Unraveling, she thought again. The Red Queen blinked, and this time, Kelsea couldn’t deceive herself; the woman’s pupils were tinged with red.
“Yes,” the Red Queen replied. “A bath and bed. That would be nice.”
The first village they came to was little more than a hamlet, a town as grim as the landscape surrounding. As they started down the narrow sand track that seemed to pass as the main road, Kelsea spotted a small weather-beaten sign driven into the sandy earth:
Gin Reach
The houses here were little more than functional piles of wood, and no one had taken any trouble to make them prettier. Only one building had glass windows and a bright, pleasant awning; Kelsea was hardly surprised to see that it was the town’s pub. She thought she felt eyes staring down upon her, but when she looked up, she found that all of the second-story windows were shuttered. The wind had picked up, blowing sand against Kelsea’s face. A storm was coming, and the entire town appeared to be battening down the hatches.
The town’s inn turned out to be a large house boasting three guest rooms. The keeper assured them that he had only one guest; the two of them would have their privacy, a remark followed with a distinctly lecherous wink. The Red Queen didn’t seem to care, dropping down coin for two hot baths to be brought to their room. After the luxury and callousness Kelsea had seen littering the Palais, she would have expected the Red Queen to do poorly at a small-town inn. But she seemed fine, giving an easy riposte when the innkeeper tried to flirt, and this made Kelsea wonder again at what she had missed inside the Red Queen’s mind, the complex life she must have led.
When they undressed for their baths, the Red Queen removed her bandages and Kelsea saw that the marks on her wrist had disappeared. Kelsea’s unease doubled; the punctures she had treated had been deep and nasty, and if this was no natural healing, then what was it? As they bathed, each lounging in her own steel tub, Kelsea watched the Red Queen from the corner of her eye. She showed few signs of fatigue; indeed, despite the cold weather they had been traveling under, the Red Queen looked physically strong, stronger than she had since they set out from Demesne.
What am I afraid of? Kelsea wondered, as they climbed into their beds. She couldn’t say, but her skin was prickling, as though an invisible animal waited just behind her, ready to pounce. She felt eyes on her again, but when she glanced at the Red Queen, she found her turned away, resting comfortably on her side in the other bed. Kelsea tried to stay awake, but exhaustion overtook her, and she finally gave up trying to keep watch and blew out her candle. A terrible storm was upon the town, thunder that shook the building to its foundations, and Kelsea slipped easily into a dream of the Argive, the train of cages that had sat just on the border. If Kelsea and her Guard had come even a day later, the caravan would have gone, vanished into Mortmesne.
That was a moment, the dream-Kelsea thought, a moment in time, just like the death of Jonathan Tear. If I had missed that moment, what would have happened? Where would we be now?
But the dream of the Argive was gone, morphed seamlessly into another. Kelsea stood on the high scaffold, and before her was Arlen Thorne, driven to his knees. All around them, the mob raged, a cacophony of screaming voices. Thorne looked up, and Kelsea saw that he was in his final extremity, his face a mask of blood.
I’m sorry! Kelsea tried to scream, but before she could, a hand grabbed her ankle. She looked down and saw Mhurn at her feet, grinning wide, his face upturned, exposing the wide red smile she had cut into his neck. His hand began to work its way up her calf, and Kelsea did the only thing she could do: jumped off the scaffolding and into the sea of upturned, screaming faces awaiting her. At the last moment before she landed, she realized that they were all Mhurn and Thorne, waiting for her, and she gasped herself awake.
A woman stood over her in the dark.
Before Kelsea could even draw breath to scream, a hand jammed over her mouth. There was great strength in this woman; she held Kelsea’s shoulders easily, pinning her to the bed.
I was wrong, Kelsea thought bitterly. Whatever the Red Queen had become, Kelsea should never have taken her eyes off her, just as Mace would never take his eyes off a known enemy. She had allowed herself to be lulled by companionship and mutual interest, lulled into forgetting that there was more than a century of hatred sitting between Mortmesne and the Tear, between red and black.
The Red Queen bent down, her face nearing Kelsea’s, and Kelsea heard the whistle of the woman’s breath at her ear, thought she could feel the bite of teeth against her throat.
“You will suffer, bitch,” the Red Queen hissed in the darkness. “You will suffer for my master.”
Kelsea froze in sudden recognition. The threat had been real, but she had mistaken the source. Not the Red Queen at all, but—
“Brenna,” she whispered.