Jaenelle Saetien shivered. The girl on the bed, with golden hair and blue eyes. The girl Surreal . . .
“You grew up at the Hall, loved and protected by two of the strongest people in the Realm. Daemon and Surreal let you explore, they let you learn—and they always kept you safe. That was your childhood. Briarwood was mine.” Witch stared through Jaenelle Saetien. “How dare you use me as the excuse for choosing corruption over honor?”
Black lightning flashed across the sky, its silence more terrible than the loudest thunder would have been.
“You didn’t want to be like me?” Witch said. “You could never be like me. By keeping you safe, Daemon and Surreal made sure of that.”
Jaenelle Saetien felt odd, hollow, not whole. She looked at the Jewel in the pendant that hung from her neck. “Something’s wrong! My Jewel . . .”
Witch studied the Jewel. “Purple Dusk. You kept that much. The rest of what was Twilight’s Dawn is gone. That was the price for the harm you have done.”
“No.”
“The girls—and boys—who were accomplices but didn’t actively participate in breaking the girls Delora considered rivals didn’t lose their Jewels completely. Not this time. But, like you, their power is diminished, and if any of you stray toward someone like Delora again, you will lose a great deal more than your Jewels. After all, there is no cure for Briarwood. It will be inside all of you forever, as remembrance. As a reminder.”
Jaenelle Saetien shivered. “But when I make the Offering to the Darkness . . .”
“You might regain the Green. Maybe even Sapphire. But the Gray you might have worn is gone.”
“You’re cruel.”
“If you mistake mercy for cruelty, then you have not learned enough.” Plants suddenly grew all around them, bloodred flowers, with black throats and black-tipped petals. “This is witchblood. It grows where a witch’s blood was spilled violently or where a witch who had met a violent death was buried. Witchblood is deadly, but if you sing to it correctly, it will tell you the names of the ones who are gone.”
The look in Witch’s eyes had Jaenelle Saetien backing away, but her feet got tangled in the plants and she ended up on the ground.
Witch pointed to the Purple Dusk Jewel. “That paid the debt you owed the Dhemlan Queens for what you did on behalf of the coven of malice. Now let’s discuss the debt you owe me for hurting Daemon and Surreal.”
A slight movement. The faintest moan.
Surreal sprang out of the chair next to Jaenelle Saetien’s bed and grabbed the girl’s hand.
“Wake up now, Jaenelle Saetien. Wake up!”
Glazed, dazed gold eyes focused on her.
“Wake up now,” Surreal said.
“Am I home?”
“You’re home.”
The girl clung to her hand and cried.
No one asked any questions. Except for breathing and a slowly beating heart, it seemed her body hadn’t worked at all while she’d been gone. Now needs returned with a vengeance.
Surreal helped her to the toilet, then helped her into the shower and back out. Helene and some maids changed the linens on the bed and opened the windows to let in fresh cold air. By the time Jaenelle Saetien was helped into clean clothes and returned to the bed, the warming spells had returned the room to a comfortable temperature and Beale brought up a tray with water, beef broth, and chunks of bread she could dip into the broth.
She looked at the Hall’s butler, but she saw no relief that she had returned, no welcome or warmth in his eyes. The message was clear: from now on, she was just a daughter of the house—and not one he felt any liking toward.
She drank some water, swallowed a few spoonfuls of broth.
When Surreal set the tray on the table and sat on the side of the bed, Jaenelle Saetien dared to talk. She wanted to ask where her father was, but that might make her seem ungrateful for Surreal’s help.
“My body was here?”
“Yes,” Surreal replied.
“But I felt . . .” Wanton, desperate burning between her legs and fear when she realized what Krellis was going to do. “I thought I was in a place. A terrible place.” Hard to breathe. Why was it hard to breathe? “Briarwood is the pretty poison.”
“There is no cure for Briarwood.” Surreal touched Jaenelle Saetien’s knee, the covers separating them.
“You’ve seen that place.” Not a question.
Surreal nodded. “Myrol and Rebecca. Dannie. Rose.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Marjane was the daughter of a friend of mine. I didn’t even know Deje had had a daughter until I was shown Briarwood.”
“I saw them too.” Jaenelle Saetien hesitated. “And I saw you when you saved Jaenelle Angelline.”
Surreal shook her head. “I was too late to save her. But I did slit that bastard’s throat—just like he slit my mother’s throat. She died when I was twelve. I was raped a few days later and became a whore soon after that in order to survive.”
Jaenelle Saetien plucked at the covers, not sure what to say. “Where’s Father?”
“I don’t know. He destroyed the school. There’s nothing left of it. He executed Lady Fharra and several instructors for the part they played in allowing Delora to attack other students. And he executed all the boys who came to the house party uninvited.”
Her stomach flipped. She swallowed hard. “All of them?”
“The two boys who were Zoey’s friends were spared. The rest . . .”
“What about the rest?” Krellis, Dhuran, and Clayton were dead?
“They danced with the Sadist, and he ripped them apart, body and mind.”
“Because they were here when boys weren’t supposed to be at the party.”
“Well, their being at the Hall to rape and break Zoey and some of the other girls certainly fueled his rage, but those boys died hard for what they’d already done.”
She couldn’t think about the boys, couldn’t imagine what had been done to them. “Zoey. She was sick.”
“She was drugged,” Surreal corrected sharply. Then she softened her voice. “She’ll be fine. Lucivar helped her while the drug was burning through her. She’s still recovering, has some trouble with anyone touching her. Hopefully that will fade in time. Titian is having nightmares, wakes up crying.” She shook her head. “I know you just woke up, but you should rest. You want me to fetch a couple of books, put them on the bedside table?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She told Surreal which ones she wanted. “You haven’t said anything about my Jewel.”
“It’s Purple Dusk now.”
“The rest of Twilight’s Dawn was taken from me.”
“To pay the debt you owed.” Surreal made an impatient sound. “Sugar, you weren’t broken back to basic Craft, and you’re not dead. By my figuring, you’re way ahead of anyone else who was identified as part of the coven of malice. The problem now, for your father, is convincing the Dhemlan Queens and Warlord Princes that your debt was paid in full.” She walked to the door, adding, “Get some rest.”
No sympathy for what she lost. No understanding about the price she still had to pay.
She slid out of bed, bracing herself on the mattress until she trusted her legs to hold her. Then she tottered to the table where she’d left the printed-and-bound information about the girls who had been harmed by Delora and her friends.
“There is a list. Choose seven of the girls. You will take the time to learn who they were, who they might have been. You will understand what they lost and what Dhemlan lost because they were stripped of their power, their potential. Until you can feel the weight of them on your heart, you will walk through Briarwood every night. You will become a kind of memento mori for those seven girls. They will become your scars. That is the price you will pay to me for hurting Surreal—and for hurting Daemon and forcing him to choose between giving you to me or killing you himself.”