I pull the Privetts’ front door shut behind me. My hand shakes so badly it clicks louder than I intend. I still don’t know how many of Abel’s men died, but even one is too many. Especially Chip.

  Abel rode with me back to the stables and I journeyed through the City on my own. We didn’t speak except for an awkward goodbye. One in which there’d been something lost between us. I want to believe it’s the loss of his friend and comrades—not Nicoletta’s accusations that the Prince’s interest has returned. Yet, I can’t shake the sick churn in my gut.

  The townhouse is quiet. Too quiet.

  I pause at the doorway to the library.

  Clara sits inside in one of the armchairs. She looks up at me over her teacup with cold, slightly bloodshot eyes. “Where have you been?”

  I expected this. It was too high a hope that Clara wouldn’t have woken yet. “Out for an early morning walk.”

  Clara’s thin lips curve. She sets her teacup down and rises from her chair. “A liar and a whore. I’ve done nothing but sacrifice for you. All the estate’s meager earnings went to your education, your care, your dresses, your beauty. I devoted my life to you and this is how you thank me. This is how you honor your father? By lifting your skirts for rebel scum?”

  I reel back. Rebel. Clara knows. “No, of course not.”

  Clara’s smile broadens. Her expression sharpens, a predator smelling blood. “Oh yes, I know about him. You think I wouldn’t notice you disappearing? You think I wouldn’t investigate? Stand outside and see just where you went off to when you rush off early to bed? He must be a real looker to make you throw away your future, your father’s estate, the well-being of your sister. What did he promise you? A future? No, let me guess… freedom?”

  No, not my freedom. Farnell’s. I struggle for control, to push down and away the overwhelming rise of emotion that twinges my eyes and burns behind my nose. Composure. Commitment. Conviction. I can salvage this. Somehow I’ll find the right words to fix this.

  Lilianna appears at the top of the steps, her eyes glaring and pink around the edges. “She’s right. You had everything. You got everything. It was always about you. And here it is, all about you again.” She shakes her head. “What a waste, Aubrey. You had so much potential.”

  Perhaps it’s the news that more rebels are dead, their numbers smaller and more hopeless than before. Perhaps it’s my anxiety at whatever happened between me and Abel, the unknown of our relationship—if I can even call it that. Maybe it’s the pounding headache that stabs the backs of my eyes. Maybe everything together’s just a little too much for me, but the self-control within me cracks and splinters. “What would you know about wasted potential, Lily?”

  Lilianna sucks in a sharp breath and jerks back. Tears well in her eyes.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Skies, Lily, I’m sorry. I—”

  “You promised me.” Lilianna’s voice wavers and cracks. She lifts her chin, even as tears roll over her cheeks. “You knew what was at stake for me and you promised me.”

  “We can fix this, my child.” Clara step into the foyer beside me, taking on her placating voice. The gentle one. The one that holds some twisted illusion of love or affection or whatever it is that she pretends she has for me. “You’ll tell me his name. I’ll take care of it. I’ll make this little problem go away. We can salvage your future.”

  I open my mouth, my gaze fixed on Lilianna’s. I wish I could explain. About Farnell, the innocent men in the Pits, the way both our lives can be different, better, free. But I can’t say any of those things. Not here. Not now. “No.”

  “No?” Clara’s voice cracks and echoes off the walls of the foyer.

  I tear my gaze from Lilianna’s and meet my stepmother’s eyes. “No.”

  Clara’s eyes narrow. “Lilianna, go to your bedroom.”

  Lilianna takes a step back, then hesitates.

  Clara’s expression transforms into cruel fury. “Your father was once seduced by those rebel ideals. He, too, became enamored with changing the world. Mark my words now, child, I put a stop to that then, just as I’ll put a stop to it now if you do not reassess your responsibility to this family.”

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  That burning sickness brewing in my gut vanishes. My fears, my worries, everything falls away as I stare at my stepmother. “You,” I breathe, my voice suddenly hoarse, foreign, as if someone else speaks from somewhere far away. “You betrayed him? You’re the reason he was murdered?”

  Clara turns up her chin. “I did what I had to. To protect this family. I could not allow him to drag us down with him.”

  My ears ring. I have no limbs, no body at all. I stumble back, only vaguely aware of the movement as the world closes in around me, dark, oppressive, distant, and so very far away all at once.

  Lilianna claps a hand over her mouth. “Mother, you didn’t.”

  “To your bedroom, now. I will not say it again. You are nothing but a worthless, unwanted, markless burden. The least you can do is be silent and obedient.”

  Their voices tug at my consciousness, try to bring me back to reality, but all I can see are my own little girl arms draped across the wrapped body in the casket. The High Guard’s uniform, with its sharp angular shoulders and numerous accolades at the breast, folded atop the body. But to that little girl, my hands fisted in the coarse royal red fabric, it was just the coat of a father who would not wake up. Who would no longer smile softly down at me, never again bring me into his warm, loving arms.

  Ringing echoes in my ears like my own screams that day. My sobbing screams as that woman—who’d come into our lives only a few months prior—closed her talons around my arms and dragged me from the casket. That woman who’d overseen changing the bandages on my back, who’d examined the unburned gold markings on my body and promised me everything was going to be alright.

  That woman had been responsible for eleven-year-old me’s loss. Abel said he’d been murdered, but even he hadn’t known who’d betrayed him. I’ve been staring that person in the face for eight years. I’ve worked so hard to earn that woman’s approval.

  Pain lances across my cheek. The foyer and its portraits and decorative accents snap back into focus. I become aware again of the tile beneath my feet, the chandelier overhead. Clara’s victorious sneer and her hand at the end of its swing, ready to strike again.

  “Snap out of it. Don’t act like this is all some big surprise. If I knew your lover’s name, I would have already ended him. All it takes is a word to the right person. The Queen isn’t fond of rebels. I’d make you tell me, but I’m fairly certain you don’t know his real name either, you stupid girl.”

  The knife twists at the truth of my stepmother’s words: I don’t know Abel’s identity. I’ve slept with him and I don’t even know if Abel is his real name.

  I straighten my spine.

  It doesn’t matter who he is. He’s more than Clara would ever be. He stands for more than all of the nobility combined.

  “Isn’t that right? Tell me you know nothing or give me his name. Now,” Clara snaps.

  “Mother, please,” Lilianna says, stepping forward to defend me. After my betrayal of her, I can’t fathom why.

  Clara whirls on Lilianna, raises her hand. “I said—”

  I catch Clara’s arm. I didn’t even realize I’ve moved until my fingers close around it. “That’s enough.”

  Clara’s eyes widen and swing back to me. “How dare you!” She tries to pull her arm free.

  I don’t let it go.

  Clara swings her other arm.

  I block, twist, and grip the other wrist. A burning hatred rises within my breast as I meet my stepmother’s gaze. Power ignites inside me. Abel taught me something I can finally use. I no longer have to stand by and take it. No longer have to allow it, watch it, be victim to it. No longer powerless. “I said, that’s enough.”

  Clara stills. Her nostrils twitch. Her lips blanch white into a hard press. Her gaze casts down my grass-stained dress and then back up again, as if she’s only just realizing what I’ve become. Her eyes widen, almost imperceptibly.

  I see it. I’ve catered to those tiny flickers of approval and disapproval for eight years now. I know them like the back of my hand and I revel in what I see there.

  Fear.

  Good. Let her fear me. Let her see me as more than just a girl to be manipulated, shaped. I’m done playing any part in Clara’s games. I have my own to play now. “You’ll never lay a hand on me or Lilianna again, may the Skies strike me dead.”

  Clara’s nostrils flare again. She jerks at her arms.

  I don’t let them go. “You are no longer in charge of this household. I am. If you get in my way, I’ll remove you.” I shove Clara away and let the monster go.

  Clara stumbles back a few paces, then straightens herself with a sharp tug of her skirts. “Watch yourself, Aubrey. You think you know how this game works because you’ve played in it for a few months now? You haven’t even dipped your toes into the depths of this nightmare.” She shakes her head and her pale, thin lips curve into a dangerous smile. “If you step one foot outside of this building before the Harvest Ball, I will tell Lord Privett, his mother, and the royal family you’re cavorting with rebels. I don’t need proof to end you.”

  Ice douses my fire.

  She flicks her gaze over me once last time, then turns and storms upstairs.

  The last of my reserves evaporate and the floor comes up to slam into my knees. My world has somehow stopped. My father is dead because of Clara and now… Now my life hangs in that balance, too. Clara knows about my involvement with the rebels. And she’s right, she doesn’t need proof.

  I stare at the pale, gold-marred hands in my lap, thin and shaking. But there on my palms are the faint beginnings of calluses. I run my thumb over the rough patches and a flicker of that deep burning ignites again. Like the flicker of a flame on a small, dimply glowing ember. Once lit, it has no shortage of tinder: my father’s death; the loss of my childhood freedoms; Farnell banished from our estate and sent to work for the Venons instead; the days and weeks I’ve spent over the years starving in the attic; the hours spent practicing my walk, my balance, my memorizations; Maurus Venon and the Prince vying for my purchase…

  And my stepmother at the center of it all.