Marybeth reveals no surprise that he knows her surname. “I don’t have long,” she says, every word strained.
“Long before what?” Torben asks.
“Before the compulsion kicks in.” She bites back a cry. “I’m fighting it. I’ve been fighting it, and she knows it. So she sent me on one last errand. If I succeed, she’ll free me. If I don’t, I…I die.”
I come to stand beside Torben. He throws out an arm before me but doesn’t try to shove me behind him. He probably knows it will do no good. This is my mission as much as it’s his. “Who sent you?” I ask. “Who’s controlling you, Marybeth? Who did you give the power of your true name to?”
She bites back another cry, her face going white as a sheet. She seems to be holding her breath, fighting to speak. Or not to. Then she falls to her knees on the stone walkway, head hanging low. “Tris!” she shouts, slamming a fist into the ground. “It’s Queen Tris.”
My blood goes cold.
“She’s coming for you,” she says in a rush. “She’ll be here by morning to kill both of you if you refuse the offer she sent me to give.”
Torben takes a slow step closer. With one hand, he holds an open cuff. His other offers a placating gesture. “We need you to come with us to the Alpha Council headquarters and tell the truth.”
Her face snaps up. “I can’t. I can never again say what I just did.” Her words dissolve into a strangled cry. Tears stream down her cheeks. She forces herself back to her feet, stance unsteady. “I’m here to offer an ultimatum.”
Torben edges closer, open hand still raised toward her, probably to distract her from the cuffs half hidden at his side. “What’s the ultimatum?”
“Don’t come any closer!” she shouts.
Torben and I pause.
She tosses the Chariot out to the side, where it’s lost in the overgrown grass flanking the walkway. Torben’s gaze snaps to where it lands, but he makes no move to retrieve it. “You get that, Huntsman,” she says, then reaches into her skirt pocket and extracts a vial.
My heart races at the sight of it.
She holds the glass bottle out to me. “And you get this. But only if you come with me now.”
An unexpected flash of temptation strikes me, summoning a wild, untamed, frantic hunger. It gnaws at my gut, my mind, my heart, promising peace. Safety. An end to grief. An end to sorrow and suffering.
I close my eyes and breathe the wretched urge away. It rakes invisible claws down my insides as it recedes, but when it’s gone, I feel stronger. Relief sweeps through me. “I don’t want that poison,” I say through my teeth.
Marybeth sags, wavering on her feet. Then her hands come to the lid. She whimpers as she turns the cap. “If you don’t come with me,” she says, voice trembling, “then I must drink this.”
Terror seizes me. Marybeth is fully human. If she drinks even a little bit of Crimson Malus, she’ll die.
Just like my father.
A small part of me wants to let it happen. Wants to watch those veins of black crawl over her skin in retribution for what she did to my father. But that won’t change that Marybeth was forced. That Tris has been orchestrating this all along. We need her alive to confess the truth.
She finishes removing the cap and brings the bottle toward her lips.
“I’ll go with you!” I shout, and Marybeth pauses, her chest heaving, arms shaking.
“Astrid,” Torben hisses, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the other girl.
“It’s all right,” I whisper. “I’ll go to her. When she’s distracted, run for the Chariot, then grab hold of us both. Transport us to the Alpha Council, or wherever you can.”
His jaw shifts side to side. “Something isn’t right about this. Why did she toss away the Chariot? She can’t take you anywhere without it. Can’t outrun me.”
He’s right, and it fills my stomach with dread.
“I think Tris wants us to do exactly what we’re about to do.”
“But if you’re holding the Chariot, you can control where we travel to, right?” My mind reels, seeking the hidden trap, for there must be one.
“Yes, but—”
