“I don’t think I’d knowhowto turn her into a worm.”
“Wedohave a plan,” Marry cut in firmly. “Two-thirds of Avette’s forces are holding down the ports, and the dregs that remain will be conveniently assembled before us tomorrow. Imogen’s been biding her time, winning Avette’s trust formonthsnow, chipping away at her every defence. She hassingle-handedlybrought us as close as we could possibly be; it’s up to us to see it through.”
The others nodded, chagrined, but Adeline caught the slight flush to Imogen’s wan cheeks and could not help but smile.
“You’re right,” she said. “So, what can we do?”
“We need to get all three of you close to Avette,” said Marry. “We wait for her to call for her power, and while she’s open and expectant, Adeline and Kai will strike.”
“And by strike, you mean—” Adeline swallowed the barbed end of her sentence, but her sister just nodded, face impassive.
“I don’t want to kill her,” said Kai quietly.
Every gaze darted his way, and he avoided each one of them, staring down at the tabletop.
Adeline’s head spun; they’d talked about this in Dhalias, with Os, and he’d said then that he wanted her dead—but so much had changed. So much had happened in just those few short weeks.
“The pendant,” he said. “The proximity to that amount of power—it causes a kind of madness, after some time. She wore it for hundreds of years. We don’t know who she might be without it. While I might not personally be able to forgive all that she’s done, we don’t know what remnants of who she was might be saved.”
Marry didn’t let even a moment of silence hang off his words.
“My father wore that pendant on and off for twenty years,” she said. “And it did drive him a little mad; it did drive him to make someawfuldecisions. But everything he did was an extension of his true self. He bound my mother to the Frost because he was in love. He unbound her because he was petty, and she hurt him. The pendant didn’t make him that way; it just intensified his every instinct. Avette has her free will, Your Majesty, just as my father did. She has shown us who she is.”
“She heard the story of the Pearl,” Adeline reminded him gently. “She believed it. She sent you to the cavern. Shechosethis, Kai, before she even had her hands on the pendant.”
He nodded, but his frown did not falter.
“It just doesn’t seem right,” he said. “Who are we to bring an end to a life,anylife?”
Adeline glanced helplessly around; Marry was unmoved, Imogen barely conscious. But Gerard’s lips were pressed in a firm line, and she read that line like a sentence printed in ink. He didn’t want to wade in because he agreed with Kai and could not articulate his reasoning. He didn’t need to, not to her at least. Of all of them, only Ger truly understood what it was to end a life.
“I had the chance,” said Kai. “We were together, unguarded, and I wrapped my hand around her throat. And when I saw the life draining from her eyes, I couldn’t do it. Ican’tdo it.”
Nobody spoke for a long moment; Adeline watched Ger look away, jaw tight. She watched Imogen glance at Marry, whose expression softened only minutely. Adeline’s stomach hiccupped. She didn’t think she’d realised how ready her sister was to end the queen’s life. Her soft sister, who had never wielded anything sharper than a practice blade before thisWinter. Who had honoured the playbook even when it saw her on her back with her leg in two pieces.
The thought that Avette’s cruelty had done that to her—warped Marry like that cursed pendant had warped her own mind—made it all too easy to see this struggle from every angle.
“Then we aim to neutralise her power,” said Mareda finally. “Remove and destroy the pendant. Bywhatevermeans.”
They all heard the implication, but Kai only nodded. A compromise he could live with; that they wouldn’tset outto kill her, but—
But.
The silence was so heavy it weighed on Adeline’s ears, and she swallowed to relieve the pressure.
“So,” she said tightly. “We move at the ceremony.”
Marry nodded, eager to move past her own reluctant promise.
“At the ceremony. We can guarantee that all five of us will be in close proximity. Kai at her side, Ger with the Queen’s Gard and the three of us,” she pursed her lips, distaste plain in the tense set of her jaw, “as bridesmaids.”
Adeline wrinkled her nose, and her sister’s lips twitched briefly up. Swift as it was, the silent conversation still came so easily. The thought that their bond remained intact despite all they’d both done to sever it made something flicker in her chest, another little chamber of her heart that beat for her broken, beloved family. Perhaps the same pulse had kicked to life in Marry’s chest, too; it was with renewed determination that she reached for a furl of parchment from the stack on the table and splayed it out before her, jotting out a cluster of dots around athick, foreboding cross, neat little initials to label each of their positions.
She tapped at the dots labelledI, AandK.
“When the moment is right, Imogen will channel through Adeline and Kai. The Queen’s Gard will presumably be somewhere here—” She sketched out a circle and added another little dot labelledG. “Nearby, but separated from Avette by her bridesmaids. When Kai and Ade call their power, Gerard will be ready to hold the other gards back.”
Ger blew out a breath; Adeline wondered if the others could hear the shudder in his sigh, but he went on with a fair imitation of his usual jovial lilt.
