Anna slid off the horse.
Frozen ground crunched beneath her feet. The summer was slipping away, trickling like water through cupped hands. She could see a bird settling on a barren branch, its taloned feet scraping against the bark. Stillwater Castle was silhouetted against the early dawn; pale pink and yellow strands wrapped around the turrets, fluttering like a girl's hair ribbons.
Footsteps crunched behind her.
"We should do a sweep," Ryne murmured. "Make sure that none of Lucia's men are hiding on the grounds."
He was dressed in a heavy black velvet cloak, his golden buttons dusty from days of travel. There was no colour in Ryne's cheeks, Anna observed, as if the very blood in his face was frightened to defy him. She shielded her eyes against the glare.
"What would you do with them?" Anna asked.
Ryne raised an eyebrow. "What?"
"The men."
His green eyes were steady. "I think you know the answer to that."
Anna stripped off her riding gloves. "Lucia could have been influencing them. She could have manipulated them into fighting for her."
"I don't know," Ryne said. "It's immensely difficult to control that many men at once. The odds of it..." He glanced behind them, to where five horses loitered by a pale ash tree. Ryne lowered his voice. "Some of those men worked for me, once. I know their names. Their families. What they eat for breakfast. But sometimes, people don't need to be coerced into making bad decisions. They choose to do it."
Anna met his gaze. "How can we tell?"
Ryne's face tightened. "We can't. But it's generally safest to assume the worst of people." He raised his voice. "Tris?"
A rider dismounted. Tristan winced slightly; his shoulder injury had improved over the last three weeks, but he still had to ride with a sling. Or, as Isaac had taken to referring to it, "Tristan's security blanket."
"How many explosives?" Ryne asked.
Tristan grinned. "Thought you'd never ask."
He produced several lumps from his pockets, which varied in size and colour. Anna had spent enough time with Tristan in Libertas to identify one as a smoke bomb, another as a bomb bomb, and the third as something that Tristan had simply called "the emergency failsafe." It was a copper ball, streaked through with acidic green lines. Anna was certain that it could blow up the castle.
"Penny," Ryne said. "You'll go first. If you sense anyone else in the castle—"
"Bash their brains in?" Penny asked, sliding down from her horse.
Ryne pulled a face. "Not in that dress. You'll never get the stain out."
Grayson made a noise. "Can we not discuss brains while I'm eating?"
He was sitting atop his horse, ripping chunks of bread. Out of all of them, Grayson had emerged the cleanest after weeks of travel; his blond hair shone in the early morning sun, and his boots were freshly polished. Isaac — who was in the process of rubbing his horse down with a currycomb — paused to give Grayson a look.
"What is that?" Isaac asked.
Grayson inspected the sandwich. "Cheese, pickle, and jelly sandwich."
Tristan pulled a face. "I'd rather eat the brains."
"Try it," Grayson said.
"No."
"Go on." Grayson held out the sandwich. "It's good."
Tristan crossed his arms. "I don't want your disgusting sandwich."
"Eat it," Grayson said. "I dare you."
"I should go first."
The female voice came from the final horse. Camille was motionless, her hands placed in her lap. She wore a black gown. No cloak or gloves. Penny had offered to lend her a hat, but Camille had shaken her head. "I like the cold," she'd said. "I want to feel it." She looked that way too, Anna thought, like a cold, glittering diamond. Beautiful, but hard.
Camille studied the castle. "Nobody knows whether Lucia's dead or alive. If her men are in there and they see me..." She laced her fingers. "I could impersonate her. Buy us some time. They won't risk harming me."
"No," Isaac said.
He stuffed the currycomb in the saddlebag. Camille lifted her chin.
"I can do it."
"I know you can do it," Isaac said, his voice low. "That's not the issue."
They observed each other. Anna thought of the wolf she'd once seen snarling at the stream near Grim's End, not realizing that the phantom enemy was its own reflection. A swell of exasperation filled her.
"This is ridiculous," Anna muttered. "I'm going in."
Anna started towards the castle. The smell of damp stone and pond mildew hung in the air, turning staler as she pushed into the entrance hall. Her feet clattered on the tiles. A chandelier glinted in the watery light. Anna ran a hand down the grooves of a pillar, turning. She wasn't sure what she'd expected. Tarnished sconces? Moth-eaten curtains? But the castle was exactly the same, only emptier; it was like looking at a dollhouse with all the figurines removed.
Footsteps sounded behind her.
"Come on," Ryne said. "We'll do the west wing."
He started down the corridor. Anna jogged alongside him. Strange, she thought; even now — weeks after the curse had been lifted — she half-expected to feel a twinge in her chest. A phantom echo of pain. But the only sensation was the strong beat of her heart, knocking at her chest like a fist against a door.
"The others?" Anna asked.
Ryne shrugged. "Checking the rest, I'd imagine."
They checked the kitchens first. The servant's quarters next. By the sixth room, Anna had picked up a quill and was amusing herself by whacking Ryne — who was studiously ignoring her — over the head with it. It was only when they stepped into the final room that Anna slowed, setting the quill on a table.
Sunlight filtered through the glass skylight. Royal blue curtains tumbled from the ceiling, framing a large throne. The velvet was red and gleaming, although the arms had been sanded down, and there were odd pockmarks along the wood. "Ravens," Sophie had explained to her once. "The throne used to be decorated with your family's sigil. Ravens with ruby eyes. But the Delaforts had that removed, of course."
Anna mounted the steps, running a finger along the mishappen wood. She wondered if her parents had ever held balls in this room. If the ruby-eyed ravens had watched over glasses clinking and the swell of music, like silent sentinels in the night.
She turned.
Ryne was staring at the tiled floor. The air between them seemed to thicken like soup, becoming muggy and oppressive. Ryne looked up. There was something forlorn about his expression, Anna thought; something that made him look younger.
"I thought there'd be a stain," Ryne said.
He kicked at a tile with a boot. Anna squinted. It looked like every other tile, she thought, only maybe a little cleaner.
"This is where they dragged her body," Ryne said. "Penny told me."
Ah.
Anna descended the steps. She pictured Brigid lunging across the room. Brigid, collapsing in front of Penny. Brigid, bleeding out on the tiled floor. All of it had happened at the chapel, but Lucia had moved their bodies here afterward. A warning to all those that disobeyed her.
"Right here?" Anna asked.
Ryne nodded. "Ten tiles to the left of the dented pole." She raised an eyebrow, and Ryne elaborated. "We played a game of midnight croquet in here once. There was a lot of wine involved, and Isaac smashed his mallet into the pole."
This, Anna thought, sounded astoundingly in character for Isaac. "You've never fixed it?"
Ryne shook his head. "The pole is part of the castle foundations. There was a risk that if we replaced it, we'd topple the whole thing."
"It's integral to the structure," Anna surmised.
"Exactly."
Anna looked up at the throne. "Those are the hardest things to fix, aren't they?"
"What?"
Her voice was soft. "The pillars that everything else is built around. If you destabilize those... everything else could be destroyed."
Silence fell. Ryne's green eyes were the colour of the frozen grass outside, a dark green that beckoned the coming of winter.
"Just say it," Ryne said.
She met his gaze. "Why?"
"Because I want to hear you say it," Ryne said.
The sunshine streaming through the glass skylight was becoming harder now, solidifying into golden metal. The light draped over his shoulders like armour. Anna held his gaze. When she spoke, her voice was steady.
"I want the throne."
"So do I," Ryne said.
They observed each other. The sunlight held them in its warm fist. How strange, Anna thought, to admit a secret to someone that already knew it. And yet, she could feel it hovering between them, a double-headed sword that neither one of them could pick up without cutting themselves and the other.
"Where does that leave us?" Ryne asked.
"I don't know," Anna said. "A few weeks ago, I thought I was going to die. But now..." Her breath was loud in the cavernous room. "Where does it all end, Delafort?"
"I'm not sure," Ryne said.
Anna looked up.
She was inches away from Ryne's face now, so close that she could see every dark lash, every fleck of raw green in his eyes. Funny, Anna thought; for so long, the curse had kept them apart. She'd hated the curse at the time — fought and raged against it — but maybe that had been better, in a way. It was easy to blame a dusty mirror for distorting your reflection; far harder to wipe away the dust and still question the image staring back at you.
Ryne stepped back.
Sunlight haloed his head. He was framed by the navy curtains and the throne, his black cloak brushing the tile. He looked like a painting, Anna thought, her chest tightening. Young King Assumes His Throne.
"I should go," Ryne said. "I'll find you later."
She looked away. "Where are you going?"
Ryne exhaled. "To do something I should have done weeks ago."