She reaches behind herself without looking and touches the Queen’s dangling hand. And all at once, the Queen collapses. She falls as quickly and silently as a puppet whose strings have been cut.
My scream finally bursts free, but there’s no one to come, and nothing to be done: the Queen sprawls on her side, a heap of velvet and silk and bones. The violence of it makes me shake.
Caro inhales. It’s as if something missing has suddenly flowed back into her. Even kneeling in front of me, she looks taller. Regal. Powerful.
I don’t say anything, but a tear trickles down my face and over Caro’s fingers. She releases me and dries her hand on her skirt. Behind her, the Queen’s eyes are closed, the rise and fall of her chest barely perceptible.
“I oughtn’t say she was nothing,” Caro says, tsking at herself. “The Queen was a friend, once. We were young together. I could see potential in her, even then.”
She grins at some long-distant memory, or hallucination. “And then came the invasion. Soon she was leading the Semperan army to victory. After the battle was over, she was named queen. And me at her side, in the shadows, the whole time.”
Goose bumps have broken out up and down my arms. Caro is reciting a history lesson—every Semperan child knows how the Queen ascended to power.
But Caro, in her madness, is talking about the five-centuries-ago war like a fond memory, complete with a wistful note in her voice and a faraway look in her eyes. She must be mad. Has to be. Because if she’s not, I have been so terribly, terribly mistaken.
“At first, I considered becoming queen,” she says thoughtfully. “Without me, the army never would have won—I assassinated enemies, I found out their secrets. But Jules”—she draws out my name like a curse—“you wouldn’t believe how becoming queen makes you a target.” She stares down at me like the idea is the greatest injustice in the world. “I eventually understood that power has nothing to do with position. Especially if you’re weak,” she hisses, casting a glance at the Queen’s crumpled form. “This was the better way. A queen couldn’t have done the things I’ve done—gone the places I’ve gone, unseen and unnoticed, the way servants are. And it isn’t as if I lacked for power. Not when she”—Caro sweeps her hand back at the unconscious Queen—“let me in.” She pauses and looks at me meaningfully, like it’s my turn to speak.
“What do you mean,” I croak, “let you in?”
“You could have learned to do it too, if you had more time. Whisper in someone’s ear and make their mind your own.” She considers me. “I’ve had time, Jules, which somewhat makes up for the power you stole from me.”
An awful understanding is starting to sink into me—something huge and dark that I’ve failed to grasp, something I’ve missed all along. But my whole body rebels against it, struggling against the realization. I can’t put it into words.
Caro laughs softly at the look on my face. “Don’t look so shocked, Jules,” she chides. “The Queen would be long dead today if not for me—or at least, she’d be a sack of bones like the old hag in the west tower. We helped each other; I gave her life, and she gave me power. But she was never you.” She glances back at the Queen’s prone form, sighs. “And I tire of the shadows. Of servanthood. Of blood-iron. I’ve drunk hundreds of years’ worth of blood-iron, and I hate the way it tastes.”
“Hundreds of years.” I swallow. “How could no one have noticed? How could no one see that you didn’t age?”
“No one notices, Jules. No one cares about a servant girl. You of all people should know that.” Caro flashes her teeth in a smile. “And if they did, they were easy to take care of.”
Sickness settles in my stomach as I realize she’s right. I can easily imagine nobles of any time failing to note that a particular servant girl is forever unlined, slender, bright-eyed.
I stare at her, horrified and immobile, as she laughs to herself. The sun in the covered window is starting to set, making the room even dimmer than it was when I came in. The details of her face are fading to contours only, sharp cheekbones and white teeth and impossibly dark eyes. I have seen that face before, amid fire and lightning and shadows.
“How did you know?” I rasp.
“Your blood-iron, of course,” Caro says, beginning to pace in front of me like a wild cat. “I had suspected before then—when I realized you’d lied about your parentage, and what happened with the hedge witch—but I knew for sure when I saw your time go back into you. I’ve seen it before, when you were Eryn, and May, and Cecily, and . . . well.”
“But Ivan had you arrested, he dragged you in front of everyone, he . . .” I trail off, already realizing the truth even before she grins in satisfaction. Of course—she had Ivan under her thumb the whole time. The entire story of the vault was a ruse, to entrap me. To test me. “You knew I’d bleed time to try to save your life.”
“It seems I know you better than you know yourself.”
A true friend.
An unthinkable enemy.
“You really are the Sorceress,” I whisper, putting my worst fears into words, still hoping she’ll laugh in my face, tell me I’m wrong, that I’m mad. But she doesn’t.
“I should be hurt, you know,” she says instead. “That you never remember me as well as I remembered you. Though I will admit, it took me a little while to be sure this time. You’ve always been a shifty one, Antonia. In each of your lives. But worse, you’ve always had help.” She spits the last word like an oath.
I can barely spare a thought for Papa, Lora, Liam, everyone who’s helped me before she reaches out for me, takes my face in her hands. She has never stopped smiling at me, real affection in her eyes. And hunger, a fierce, ancient hunger like nothing I have ever seen.
“What do you want?” I gasp.
“I want to be timeless again,” she says. “Centuries I’ve been aging. Slower than most, yes, but still. I want to be as I was, no fear of aging or death, without having to drink peasant blood like a damned wolf.” Her eyes bore into mine, still that terrible combination of love and hunger, and something darker and deeper enters her voice. “I want what you stole from me so long ago.”
All the levity is gone from her voice now. She lets go of me and suddenly my body is my own again. I scramble upright on weak legs, grasping a bedpost for support. My chest feels crushed from the inside, like a breath held too long.
Caro takes a step back, looking around the opulent room with an expression of mild disgust. “Things will be as they were before you bound time to iron,” she hisses. “You took away my immortality. You doomed us both. I will make things right, but we cannot both live.”