The world would not be a safe place for any of them if they did not act now.
Still, she paused by the door and waved back, blowing Thea and Louisa a kiss each. Lucien's hand was steady at her back as he guided her through the door, shutting it behind them.
"You're a very brave woman," he murmured.
"Don't. Please," she choked out. "Or I think I may cry."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
"Well, well,” Morgana said, swinging a lantern into the small cell and pushing back her hood with a pale, slender hand. Her smile was dangerous. "You should see the sunset, Eleanor. It's beautiful and full of portent." Setting the lantern on the table, she turned and drew a slim, elegant knife from her sleeve. "Today is going to be a very good day."
Eleanor gasped, her barely-healed lip splitting open again. The Blade of Altarrh. She could almost feel the malevolent haze emanating from it. "How did you get that?" What had happened to Drake? Was he injured?
No. She forced herself to calm. No. Morgana's smile was only that of a gloating Madonna. The woman wouldn't have been able to contain herself if Drake was hurt or cast down. She would have been crowing from the rooftops.
"I have my means," Morgana taunted. "It is always simply about finding the right point to apply pressure. Everyone has something they won't risk, whether it's a secret or someone important to them."
"Even you?"
Morgana's smile faded. "People are weaknesses you cannot afford, and there is no secret I feel shame in keeping. No, Eleanor, I'm the exemption to the rule."
Gathering her dignity, Eleanor dragged herself to her feet, the chains rattling across the floor. "I think you're lying to yourself."
"Oh? Do tell."
"I think you've always wanted someone to belong to you, but you cannot fathom how to keep them loyal, because you don't understand loyalty. All you know is betrayal."
Those green eyes narrowed. "Learned from the day I began walking, I assure you, and nobody has ever dealt me otherwise. That's not a weakness, Eleanor."
"Isn't it? Then why do you still crave it? Look at you." She let her pity show. "Your own son despises you. Drake turned from you. No man will have you. And you want them to belong to you so desperately that the misery of losing them has turned you into this. A bitter old woman with no true power, no true friends, or allies, or—"
"Stop!" Morgana hissed, lunging forward with the blade drawn. "Don't you dare pity me!"
The blade stopped an inch from Eleanor's throat. She stared into the other woman's eyes, refusing to be cowed. Go ahead. Eleanor tipped her chin up. She was no longer that pale young girl who stammered and apologized to the other young female apprentices, as if her poor birth was her own fault. Drake had taught her the value of her worth, and if this bitch was going to kill her, then Eleanor would meet her death with grace and dignity.
Morgana's lip curled back from her teeth, and she pulled the knife away.
"You," Morgana spat, "pathetic Eleanor Whitby, a girl taken directly from the orphanage, with a minor talent in psychometry, if at all... You always looked beyond your station, Eleanor, nosing around the tutors as if that could make up for your lack of breeding and talent. Gods, it makes me ill to even think of you in his bed. Why would he choose you? You're nothing. You've always been nothing."
A spark of rage unfurled in her breast, but Eleanor held her head high. "It doesn't matter what you say or do to me, Morgana, you will never win. Even in death, Drake's heart belongs to me, and mine to him."
A dangerous glitter filled the other woman's eyes. "So be it then. If Drake wants your bloody heart, then he can have it. In a box. Henri! Phillippe!"
Two heavy-set men shouldered inside the cell. Morgana gestured them into place with a swift cut of her hand. "Take her wrists and pin her down."
They moved to grab her, and Eleanor fought. It was no use. Without access to her power—carefully blocked by the warded bracelet around her wrist—she was as weak as anyone else.
Morgana grabbed her by the throat, pinning her to the stone wall. "How dare you think you could replace me? How dare you think that you" —the knife dug into Eleanor's breastbone— "pathetic, little bitch that you are, could ever be half the woman that I am."
Power gathered along the Blade. Eleanor felt it growing, even as the point cut into her skin. She cried out, twisting her face away, but there was no hope. No relief from the slow, inexorable push of hot iron into her flesh. Eleanor screamed.
"What are you doing?"
The room was suddenly freezing. Sebastian stood in the doorway, his eyes raking over the scene. Power gleamed over his skin, giving him such vitality that he almost glowed. Eleanor slumped, breathing hard, as Morgana turned to face him.
"This is none of your business. Go back to your roses." There was a faint sneer to Morgana's voice, and she turned back to her task, as if dismissing him.
"No."
