“Then why are you here? To ensure I don’t run away before they get here?”
“No, it’s quite the opposite. I want to give you a chance to flee the fate you so desperately want to avoid.” She flashes the train ticket still clasped in her fingers. “You can have this back. You can leave here now, and you won’t have to go through with marrying Brother Marus. All you need to do is give me whatever glamour you’re wearing. When Mother arrives, I’ll tell her you fled before I got here, and I’ll send her on a false trail so you can get safely away.”
She says it like she’s doing me a favor, but she isn’t fooling me. I bark a laugh. “You want my glamour?”
“Yes.” Her answer comes quickly, devoid of even the slightest shame. “I want whatever makes you look like Princess Maisie. It will serve us both well. You’ll be free and I’ll have what is rightly mine.”
“What are you so convinced is rightly yours? Prince Franco? He doesn’t belong to you. Besides, he already knows who I am. He won’t believe you’re the princess.”
Her expression hardens. “You’re lying. How could he possibly know who you are?”
“I told him.”
“Why?”
I lift my chin. “Because he loves me.Me. Not as the false princess, but Ember Montgomery. Orphan and servant.”
“I refuse to believe that.”
“It’s true. He’s a psy vampire, Imogen. You can try to take my glamour all you want, but he’ll know at once that you are neither me nor the real Maisie.”
She shakes her head and whirls toward my dressing table, bracing her hands on its surface. She stares down at the open hatboxes filled with Maisie’s treasures. “Don’t you dare try to take this from me.”
“You don’t stand a chance. You never did. Not with him, not with any of your previous schemes.”
Her face whips toward me, eyes burning with hatred. “Do you enjoy watching me fail? Is that why you wormed your way into a position where you could charm the Raven Prince? To take him from me when you knew Mother wanted me to woo him? Did you relish my pain when Gemma Bellefleur stole my beloved last year? Have you laughed yourself silly these past three years when I come away from every social season without a husband?”
“I don’t laugh, and I don’t enjoy it,” I say with all sincerity. “I pity you.”
“Pity.” She scoffs. “How dare you pity me? I pityyou. You’re delusional if you think you have the prince’s heart, and I’ll hear not a word more about it. Give me your glamour. Now.”
“No.”
With a roar, she charges me. I dart back in time to avoid the slash of the knife she brandishes. She must have taken it from Maisie’s collection. “Where is it? What holds the glamour?” She eyes me from head to toe, and her gaze locks on my feet. “It’s the shoes, isn’t it?”
I back up a few paces, looking from her to the knife in her hand. Imogen has never shown a tendency toward physical violence, and I doubt she knows how to wield a knife. Still, I’d rather not get struck by a recklessly handled piece of silverware, regardless of the lack of skill behind it.
She lunges again, and I whirl away from her knife hand. But it isn’t that hand that strikes me. It’s her open palm. She shoves it into my shoulder, sending me careening to the floor. I bite out a cry as I land hard on my hip. Imogen falls over my feet, wresting one of the shoes from it. Without the ribbons I normally secure them with, she easily frees one. I claim the other before she can take it too.
I scramble to my feet and dart toward the dressing table. She leaps for me with the knife, but I raise the glass heel above the corner. “I’ll break it!”
She freezes, understanding sparking in her eyes. If I break the shoe, the glamour will be broken too. “Don’t,” she says with a gasp. “Give it to me. I’ll give you the train ticket and you’ll be free.”
“I’m already free.” I lift the heel of the shoe high overhead and bring it down hard on the corner with all my might. The glass shatters, sending shards to the floor.
With a cry, Imogen drops the knife and dives to the ground, seeking the broken pieces. “What have you done?” she wails. “You selfish, conniving—”
My door swings open. It isn’t Mrs. Coleman and the guards that I expect but a beautiful, towering woman with short silver hair. It’s Queen Nyxia.
Behind her stands Brother Marus.
45
EMBER
Nyxia whirls toward Marus, her voice like ice as she says, “Is this your supposed fiancée?”
He assesses me with a hard look. “Yes.”
