Lux jerked so badly the remainder of her biscuit joined the first on the floor.
“Lux,” said Shaw, gripping her upper arm. Even Riselda set aside her goblet.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “That name.Vesperine. It caught me off guard.” She settled her head against the chair and forced slow breaths. Meanwhile, the horrifying version of herself swayed in the corner of the room. She could not see its eyes beneath the locks of limp hair—but its blackened teeth were bared and grinning.
When Lux managed to drag her attention from it, she caught Riselda’s stricken look. One quickly shed from her face and replaced with thoughtful blankness as she said, “You remember that name?”
“I remember my father saying it once.”
“Did he? Stupid man.”
“He was not!” shouted Lux—so abrupt and harsh, Riselda startled. “Don’t youdare. Don’t you dare speak an ill word about either of them. Not when you’ve done what you did. Not when they’re dead. Do you think I care we share blood, or that I will somehow be loyal to you? You never wanted a family; you wanted someone beholden to your cause. Well, I willneverbe.”
Lux had to pack it away. Like she used to. Like she’d always practiced. Because if she didn’t… If she thought of Riselda as her—
No. This cannot happen.
Lux didn’t fold. She crushed. She stamped and pummeled the knowledge of how she’d come to this world deep into the void at the back of her head. It would try to get out—they always did—but that was fine in comparison to the alternative.
She would deal with it when she was ready; she was not ready yet.
Riselda watched her closely, and every few breaths her gaze would shift. To Lux’s grip on Shaw’s forearm. “What does he hope to gain, I wonder,” she murmured.
Shaw stiffened underneath her, and Lux growled, “Who?”
“Corvin,” Riselda answered. “I would not think, at his old age, he would be causing such pains for sport.”
Chills swept up Lux’s spine. And here now was the last information she’d kept from Shaw, wriggling to get free. This was not like what she’d just buried. This was something she’d always planned to divulge. He was going to hate it; he was going to hate her timing even more.
“He offered me a place in their society. To undergo some ritual and be named—” Saints above, she couldn’t say it. “It was either that or a Stripping,” she finished.
Riselda brow furrowed. “A what?”
“A procedure. One their healer suggested. He said it would prevent further decay”—Lux watched Shaw from the corner of her eye—“if I removed my brilliance.”
Shaw, to her shock, did not react, and she couldn’t help her curiosity. Lux turned fully to view him—and knew immediately she was wrong. Because though he hadn’t physically moved or scowled or shouted the horror of it, his eyes revealed it all. Fury poured off him in waves. He stared at her—into her—but he didn’t speak.
Riselda’s voice crept like smoke between them. “Your brilliance is in your soul, Lucena. You cannot remove one without the other.”
Lux braced her hands at once on the armrest, Shaw’s reaction forgotten. “Pardon?”
Shaw fairly vibrated now beside her. She could feel him sure as if his skin was laid against hers. And strangely, that steadied her head when horror and rage began fighting for dominance.
“Saints above, devil below…he said it was an experiment.”
And Artemis had been experimenting, all right—
With Mothlock’s staff.
How many had been done?
Whyhad it been done?
Because what was the use of a discarded brilliance? Of an extracted soul?
And then her stomach plummeted so intensely she gripped her middle. “Riselda. You said the nightmares only lasted through the night, did you not?”
Riselda sat straighter at her tone. “I did. They would come while you slept, waking you enough to see them, hear them, but could not move…” Riselda’s focus distanced into some memory.
