“Yes, and she was supposed to be on my side. She knew what that girl did to me. She knew Astrid ruined my life.”
Astrid ruined my life.
The words ring through my ears. With Torben blocking Danielle from view, I have nowhere else to look but the bedroom around us. It’s small. Dark. Hidden in some far-off wing. These aren’t the quarters Danielle used to reside in. This isn’t the life she used to have.
Did I do this?
“My cousin was supposed to help me get revenge,” Danielle says.
Torben stiffens. “How was she supposed to help you get revenge?”
“She was supposed to help me prove Astrid’s true nature. Discover her secrets. Tell me everything she could find out about her. Instead, she betrayed me by becoming herfriendinstead.” She delivers the wordfriendwith no small amount of venom.
“I was told you pushed Miss Snow from a horse,” Torben says, his tone just as dark as hers. “That she could have died from her injuries.”
Danielle snorts a laugh. “I wish she had. Then perhaps her father would still be alive.”
The mention of my father has me bolting out from behind Torben. “Why would you say that?” I ask, voice trembling.
She narrows her eyes at me, then assesses me from head to toe as if seeing me for the first time. The blood leaves my face. Do I still have control over my magic?
Danielle seems to lose interest in me and turns her gaze back to Torben. “It’s obvious she killed her father. I knew she’d do something like that as soon as I heard Edmund had married the queen. She wouldn’t be satisfied at being named a princess. No, she would want the queen’s crown. She’d kill her father and her stepmother and seize the throne for herself.” Her voice rises with hysteria. “I told everyone.Everyone. No one listened. Just like they didn’t listen after the accident. How could they not see I was trying to protect everyone from her? Marybeth was the only person who ever believed me. But she too was won over by that evil, scheming whore.”
Nausea turns in my gut as I take in the fervor in her eyes, the rage pulsing in the veins at her temples. I never saw this side of her when we were acquainted. She was paranoid, of course. Cruel. Cold. But never was she this…this…
“You think I’m unhinged too, don’t you?” Her eyes lock on me again. “You think I’m the villain, but I assure you I’m not. I’m the victim. I was supposed to be a wife. A mother. Do you know what I got instead? What my parents have subjected me to? Bloodletting, exorcisms, purgatives, laudanum.” She marches toward us. “I’m sotiredof laudanum. I’m so fed up with being locked in this room!”
“Then perhaps you shouldn’t have tried to murder a girl,” Torben says without an ounce of sympathy.
She pulls her head back as if he’d slapped her. Then her lips curl into a too-pleasant smile. “I only wish the horse had crushed her skull.”
With a growl, Torben leaps toward the girl, claws extending from his fingertips. I nearly trip in my haste to rush between them. His face twists into a snarl, his teeth elongating into pointed tips. I get in front of him and plant both hands on his chest. Pushing against him with all my might, I angle my face to his. “Torben! Don’t!”
His chest heaves beneath my palms, his muscles quivering with rage, but he stops in place. His eyes, however, remain locked on the girl.
A sharp cackle pierces the air behind me. I turn to see Danielle chuckling, her face devoid of any concern over her life. Did she not see Torben’s claws? His teeth? His rage? If so, she certainly didn’t care.
I lower my voice. “I think we should go.”
“You want to leave already?” Danielle says with a mock pout. She sobers from her laughing fit and turns her attention to me. As her eyes lock on mine, I feel the last of my control begin to melt away. Her gaze is too probing, too intense. It reminds me too much of how she looked just before she shoved me off the horse. I’d been struck by the bottomless rage in her eyes back then too. Or…perhaps not her eyes exactly, but what they’d reminded me of in that moment. Another pair of eyes linger at the edges of my memory, ones even more terrifying than Danielle’s. A flash of green surrounding too-large pupils fills my mind, striking fear into my heart for reasons I don’t understand.
I know I should calm down and breathe my magic away, but I can’t, not after everything she said. Not with the guilt that weighs heavy in my heart.
That’s all the permission my magic needs. It snaps into place, igniting between us. The hum of my power buzzes all around me like a cloak. Smothering yet protecting at the same time. I sink into the familiar comfort of being unseen. Of hiding behind a mask.
But as her face pales, my momentary relief is replaced with dread.
“You,” Danielle says through her teeth. Then again, her voice a shout now. “It’s you!”
Torben finally drags his attention from Danielle to me, and his expression turns panicked. “Shit.”
“You ruined my life,” Danielle cries out, her voice breaking on a sob. “Did you come to see what you did? Did you come to mock me?”
“No, I—”
Before I can finish, the door bursts open. Mrs. Harding and two maids rush inside and head straight for Danielle. Torben angles me behind him, hiding me from view. “This meeting is over,” Sandy says, not bothering to glance our way. “I must ask you to leave now. Martha, get the laudanum.”
“No!” Danielle shouts as Sandy and one of the maids restrain her flailing arms behind her back. “I don’t want more laudanum! I wanther. She’s Astrid Snow. It’sher.”
