Row Finn?
She thought so. Once he saw what Tear’s sapphire could do, he would surely have tried to make his own. But he had not succeeded, not entirely, because this jewel was not independent. Kelsea could feel the bond between the two; Tear’s sapphire governed in some way that she couldn’t fully understand. Kept separate, Row’s jewel could do very little, but together . . .
“Carlin,” Kelsea whispered. Somehow, Carlin had known, because Row’s sapphire had lain around Kelsea’s neck all through her childhood—she could almost see all the days of her youth reflected in its glassy surface—while Carlin had kept Tear’s sapphire hidden away. And the Fetch had known, too, for he had deliberately withheld Tear’s sapphire while Kelsea was being tested. Row’s sapphire was capable of small things; in several quick blinks of memory, Kelsea saw the Caden assassin lying on the floor of her bathroom; the Mort camp spread out below her eyes; the woman in the Almont, screaming as her children were taken away. She had been able to see things far away, to defend her own life. These were useful bits of magic. But once the two were a pair again . . .
“Oh,” Kelsea gasped, horrified. An entire phalanx of images marched in front of her eyes now: hundreds of soldiers in the Mort army, gone in a spray of blood and bone; the vast web of cuts and slices that had covered her; General Ducarte’s face, twisted in agony; a set of open, bleeding cuts on the backs of Mace’s hands; and worst of all, Arlen Thorne, who had suffered an even worse life than that of the Red Queen, but somehow deserved no mercy, because . . .
But Kelsea could not even remember what reason she had cobbled together for mutilating Thorne. She remembered doing the deed, remembered black wings opening inside her, a darkness so inviting that a newly crowned Kelsea Glynn, one who seemed years younger in hindsight, had longed to lose herself inside it. But only madness waited there, the same madness that Finn and his ilk had always wanted to inflict on the Tearling . . . greed and callousness, lack of empathy, a narrowing of mind until only one lonely voice was left, surrounded by a void into which it could howl only a single word: Me.
With a cry of disgust, Kelsea yanked Finn’s sapphire away from Tear’s and held it up before her eyes, thinking I want none of this, I want no part of it, I want my own self back—
Something enormous wrenched inside her, as though muscle were peeling away from bone, and she suddenly understood. The Red Queen couldn’t use the sapphires, not because they belonged to Kelsea, but because there was nothing left to use. Kelsea had drained them dry. The two sides, Tear and Finn, had been warring inside her for months. For a moment Kelsea felt as though her own flesh were pulling apart, as though she would literally split down the middle with the force of that wish to have Row gone, to be Kelsea Glynn again . . .
And then it was done. The great divide inside Kelsea seemed to seal itself closed. She was still angry, yes, but it was her anger, the engine that had always powered her, not to punish but to fix, to right wrongs, and the relief of that was so great that Kelsea threw back her head and howled. The scream echoed up the corridor, but to Kelsea it seemed much more powerful than sound, as though it must shake the Palais to its stone foundations. For a moment, she expected the entire building to come crashing down around them.
When she opened her eyes, she found that the child had covered more than half of the distance. Row’s sapphire still dangled in front of Kelsea, not dark now, but bright and sparkling, its many facets gleaming, as though asking whether she would like to put it on again, just to try, just to see—
She wrapped her fist around the jewel, blocking out that light, and shoved it back into the Red Queen’s hand. An old memory occurred to her: speaking to the Fetch beside a campfire, back when she knew nothing and understood nothing, not even the real import of her own words.
“Keep it, Lady Crimson. I’d rather die clean.”
She didn’t know whether the Red Queen heard her; the woman remained frozen beside her, her eyes wide, almost mad. Only the faintest twitch of her fingers indicated that she registered the necklace, was beginning to close her hand into a fist.
Casting around, Kelsea found that the page, Emily, was still lying unconscious at their feet, a large blue bruise in bloom at her temple. She could be no help, but beside her limp, curled fingers lay a long dagger, beautifully made. Kelsea grabbed it and found that it was more length than she was used to; Barty’s knife, confiscated from Kelsea long ago in the Almont, had been at least two inches shorter. But this was at least a weapon that she could wield.
“It’s strong,” the Red Queen told her, her words slow and distant. “Stronger than a man.”
“Then you’ll have to help me,” Kelsea replied.
The Red Queen merely stared at her.
“Help me! Do you understand?”