head from Elodie’s mouth. The handmaid was limp in her lap—her mouth had gone slack. Blood and spittle and vomit streaked her cheeks and stained the floor. Her eyes stared unseeing toward the skylight.
“She’s gone,” Oleander croaked. She looked like she’d aged twenty tides in a minute—her pristine skin was sallow and discolored. Livid bags carved out her eyes and wrinkles stretched toward the corners of her eyes. “The poison—there was too much of it.”
Tiredly, Oleander lifted the girl’s head, reached behind her, and unclasped the poisoned necklace. It came away with a slurping pop—metal flanges had dug themselves deep into the skin, gripping Elodie’s throat as they delivered poison into her veins. The necklace splattered blood and bile onto the floor. I stared in horror at the brutal device.
It had never been a piece of jewelry. It had always been a weapon.
“You realize this was meant for you?” Oleander’s voice echoed my own sickening thoughts. If I’d worn another dress, if the jewels had been a different color, if I’d been in a different mood …if, if, if.The thoughts circled, vicious. In any number of scenarios, it was me—me wearing that necklace, me flailing helpless on the floor, me dying.
“Why was she wearing it?” I cried.
“I’m sure your girls try on your clothes and jewelry all the time.” Oleander lifted a blood-streaked hand to shut Elodie’s staring eyes. Already, the blond girl’s color was returning, her eyes brightening. “I know mine do. It was bad luck.”
“It should have been me.”
“No,” Oleander said dispassionately. “It shouldn’t have.”
She stood, wiped her hands on her nightgown, and surveyed the destruction with eyes that grew cooler and cooler, until she was encased in ice—haughty, distant,familiar. I could almost forget what she’d just done.
“I’ll summon someone to clean this up. You should sleep in Sunder’s room this Nocturne.”
