The words were meant to chasten me, and they did. My throat went hot with shame. “Madam—”
“I did try everything else first. But then you and your sisters, all your friends and lovers…you were so determined to end this war. And it seems that you did. So now I must do this. It’s the only path left to me. Tous.”
I didn’t understand. I gripped her collar in my fist—an empty threat, but I didn’t know what else to do. “At least give the others the dignity of an explanation. If it were only me bound to you—”
“You would have let me do it, isn’t that right?” Her voice was soft, her eyes glittering. “You would have stood there and watched me draw the blade across my throat, and you would have been glad.”
“To die? Yes. To lose you?” I swallowed hard, disgusted with myself, with the strange, mean life I had lived. “I should want that, but I don’t. Despite everything, I love you still. You took me from my mother and replaced her, and everything I am, everything I know, is because of you.”
“Well, noteverything. Let’s be honest with each other, Mara, here at the end.”
A chill swept through me. For the first time since finding Gareth’s body, I felt something other than grief and anger.
I felt fear.
“What are you talking about?” I said evenly. “Stop stalling. Explain yourself to me.”
“Don’t worry about your sisters. They mean nothing to me now. But I’m not a fool. Surely you can’t think I’m ignorant of what all of you really are. Demigods.” She laughed a little, closing her eyes. “Such power inside you. It would have been perfect, if you’d just gotten out of my way. We wouldn’t be doing this right now. Maybe your Gareth would even still be alive.”
“What would have been perfect?” I shook her a little. Her grip on the knife had relaxed. She was no longer fighting me.
“You, at least, I will grant the— What did you call it? The dignity of an explanation.” She opened her eyes and touched my face. I couldn’t read the expression in her hard, glittering eyes. “Kilraith and I made an agreement years ago. I would help him win his war. In exchange, my Roses and I would be spared and granted protection in his new world. The Order would no longer be necessary. We would be free.”
I stared at her. “You didwhat?”
“I am very old, and the position of the Warden is even older. The magic that binds all of you to me is ancient. Few beings would have been strong enough to serve as an anchor for him. But I was, and am. And I had all of you to protect me, and the ear of the crown as well. There was no safer place I could be. But then you and your sisters stole the others from him, one after another. Andshefound one herself and left it right there in the open for you to find. Do you know what these losses did to me? How they tore at me, how angry he became? Can you even imagine?”
I could. Even in my shock, I was beginning to understand. “The black lake under the full moon,” I whispered. The moon above us casthalf her face in shadow. “We could never find an anchor here, not in all our searching. Of course we couldn’t. The anchor isyou.”
Her smile was soft and sad, and a little cruel. “Professor Fontaine really should have put the pieces together. I was worried when he came here, even though it was at my request. I wanted to keep an eye on him. But he never suspected a thing. I suppose he was distracted.” She clucked her tongue. “It seems to me that you both would have been better off if you’d never known each other.”
I wanted to slap her, grab the knife and start cutting, bring her to the brink of death in the most painful way possible. But I needed her to keep talking.
“What else did you do for him?” I demanded. “You served as an anchor of theytheliad, fed him power. What else?”
“The funny thing is,” she murmured, no longer quite looking at me, “I don’t think she would have let me do it just now. You stopped me, but if you hadn’t, she would have. I’ve tried many times to kill myself, just like you. But every time, she manages to stop me. She is quite fond of you Roses, as she should be. Goddess of the Unknowable. And who is more unknowable than we are?”
She laughed quietly. Her eyes drifted closed once more. “She’s getting stronger every day. I have to do it, Mara. I need you to see that.”
Sheagain. Both the Warden and Kilraith had mentioned a mysteriousshe. The answer was taking shape in my mind, but I didn’t want to believe it.
“Stop these riddles,” I said. My voice sounded hollow to my ears. “Tell me what you mean. Tell me exactly.”
“Do you think your professor was the only person capable of engineering a transference?” the Warden said bitterly. “And I didn’t even have help. I didn’t need it. I examined his notes. Very messy, very fussy. Too many variables.”
Her words sank in slowly, confirming what I had feared.
“Zelphenia,” I whispered. “She’s inside you.”
“She was hardly a wisp of a thing at first, and glad for the offer. It took meyearsto track her down. And I thought it was terribly clever of me. Something to fall back on. If Kilraith betrayed me, I’d have a god to help me.”
Suddenly I needed answers to a hundred new questions. “How did he never find out?”
A faint smile toyed at her lips. “He underestimated the depth and power of my binding magic—what I can hide, what I can trap and contain. He underestimated me. Many men do. The Warden is up at the Mist, guarding her chicks. No grander than a schoolteacher. For centuries, they took our sacrifice for granted. They won’t be able to anymore.”
“You didn’t send us to Falkeron to look for Zelphenia,” I said, understanding at last. “You sent us to curb our progress with the anchors, to distract us from the war.”
“The Blessed Abbot was to occupy you with useless texts and false trails until I sent for you. I didn’t know what had happened there. I would never have sent you into such danger if I had.”
