“She was given every comfort.” She rolled her eyes.
“Except freedom.”
“Freedom is often wasted by those who don’t understand responsibility.”
The woman in the cell laughed once, a sharp sound that cut through the hallway, and the Priestess’ gaze snapped to her.
I felt the magic gather in my fingertips as my hands tightened around the pebbles Twobble had given me. The urge to find out what the pebbles could do was becoming almost unbearable.
The shadow mark pulsed.
Hard.
The cell bars trembled faintly, and the woman’s eyes flicked to me.
She’d noticed, and so had the goblin called Legner.
And so had my grandmother.
The Priestess’ mouth curved slowly as she returned her attention to me.
“There it is,” she said coyly, which made me nauseous.
“What?” I shook my head.
“Your inheritance.” Her smile turned into a wicked grin.
I rolled my eyes and unclenched my fingers in my pockets. “My inheritance is a headache and a list of people who lie in riddles.”
“Your humor hides the truth poorly.” She stepped closer.
“I’m not kidding.” I looked around the dungeon, trying to regain my composure.
“You felt Shadowick answer you. We all did.” She took a step back and glanced at the woman in the cell.
“I felt a draft.” I shrugged, refusing to admit exactly what I felt because the truth was that I didn’t know.
“Lie better, Maeve.” Her eyes focused on me, narrowing to slits. “Lie better.”
The shadow mark flared again, sending a ribbon of heat across my ribs and down my hip. It stopped at my butterfly mark, and I straightened. Was she connecting to me somehow, or had the shadow mark done that on its own?
Maybe it was nothing.
But I felt something inside me stir, more powerful…more controlled. The hedge magic pulsed through me, and for a second, I saw the bars in front of the woman’s cell as something alive. Rooted. Fed from below. The iron wasn’t simply holdingher in. It was drinking from her anger, from her defiance, from every breath she took while refusing to bend.
The realization nearly made me sick.
I looked back at Legner, who stood steady again even after being slammed against the wall. His small chin was still raised, though his thin fingers gripped the bars hard enough to blanch greenish at the knuckles.
“These cells feed the compound,” I said softly.
The Priestess’ expression stilled.
Well.
That answered that.
The little woman’s mouth twitched, almost a smile. “Is that so?”
