The panel begins to slide shut.
“Isolde, wait?—”
The panel closes with finality, leaving me alone in the chamber.
I collapse to my knees, the overdose of magic leaving me drained and trembling. My body feels hollow, scraped clean from the inside. But the physical pain is nothing compared to the emotional devastation.
The Mercury token is silent in my pocket now. I pull it out with shaking hands, staring at the small metal disc. Lady Tavia’s people heard everything – Isolde’s confession, her network, her plans.
But they also heard me lose control, heard me torture someone with my father’s magic.
The withdrawal symptoms return with doubled intensity, made worse by the magical overdose. Nausea rolls through me in waves so intense I can barely breathe. My hands won’t stop shaking. The cuts on my arm and thigh throb with every heartbeat, blood pooling beneath me on the cold stone.
I lay my head down on the cold stone floor and close my eyes, walls pressing closer as darkness creeps in at the edges of my vision. I’m dying – from blood loss or magical exhaustion or just my body finally giving up – I don’t know which.
I let death come.
The Mercury token slips from my fingers, clattering against stone.
The last thing I think before unconsciousness takes me is that Isolde was right about everything.
I am exactly like my father.
Maybe I always have been.
The first thing I feel is warmth flowing through my veins, knitting torn flesh back together. The pain in my chest fades from agony to a dull ache, then to nothing at all.
The second thing I feel is familiar fingers checking my pulse.
“Pulse is steady, breathing normal,” a voice says – not speaking to me, but about me. “The healing took hold properly.”
I force my eyes open to find Mother leaning over me, her crescent moon sigil glowing faintly on her chest. She’s working, not simply comforting. Silver streaks thread through her hair – more than I remember – and exhaustion lines her face, but her green eyes are sharp with concentration.
“Mother?” My voice comes out as a croak.
“Hello, little moon.” Her hand presses gently against my shoulder. “Don’t try to sit up yet. The magical healing was extensive. You need time to adjust.”
I’m in a medical chamber. The smell of healing herbs fills the air, and I can see bowls of prepared compounds on a nearby table. Soft light filters through high windows, casting the sterile white sheets of my bed in muted gold.
“How long was I unconscious?”
“Eighteen hours,” another voice answers.
Astrid emerges from behind a collection of medical equipment, her eyes bright with relief. Her usually neat braid is disheveled, her clothes stained with dried blood.
“We weren’t sure you’d wake up today,” she says quietly.
Eighteen hours. The last thing I remember is collapsing in that stone chamber, the Mercury token slipping from my fingers, the terrible certainty that I’d become exactly what I feared.
“Lord Zevran – the others,” I say, forcing the words past my dry throat. “The House leaders, are they?—”
“Safe.” Astrid moves closer, perching on the edge of the bed. “Lord Zevran has been pacing outside this room the entire time, wanting updates by the hour. Lord Castor took some debris damage but he’s fine. Everyone made it out of the lockdown – they’re shaken, but alive.”
Relief floods through me, followed immediately by grief. “Except Lord Evander.”
The image flashes through my mind – Lord Evander crushed beneath stone and rubble, blood pooling around him. I close my eyes against it.
“And Ren?” I ask. “Where’s Ren?”
