"Them?"
"The Prime and Mrs Ross."
"How would I know the Prime?" Cleo asked. "My father's kept me locked away at his estate for all these years. I cannot see. It's not as though I've been making secret assignations with someone. How could I have even contacted the Prime or Mrs. Ross?"
"How indeed? Do you know it's always the innocent-seeming ones you have to watch? Or so I've always believed. So be it. Perhaps I'll ask Mrs. Ross?" The older woman patted Cleo's cheek. "You would be wise to—"
The second Morgana touched her, a vision sunk its hooks deep into her. Cleo dropped her teacup, distantly registering the sensation as it burned its way across her lap. She cried out, but her eyes were wide open behind her blindfold.
A dark-haired woman lay in a small dark room, her face dirty and her clothes ragged. She looked up as the barred cell door opened and then dragged herself up into a sitting position, wincing as she did. Another woman entered, her skirts swishing around her ankles. She knelt, just out of reach of Mrs. Ross's shackles, her green eyes slightly tilted and still beautiful, despite the signs of age weathering her pale skin. Her smile, however, was vicious. "So be it then. If Drake wants your bloody heart, then he can have it. In a box."
Then the vision shifted. A guillotine descended. Blood splashed against stone walls, and crows took off into stormy skies. The storm clouds swirled and swirled, circling Morgana as she tilted her face toward the sky. They were so thick and threatening, and they swallowed her whole.
Cleo sucked in a sharp lungful of air, clutching at the tablecloth as the vision left her. Porcelain smashed and cutlery chimed on the flagstones. Her heart was thundering in her chest.
"What did you see?" asked a sharp voice near her ear.
She couldn't breathe. She hadn't even felt the vision coming. Cleo shook her head and tried to regain her decorum.
Morgana fussed around her, fetching her a cup of water. It was almost laughable.
"Your own actions will destroy you," Cleo whispered, dragging the napkin off the table and patting at her scalded lap. "This is the beginning of the end for you. So perhaps you should be careful of just precisely who you threaten. If you kill Mrs. Ross, I will let you walk your path. I will let you fall. Indeed, you will never know if I steer you clear of it or give you a push in the wrong direction. You have been warned."
"It is never wise to make an enemy of me." Morgana sounded less certain than she had been though.
Cleo reached for the teapot and poured herself a fresh cup in the midst of the carnage. Her hands were still shaking, but her voice was measured. "I have never had an enemy," she mused. "I wonder who will win, the one who sees the future, or the one who clings to the past?"
Cleo found Sebastian in the garden. She still didn't know what to think about his confession last night, but she had no one else to help her. "Your mother is going to kill Eleanor Ross."
A pair of clippers snicked together neatly. "I know."
"Well, are you not going to do something about it?"
"What should I do?" he asked, snipping at another stem. Roses, she thought, from the heady scent of them. "Storm Mrs. Ross's prison? Murder my mother? I'd like to, but there's the unfortunate matter of the collar..."
"Well, we have to do something!"
"There is no 'we'."
"You're the only one I have," she shot back, her voice thick with emotion, "and I'm the only one you have. If we're not in this together, then what's the point?"
Bees buzzed as he hesitated before saying, "Careful. My mother's watching from the window. She looks vexed." He moved on, snipping at something else. "What did you say to her?"
"We had a lovely little conversation over tea, full of threats and bloodied promises. This is a pit of vipers, is it not?" Cleo rubbed her fingers together in thought, then ripped her chin up when she heard his swift intake of breath. "Oh, goodness. I didn't mean you."
"It's the truth," Sebastian replied, his voice muffled as he turned away from her.
"No, it's not." She followed the sound of his footsteps across the lawn hesitantly. "Would you stop pacing, please? I'm afraid I'm going to fall face first into the roses."
He stopped and Cleo almost walked into him before realizing.
"You cannot pretend this isn't going to happen. You cannot run away from it. We have to do something. This is my fault, Bastian. I sent a letter to the Prime—"
"I know. You bloody little fool. You should have stayed out of this mess."
"I wanted to help you," she cried. "And I didn't stay out of it, and now an innocent woman is going to die because of me!" Then her mind registered what he'd said. "How did you know I contacted the Prime?"
Sebastian swore under his breath. "Listen, this is not your fault. Mrs. Ross told me about—"
