“So that’s why you killed him? Why you poisoned me?” Isabella exclaimed. “Because you werejealous? Azura, this was decades ago!”
Mother’s eyes flashed. “How dare you diminish my pain to a mere emotion, Isabella,” she said, enunciating every syllable. “There was no one left to love me. No one left to take my retribution. So I did it myself.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Iloved you, Mother.Marigoldloved you. Was that not enough?”
She licked her lips, then bit down on her bottom lip, showing the first hint of regret. “You don’t understand,” she said quietly. “You don’t know what that was like. Being in love, seeing a future with someone, then having it ripped away by people with the power to change my life. All because I wasn’tenough.”
“So you took it out on the entire Grimaldi line,” I said.
Her words were like ice. “Do not underestimate the power and wrath of a scorned woman.”
“Did you kill my son?” Isabella snarled, moving quicker than I thought possible. She stood nose-to-nose with my mother, her fists balled at her sides.
Mother snapped, “Your son was an immature, apathetic,lazychild who didn’t deserve the crown he inherited.” Her jaw clenched as she swallowed. “But I didn’t want him dead, Bella. That, if anything, is the truth.”
“You just wanted him gone,” Clarissa said from the ground beside Leo. She stood on shaking legs, her white dress covered in dirt and grunge. “You knew you couldn’t move against him directly, but he was already one misstep away from driving his entire kingdom away from him. His curse was running him into the ground.”
Clarissa took another step toward my mother. “So you didn’twanthim to break the curse. And I was your biggest obstacle. Every ‘accident,’ every setback, it was allyou. The carriage driver, the cave-in, the—the fox.” She paused to clear her throat, and I instinctively moved to her side. “You say you didn’t want him dead, but you poisoned him too, didn’t you? And the hunter on the island that almost killed me?”
“Thewhat?” I growled.
“The poison was meant foryou, not Galen,” my mother bit out.
I blinked. How had I been so blind? So utterly naive?
“Who are you working with?” I seethed, locking my eyes on my mother. “It’s impossible for you to have done this all on your own. I was with you most of the time—Marigoldwas with you.” My words turned into a snarl at the thought that I’d allowed this woman to be anywhere near my daughter.
She merely stared at me in silence.
The memory of walking in on her speaking with someone in private right before the ball popped in my mind, as well as the glimpse of a cloak Clarissa and I saw outside my hut the evening before the Hunt.
“You have spies, don’t you?” I asked. “That’s how you knew the things Clarissa said about Galen. That’s who you were speaking with when you told me you were searching for my father.” When she still didn’t answer, the air grew thick with tension. My anger swirled inside me, readying to lash out.
“Answer me!” I thundered, chest heaving.
“What do you want me to say, Thorne?” she hissed. “You’re already going to see me behind bars after all of this. Your ownmother. What more do you want from me?”
“I want thetruth. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you tried to kill the woman I love. Thatyou’rethe one who caused her such pain. That you’ve been lying to me formonths.”
Clarissa sucked in a breath, and her fingers grazed the side of my hand.
“I told you once that you were a fool,” my mother whispered. “Perhaps we both were. But I was doing what I thought was best for our kingdom.”
I shook my head in disgust. “No, you weren’t. You were doing what you wanted. What best servedyou.”
“How did you do it all?” Clarissa asked. “Who was helping you?”
“Someone who owes me a great debt,” Mother said. “And who’s just as willing to do what must be done to get what she wants.”
Her eyes flitted over my shoulder.
I turned to see a flash of red hair and sunlight glaring off black-rimmed glasses. The maid appeared from the side door of the palace with bandages and ointment in hand.
Clarissa inhaled sharply. “Devora?”
Devora’s keen gaze found my mother’s. Her face hardened. She dropped the supplies and spun on her heel.
“Not so fast, darling,” a low drawl echoed from behind her right as Nox wrapped his hand around Devora’s wrist.
