“I love you,” she lied.
He led her out into the sun.
* * *
I blinked against the memory of sunlight unseen for so long, my cheeks sticky with tears and clumped with golden powder. My mother let go of me and took a heavy step back, her own face flushed with spent emotion. Tristan stood unmoving in his chains, his shoulders slumped and face devoid of expression. He had not seen what I had seen, but he had felt what I had felt. And that was enough.
“Do you see why they must not be let free? Why the fey cannot be allowed to return?”
“You suffered a great injustice at their hands,” I said. “I cannot blame you for seeking revenge against Lamia, but what I cannot understand is how, after enduring that loss, that you can murder daughter after daughter to make yourself immortal.”
“Because there was no other way,” she snapped. “Do you think I did not try? The soul needs a bond of blood for the exchange of souls to work.”
Exchange of souls?
“That is little comfort for me,” I said. “I’ll still be dead.”
“You’ll be free.” Her eyes had the too-bright gleam of a zealot. “Do you think the same thing would not have happened to you if I had not intervened? He might keep you as his whore, but that’s all you’ll ever be to him. I’m saving you from a miserable fate.”
“This is about extending your life, not about saving mine.”
She laughed. “Is that what you think? That it is such a treat to live in fear of the trolls finally hunting me down? To carry the burden of keeping the world safe from their evil with no help and no respite? Is it so wrong after all these years of living the lives of other women that I should have a chance to live one of my choosing?”
And everything she’d done seemed so clear. How she’d managed to go undetected for so long. The way she’d managed my career and set me up for success. Tonight’s masque. She’d been orchestrating my life so that when the time came for her to steal my body, she’d be stepping into the life she wanted.
And once she’d done it, she intended to kill Tristan and Sabine and murder all the trolls along with them. There would be no one left to stop her, to punish her. Quite the opposite, the Regent would probably reward her beyond my wildest dreams for ridding the Isle of the trolls.
“The world owes me this,” she said, and then her face softened. “It will be over swiftly, Cécile. I promise you that.”
“Is that what you said to Genevieve when you chased her down in the woods?” I said, my voice shaking. “Was that the comfort you gave her when you stole any chance of her seeing her family again? Of raising her children? Of living her own life?” My body tensed with fury. “You’re every bit as bad as Lamia was. Worse, because you’ve done it over and over to your own blood!”
“Shut up!” She snarled the words and then dissolved into a fit of activity, fetching four small silver bowls, one filled with rocks, one with water, one with lamp oil that she lit with a taper, and one that held nothing at all. Taking out a tiny knife, she sliced across her forearm, allowing blood to flow into each of the basins, and then did the same to me, the pain sharp and fierce.
I watched in horror as droplets floated on top of the water like oil, danced weightless on the air, turned the flames a pure crimson, and sat on the rocks as round and solid as little red marbles. She placed the bowls in a circle around us, and magic surged like waves through the room, tearing at my hair. I tried to struggle, but the strength of her magic kept me frozen in place, my jaw locked shut so I couldn’t even scream for help.
Grasping my arm so that our blood ran together, Anushka met my gaze. “The tie that binds our souls to our bodies is a tenuous thing, dearest,” she whispered. “And once it is broken, there is nothing to hold your soul in this world. It will be gone in an instant, disappearing to a place where no more harm can come to you.” She extracted an oleander blossom from a velvet bag, and without hesitation, held it over the candle flame. The petals singed and burned, smoke floating up on the air. “Goodbye, Cécile,” she said, and blew it into my face.