Winter Glass (Spindle Fire #2)(53)

The queen stands and paces, obviously upset, concentrating on the glass fox. Aurora wonders if Malfleur is trying to use her own magic to do the same thing, and discovering the impossibility of it.

In the split second that Malfleur is occupied with the figurine, Aurora spins toward the clock. She has been given no access to weapons, but the gong of midnight sounds, low and harsh in her ears, and as it does, she plunges her hand through the broken face and tears the iron hour hand right off the clock. Then, in a seamless movement, she turns, aims, and throws.

The clock hand skewers Malfleur in the throat.

Shock and victory freeze Aurora to the spot as the queen stumbles. Then Aurora snaps out of it and shakily removes her gloves, dusted in the poison of the dried mushrooms. Run. She should run. But instead she watches with horror as the wound begins to bubble with pus that turns white and then green as the poison takes hold. The queen clutches at her neck, a look of shock on her pale face. For a moment, all is stillness, all is silence, as the queen’s eyes begin to roll back.

And then slowly, gradually, Malfleur removes her hand from her neck. The green ooze has gone. There is still a wound, bloodied at its edges, but not one deep enough to do serious harm. The queen looks at the blood on her hands, and then, to Aurora’s surprise, licks her own wet hand like an animal. She catches Aurora’s eyes. “Thank you, pet.” Aurora stares, sickened, unable to move. “It has been too long since I’ve earned a scar from someone who matters to me.”

Time seems to stand still as Aurora begins to understand that she has failed.

The queen considers. “Still, you will have to be restrained.” She nods, and two guards race into the room, as though they’ve been watching all of this take place. Aurora had thought they were alone. The guards drag Aurora out of the room and through the darkened palace, Malfleur leading the way.

It takes a moment before Aurora realizes where they are taking her.

Back to the cage.

The metal door rattles shut with an ominous clang.

“My pet,” the queen says to her through the bars, her head tilted slightly, as though she is curious, “you thought it would be that simple.” Now her expression morphs into a crooked smile. “I am not so easily killed.”

Aurora refuses to look her in the eye.

The queen carries on anyway. “My father put a curse on me that I would die by the hand of one who carries my blood. He didn’t realize, I suppose, that this curse was more like a blessing. I became invincible. I have done away with my sister, and there are few living relatives left—if any—who might attempt it. I do not fear my father. He doesn’t have it in him. And I certainly cannot fear you. You may be my pet. My little protégé. But you are not my blood.”

Aurora sinks to the floor of the cage as Malfleur walks away, her footsteps clicking down a long corridor. The queen stops and turns around. “Get some beauty sleep, Aurora. You’ll need to look your best for the party.”

Then she’s gone.

Despair presses down on Aurora. Humiliation. Futility. And above all, anger—burning, flaming, making it hard for her to see or to think. How could she have come so close, only to fail?

No. She grabs the iron bars, pulling until her arm muscles feel as though they will tear from her skin. She channels her anger, wondering if she can bend the bars to the will of her magic—it floods through her, blacking out her vision. When she comes to, the bars are still there, though they now bear dents in the shape of her fingers, and the skin of her palm is sizzling and raw. She has burned herself, though she cannot feel it.

She paces her cage like a mountain lion, then kicks at the bars. Hurls herself at them. Lashes out as if her whole body were a silent scream. She knows she will injure herself, already has. She will become a bloodied mess, worse than after her fight with Heath.

Heath. Could he break her out of here? Could they kill Malfleur together? But how? She doesn’t even know where he’s kept.

She punches and pulls on the bars until her fists are bruised and dripping red, blood crusting underneath her fingernails. This is impossible. It was a waste—all of it. The journey to LaMorte. The covert break-in of the palace. The confrontation. The contract. The training. The careful preparation. All of it has led to this—another prison.

Has she really come anywhere at all from the scared girl she had been only a couple of months ago, alone in her tower room in Deluce, mocked by a starling?

Home. To go back. To start over again. That feels impossible too—because she has changed. She can’t go back to that powerless person she used to be, waiting around in a flouncy dress for a prince to fall in love with her.

Still, she has nowhere else to go.

And even now, despite the ultimate failure, she’s incapable of giving up. She wants what Malfleur has: Freedom. Power. Authority. Meaning.

The image of the queen wiping a scarlet smear from her mouth returns to Aurora now. It was blood.

She wants that: to taste life while its heart is still beating.

In the morning, a Vulture leaves her a secret stack of books, and she thumbs through them, dust rising from their pages, but cannot find the attention or the patience to read. That joy—one of her greatest and her few—has wilted. It seems to her that all the books she ever read until now were like lush flowers, distracting her from the real threats of the world.

“I’m sorry, Princess,” he says, watching her toss one of the books aside.