Page 204 of Immortal Rose

A hand caught my arm. I sent my elbow back a second too late to keep it from connecting to Oliver’s chest.

“Oof—” he gasped out, doubling over. “Viola—”

“This way!” Brighten shouted, his voice echoing along the stone walls.

Oliver straightened at once, his essence flooding with wet fur. He spun in a desperate arc, trying to orient himself as to where we were in the ceremonial wing of the palace.

“Here,” he said. “Just up ahead, the statuary . . .”

He was stronger than I had ever given him credit for, that much was clear. Supporting the bulk of my weight, he rushed us toward a room on the right, just past a painting depicting the storm of cannon fire and sinking ships that marked the end of the Battle of Rocheblanche.

The small gallery smelled of cold stone and the faint essences of their sculptors and the emotions they had carved into the marble. The checked floor was dizzying and dark; the lush red curtains were still drawn, the room waiting to be opened for the day.

Oliver pulled us behind a towering statue of Lune in Solarius’s embrace, tucked into an alcove. There was just enough room for us to kneel behind it.

I panted as I dropped to a crouch, bracing my palms against the cold tile.

“What happened?” Oliver gasped out, the whites of his eyes flashing in the dark.

He was trembling, his emotions a potent blend of peppery excitement and damp fur and the mint undercurrents of his stress.

“He—the King—” I whispered, my voice a harsh scrape. Outside, the guards thundered past the room. One of them—who smelled strongly of horses and tooth powder—lingered in the entry, the door creaking as he pushed it open. A slash of light fell over the tiles; I held my breath, my ears straining for the click of his boots against them.

After a moment, however, he retreated into the hallway, throwing us back into a near-complete darkness. I released a shuddering breath.

“The King?” Oliver prompted. “What happened to him?”

“It was—” I shook my head, pressing my fist to my mouth to stanch the surge of nausea. “It was horrible, I can’t—I don’t understand what happened—”

He shook me, his essence taking on a metallic spike. “Is the King dead?”

Despite the chaos of my thoughts, despite my heart rioting in my chest, I stilled.

The cold marble tile bled through my dress skirt into my skin, and yet, it was nothing to the icy bite of comprehension that spread through me like hoarfrost.

“Is he dead?” Oliver demanded.

Not, Did the perfume work? Not, What happened?

I breathed in sharply, forcing myself to answer calmly: “Yes.”

Oliver sat back with a harsh exhale like a laugh.

And I knew.

Not from the way the air turned to a cloud of pepper around us, but the pure honeysuckle of elation that blossomed in it.

I shot forward, gripping his jacket, tearing it open. The buttons scattered around us, pinging the statue. I felt his pockets, felt for—

The flacon of perfume I’d brought with me. The one I’d had in my cloak—that I thought he’d handed me.

He stared at me through the darkness. His lips curled, twisting the shadows over his face until he was nearly unrecognizable.

We moved at the same moment. I broke the perfume bottle against the statue and jabbed the jagged remnants forward blindly, catching him in the shoulder.

The glass pierced him the moment his gloved hand slapped over my mouth and nose, and he tackled me back against the alcove wall. I screamed into his palm—screamed my rage, and betrayal, and pain.

“You made this . . . so . . . difficult,” he snarled, blood staining his pristine white shirt. “If you’d just used the bloody jasmine grandiflorum oil—”