Magdala staggered to her feet. Her trouser leg stuck to her knee, blood soaking through the torn cotton. She couldbarely lift her left arm. Her hair had come loose and blew around her in a tempest of curls. “You do not frighten me,” she said. “And if you ever touch me again, I will kill you, Julian. I will snap your neck with my bare hands.”
“You wouldn’t dare …”
“TRY ME!” she screamed. “Come here and try me!”
She started up the steps toward him, her arms outstretched, and Julian backed away. His lip wrinkled in disgust. “What happened to you?”
“What happened to me?” She let out a disbelieving laugh. “What happened toyou? You used to be a nice boy, you used to be my friend, and now you’re just a brute."
Shaking his head, Julian turned away and jogged up the stairs.
Magdala forced herself to stand tall until he was out of sight, then she slumped against the wall with a quavering sob. Her body throbbed—she feared her legs wouldn’t support her. How could she return to the ball bloody and bruised without an explanation?
The sickly-sweet smell of roses wafted across the garden, and Magdala doubled over and was sick on the roots of a trimmed azalea.
Music swelled, and Magdala bit down on her hand to muffle a scream. Her body shook, but the more she tensed against the shivering, the worse it grew. She needed something to steady her before someone caught her with her emotions scattered about like petals in a flower garden after a windstorm. Guilty as a child caught stealing cookies, she stood and slunk around the palace until she found alittle table and chairs tucked under a shadowy pergola, surrounded by blood-red snapdragons and yellow tansy.
A statue of a faerie woman in a gauzy dress watched her from the bushes, its eyes glowing eerily. Magdala stared at it a moment, discomfited. A half-drunk flute of fizzlewine stood on the table, and Magdala eased into the chair and drank the wine in one gulp. It burned down her throat, but her head cleared and her shaking settled.
For a long time, Magdala sat in the dark, her mind circling a drain of despair. It was as though she and Julian sat across from one another at the table, a knife lying equidistant between them. If either of them made a move toward the knife, the other would reach for it as well. And then, it would be a battle of strength and wit to see who won. Deep down, Magdala knew Julian would win. Because he was Huxley’s brother, because he was Angelonia’s betrothed, because he was going to be the duke of Monkwood and she wasnotthe duchess of Elegy. And since she had been too much of a coward to kill the prince, she never would be the duchess of anything.
Stomach roiling, Magdala stood and brushed the dust from her clothes. Her hip and arm stung, but she could walk without limping now. She tugged her hair away from her face and coiled it into a brutally tight knot, then started around the palace. An open set of double glass doors led into a dark bedroom and Magdala snuck through them. If she could find a washroom, she could scrub the blood and dirt from her clothes before Angelonia or Huxley saw her.
As Magdala stepped over the threshold, she stumbled over something and pitched forward, landing painfully on her hands and knees. She swore. Turning to investigate, her gaze rested on a body stretched out on the shining mahogany floor. At first, she assumed it was a drunken earl or duke, but as she crept closer, the moonlight shone on a pair of blank, staring eyes.
The world seemed to hush. Magdala shifted so her shadow slid across the dead man’s features, and she made out his face.
Magdala clamped her hand over her mouth, stifling a scream.
Lying on the floor with a knife in his chest was Julian Davenport.
Her first instinct was to run, to get out of this room and away from the blank face and blue lips, but before she could escape, a shadow in the corner shifted, and clothing rustled.
“Who’s there?” she cried, her skin prickling.
The shadow moved, making for the doors, but Magdala darted ahead and slammed them shut. The man drew up short and glared down at her. The moonlight limned his features, and Magdala let out a yelp.
Before her, spattered in blood, stood Prince Asherton Ageric.
“Did you … he’s dead and you … why …” Magdala stammered.
Asherton backed away, his hands raised. “I didn’t,” he panted. “I didn’t kill him.”
“Then why are you covered in his blood?”
Asherton swallowed. “It’s not his blood, it’s mine.”
Magdala looked down at Julian. The prince was right—there wasn’t much blood on Julian’s clothes; even the spot around the knife was only lightly rimmed with crimson. The prince’s nose was bleeding, his lip cracked, and his left eye swollen shut. He listed to the left, like he was fighting gravity and losing.
“We need to get out of here,” Asherton said, leaning against the wall.
“We?” she demanded. “I didn’t do anything!”
“Except threaten to murder him a quarter hour ago.”
Magdala’s throat went desert-sand dry. “I didn’t …”
“I heard you,” Asherton said. “You're lucky the whole assembly didn’t hear you.”
