“I know,” Isobel said, so softly that Briony barely heard it. “I’m sorry, too. That I didn’t believe you about ending the tournament for good.”
Briony wanted to ask if they were okay now. If maybe they could be friends again. But Isobel had just escaped death by the most narrow of margins. Had betrayed a boy who clearly meant a lot to her. Briony and Isobel’s tattered friendship could wait.
“Will you come with us?” Briony asked.
Isobel tried to rise from her cot, but her face paled even further, and she collapsed back down. “Um. I don’t think I can. Not yet.”
“Then we’ll wait for you,” Briony said quickly. But Finley coughed, and Briony turned to see that he had moved a cabinet aside. A door was open now, revealing a back alley.
“The reporters,” he said urgently. “Reid bought us time so that we could leave, remember?”
He was right. But she didn’t want to abandon Isobel, even if Reid could keep the paparazzi at bay.
“Go,” Isobel urged. “I’ll meet up with you later.”
Briony pulled out her Compass Rose spellstone and pressed it into Isobel’s palm. “So that you can find us.”
“Thanks.” Isobel smiled weakly. “Now go. I’ll be fine.”
Outside, the sky was visibly lighter due to Elionor’s death. Blue and red bled together to make a ghastly purple, washing the cobblestones and the buildings in an odd violet glow. Briony and Finley fled through the backstreets of Ilvernath proper, using the little spellwork they had left to camouflage themselves until they slipped out the inner Blood Veil. It still felt unnatural to simply walk through that translucent redness.
“If the inner Blood Veil is broken, then it’s only a matter of time before the tournament grounds are swarming with reporters and cursechasers,” Finley said, as they trekked through the underbrush. Neither of them had any desire to return to the Monastery ruins, so they were headed for the mountains. For the Tower.
“And Agent Yoo,” Briony said gravely. “I don’t think the government’s going to like any of this.” Briony couldn’t tell Finley that the government wanted to study their high magick, thanks to that Sworn to Secrecy spell. But he was nodding anyway.
“I don’t think so, either,” Finley agreed. “They want to be able to control this curse. But that doesn’t change what we have to do.”
They were approaching the mountains now, near the spot where they’d paired the Sword and the Cave. It had only happened hours ago, but it felt like days. Briony couldn’t wait to see the glorious spire of the Tower appear above the trees—couldn’t wait to refill her spellrings and finally get some sleep. Finley walked in front of her, still holding Elionor’s spellstone. She knew he needed to rest, too. It had been a long, horrible day.
And then a voice rang out from behind her. “Briony.”
A voice that had filled her with comfort for the last seventeen years, but now it filled her with guilt.
Briony whipped around, barely breathing, and stared into Innes’s wide, accusatory gaze. It was only an illusion, magick shimmering at the edges of her sister’s form. But the sight of her was still gutting. On some level, Briony had known this moment was coming as soon as she and Finley had landed in the town square and she’d realized how broken everything had become.
But that didn’t mean she was ready for it.
“I’ll be at the Tower tomorrow.” Innes’s voice was cold. She looked older and more severe, her dark hair chopped to just below her chin. Her left hand was encased in a glove, while her right hand bristled with spellrings. “If you still care about me at all, you’ll meet me there. The two of us need to talk.”
A moment later, the illusion spell flickered and disappeared.
It had been magick, nothing more. But that didn’t matter—Innes’s message had been clear.
Her family—and maybe every family—knew what Briony had done to become champion. Thanks to the pillar, they knew what she and the others had done to the tournament since.
And their reckoning was coming.
ISOBEL MACASLAN
I didn’t write this book for entertainment. I wrote it to tell the truth. Somebody has to.
A Tradition of Tragedy
Isobel was cold. Her heart did not beat. Her lungs did not breathe. Exhaustion weighed on her eyelids, but despite waking up a half hour before, the thought of sleeping again frightened her. She had never felt this weak, this tired. And she worried that, if she drifted off once more, she might never wake up again.