The room was too noisy for Ewen to enjoy drawing, so he merely rested his head on the bar, keeping his eyes trained out the window. Every few seconds came a flash of lightning, long and brilliant moments that illuminated the entire street in blue-white. Despite the thunder, Ewen’s eyelids began to get heavy. It was nearing midnight, and he had only stayed up past midnight three times in his whole life, the three Christmases before he went to work in the Keep dungeon. He wondered if the publican would allow him to fall asleep with his head on the bar. The thunder sounded likely to crack the world in two, but even though he was afraid of thunderstorms, Ewen was not as frightened as he thought he would be. Who would ever have imagined that he would leave New London, travel halfway across the New World, and then be able to take care of himself in a strange town? He wished he could have told Da about it, but Da was—
Ewen sat up quickly. Lightning had flashed again, and though the flare of lamplight on the window glass made it difficult, he thought he had seen a cloaked figure carrying something out the door of the inn.
Ewen slid off the stool and went to stand before the glass. He could hardly see anything in the darkness outside, only the barest outline of the inn’s facade. Then lightning splintered the sky, and he saw that a wagon stood before the inn, the clear shape of a bundle in the back.
Forgetting his paper and leads, which still sat on the bar, Ewen went outside and was immediately drenched. The storm was so loud that he could hear nothing from the pub behind him. He meant to take a closer look at the wagon, but no sooner had he crept out from under the pub’s awning than the lightning flared again, illuminating the dark silhouette in front of the inn. Ewen scrambled backward, pressing himself into the shadows. For a moment there was only darkness, and then the lightning showed him the witch’s profile beneath the cloak. Her head swiveled from side to side, reminding Ewen of a dog that had caught a scent. He pressed his back against the wall with all of his might, praying that he was hidden, that those pale eyes could not see him . . .
After an eternity, Brenna left the cover of the inn’s doorway and proceeded down the steps. The next flash of lightning revealed a second bundle slung over her shoulder, and Ewen realized, with mounting horror, that the bundle was the size of a man. He had not seen what Brenna had done to Will in the Keep, but he had heard plenty of tales in the guard quarters. Elston said that when Brenna had finished with Will, he was nothing more than mince.
Brenna climbed into the seat of the wagon and took the reins. She was leaving, Ewen realized, and his first reaction was a vast relief. The witch was up to no good; she might even have killed someone. But she would drive away, out of Gin Reach, and then she would no longer be Ewen’s problem. When Bradshaw returned, they could leave this awful town on the edge of nowhere and go back to New London, to Ewen’s brothers, to the life he knew.
But then, his heart sinking, Ewen realized that that wasn’t quite true. The Mace had told him to keep an eye out for anything unusual, and here was a witch, transporting what looked like people in the middle of the night. More, Brenna was an escaped prisoner, and before Ewen had ever spoken to the Mace, he had been, first and foremost, a jailor. Da had made him a jailor, chosen Ewen even though his brothers were smarter and braver, and he had never let a prisoner escape.
Ewen looked through the window of the pub behind him, but they were all talking and drinking. Perhaps he could ask the publican for help . . . but no, the publican would never leave his bar. If only Bradshaw were still here to tell him what to do! But there was no time. In another flash of lightning, Ewen saw that the wagon had already begun to roll. He groped at his waist and found that he still had his knife. No sword; the Mace had never allowed him to have one. Ewen wouldn’t have known how to use it anyway, and even his knifework was very sloppy. Venner had said so.
Not a real Queen’s Guard, he thought again. Even real Queen’s Guards were afraid of Brenna, but there was no one else. No help would come in time.
“I’m going, Da,” he whispered into the rain. “I’m going, all right?”
He slipped off the wall and began to work his way up the street, following the wagon.
When Kelsea woke, she was first aware that her hands were bound behind her, and next, that she was drenched. She was on the floor of a moving wagon, and for a moment she wondered, astonished, if she was still on her way to Mortmesne, if the past few months had been nothing but the deepest dream. She opened her eyes and saw nothing, but then lightning flashed and she found, relieved, that this was a different wagon, smaller. There was a large bundle beside her, and in the next flash of lightning Kelsea caught sight of a pair of dark eyes beneath a hood: the Red Queen.
Brenna.
Kelsea twisted around and found a cloaked figure driving the wagon. Kelsea remembered nothing after hearing Brenna’s voice in the darkness. There was a smear of blood on the Red Queen’s forehead; had they both been knocked out? Kelsea had taken too many head wounds lately, but it wasn’t a concussion that frightened her now. She didn’t know how Brenna had gotten free of the Keep, but the woman wasn’t in Gin Reach by accident. She had come for Kelsea, just as she would have come for anyone who had harmed Arlen Thorne. Kelsea wriggled helplessly, trying to judge whether she still wore Tear’s sapphire. She couldn’t tell. Would the sapphire even do any good here? Brenna was rumored to be a witch, but her actual powers were an unknown.
The wagon halted and Kelsea closed her eyes, nudging the Red Queen to do the same. Whatever else Brenna might be, she had incredible strength; she pulled Kelsea from the wagon as though she weighed nothing, rolled her from the cloak, and dumped her on the ground. Kelsea slitted her eyes, trying to determine where they were, but even with the brilliant illumination of lightning, she could barely see anything through the driving rain. The soil beneath her cheek felt like sand. They must be in the desert.
Brenna grabbed her and carried her some distance from the wagon. Kelsea tried to stay limp, but Brenna tickled her ribs, and Kelsea could not keep herself from an involuntary twitch.
“Don’t bother, True Queen,” Brenna muttered. “I know you have been awake for some time now. Feigning unconsciousness will not serve you.”
“What do you mean to do?” Kelsea asked.
Brenna did not reply, but the next flash of lightning revealed a wide, bestial grin. She looked different, younger, but Kelsea could not assess the change before the light faded again. A few more steps and the rain stopped pelting her face and body; they were in a shelter of some sort. Brenna dumped her without ceremony on a hard stone floor, and Kelsea yelped as she landed on her elbow.
“Wait here, little queen. I will not forget you.”
Kelsea gritted her teeth and tried to pull herself upright. With her hands tied behind her back, the best she could do was to wriggle on the floor. In desperation, she looked down at her chest and found the sapphire peeking out from her shirt. But no, it was the wrong sapphire, not the one she needed. Tear’s sapphire was not for inflicting wounds. Finn’s sapphire would have helped her here, but she had given it back to the Red Queen. Why had she done that? She could barely remember, and her mind gave her nothing but a flash of Arlen Thorne’s face.
After another minute Brenna returned, her grating footsteps tramping across the stone floor. With a thud and a sharp cry, the Red Queen landed beside Kelsea, and then Brenna moved away.
“Who is it?” the Red Queen whispered.
“Brenna. Arlen Thorne’s witch.”
“Witch indeed. I can’t find her at all.”
Kelsea nodded agreement. Brenna was like Row Finn; she had never existed clearly within Kelsea’s mind, as other people seemed to. So many children born after the Crossing, born with oddities that had filtered down to the present-day Tearling in such unpredictable ways. Magic was all over the Tear, if one took the trouble to look, and so much of it seemed to trace back to that one moment, the ships gliding through the hole in the horizon. But was the Crossing really at root, or was it Tear’s sapphire, th
e sapphire that ran underground all through the Tearling?
What has it done to us? Kelsea wondered, momentarily distracted. What has it done to all of us?
A match flared, and she saw Brenna’s silhouette across the room, crouching over a pile of sticks. They were in some sort of stone building without windows. Kelsea could hear rain pounding on the wooden roof. The place itself seemed long abandoned; a few chunks of wood in the corner were all that remained of furniture.
Brenna straightened, clapping her hands together to clear them of ash, and Kelsea saw that she’d been right: Brenna looked different. Her formerly white hair was honey-blonde, and her cheeks were bright with color.
“You’re no longer albino?” Kelsea asked.
“I never was. People are quick to believe the first foolish glance of their eyes.”
“What are you, then?” the Red Queen asked. Kelsea sensed her playing for time, but what good would that do them out here? Even if Mace and Pen had somehow managed to track them from Demesne, they would never find this place. Brenna had not stumbled upon an old abandoned house in the desert by accident. This place had been chosen.
“Mort Queen! My master spoke of you often.” Brenna glanced at the fire, which had strengthened, casting flickering shadows on the walls. “We will wait for the fire to build a bit, so we can all see well. Otherwise, this will not be nearly such good fun.”
“What are you?” Kelsea asked, following the Red Queen’s lead. Delay was better than nothing.
“I am a tool. My master’s useful tool.”
“What sort of tool?”
“You will not distract me, bitch. But I will tell you, as it pertains to the show.” Brenna said the final word with relish, and Kelsea shuddered. She smelled torture here, in one form or another. The woman’s excitement was too pronounced for anything less.
“Before I could even walk, our handlers in the Creche realized that I had a curious talent,” Brenna continued. “I absorb pain. Not physical pain, but pain of the mind, the heart. I could take a man’s worst memories, the most terrible things he had done or had done to him, and absorb them into myself. For the hour they paid for, my clients could be free of care.”
“I suppose people paid a high price for that.”
“Oh, they did.” Brenna squatted down and checked Kelsea’s bonds. “But the relief was only temporary. At the end of the hour, they had to take their pain back.”
“Ah,” Kelsea murmured, seeing Brenna’s strange value now. To certain parties, she would be worth a lifetime’s supply of morphia. “And what about Thorne?”
Brenna slammed the side of Kelsea’s face into the floor. Kelsea tasted blood in her mouth.
“You don’t say his name. I saw what you did. I saw—” Brenna fell silent. In that moment, she seemed distracted, but Kelsea could make no use of her distraction. The Red Queen was struggling to sit up, but she was having no more success than Kelsea. Playing for time was all they had left.
“What did you do for your master?” Kelsea asked.
“I took his pain, and held it.” Brenna’s features were clear, almost beautiful. Her eyes were a deep, cold shade of blue. “I never gave his pain back. It leached the life from me, took my youth and turned me pale, but I held his pain so that he could do the things he needed to do. To keep us safe.”
Kelsea closed her eyes. She had misjudged Thorne, categorized him as a pure sociopath, but he was not. He had felt pain when he was dying, great pain, far greater than the wounds Kelsea had inflicted. Brenna had no longer been able to help him.
“So you’re a conduit, then?” the Red Queen asked in Tear. “To drain off pain?”
“Sometimes.” Brenna grinned, a grin so savage that Kelsea shuddered again. “But I have other talents. My master rarely needed them, but I think we will make good use of them here.”
She grabbed the Red Queen by the hair and dragged her into a sitting position. The Red Queen grunted with pain, but did not scream, as Kelsea was sure Brenna had intended.
“You, Mort bitch, my master spoke of many times. You tried to cheat him when you thought you could get away with it. You will make a good demonstration.”
“Demonstration of what?”
Brenna squatted on her haunches and stared into the Red Queen’s eyes. The Red Queen tried to turn away, but she could not, and gradually her head stilled, her gaze fixed and pinpointed on something Kelsea could not see, her mouth dropping open in horror.
“I own pain,” Brenna remarked, almost casually, never breaking gaze with the Red Queen. “I manipulate it. I can draw pain out if I want. But I can also magnify it.”
The Red Queen began to squeal, a high, animal squealing, a hog in a slaughtering pen. Kelsea closed her eyes, but could not block the sound.
“Think of the worst thing you’ve ever done, the worst that’s ever happened to you,” Brenna whispered. “I can make you live there.”
The squealing stopped. The Red Queen’s eyes had rolled up into her head. Her face gleamed with sweat, and a thin line of drool had begun to work its way from her mouth. Her entire body shuddered.
“Stop it!” Kelsea cried. “You have no reason to do this to her!”
“She cheated my master,” Brenna replied steadily. “That’s reason enough, but not all. I want you to see what’s in store for you, Tear bitch. This show is for you.”
“Motherrr!” the Red Queen howled.
“I think we can loose her now,” Brenna remarked, straightening. She produced a knife, bent over, and began to cut the Red Queen’s bonds. “She’s not going anywhere. And it makes for a better show.”
“Mother, I’m sorry!” the Red Queen screamed, and Kelsea saw that tears had begun to leak down her cheeks as words tumbled from her mouth. “Please don’t! Don’t, Mother! I’ll be good, I promise! Don’t sell me away.” Her unbound hands went to her face, her nails drawing a long set of gashes down one cheek. Blood ran from the wound and began to drip down her neck. Kelsea rolled over and retched.
“Do you have bad memories, Kelsea Glynn?” Brenna asked softly. “Anything you regret? Anything you’ve been trying to run from?”
Kelsea wriggled away from the words, but Brenna was right on her, lifting her head by the hair.
“I will find it. Whatever it is, believe me, I will find it and it will happen to you again and again, until you know nothing else.”
Kelsea shut her eyes, determined not to meet Brenna’s gaze. Brenna tossed her on her back, and a moment later Kelsea felt the gentle prick of fingernails on her eyelids.
“Open them,” Brenna whispered. “Open them or I will take them from you.”
Several feet away, the Red Queen was still sobbing and pleading with her invisible mother. The sound was terrible, but the thought of being blind was worse. Kelsea opened her eyes and found Brenna’s face right over hers.
“Where is it?” Brenna whispered, and Kelsea realized in horror that she could feel the woman inside her mind, searching, prying. “Where is that thing, that worst thing?”
Is this what I did? Kelsea wondered, appalled. Brenna was working through her mind with all the finesse of a thief tearing apart a drawer full of clothing; it was like being bludgeoned. Kelsea tried to break eye contact, but she could neither look away nor close her eyes.
Did I do this to others?
“Buried deep,” Brenna muttered. And Kelsea realized, terrified, that Brenna was drawing nearer to a deep, dark pocket in her mind: Lily’s memories, Lily’s life before the Crossing, constant fear punctuated by staccato notes of violence and violation. Lily’s terrible life, which Kelsea had been forced to live as well.
“Ah,” Brenna murmured with relish. “I see you now.”
Kelsea gave a tremendous heave, her body arching off the ground. But she still could not break the contact. Somewhere nearby, she heard the Red Queen choking.
“What do we have here?” Brenna asked, her voice teasing. Her fingers tickled Kelsea’s ribs, making her writhe, but Kelsea still could n
ot look away. She could feel Lily’s memories climbing up from their dark hole in her mind, scrabbling for purchase, gaining traction. Greg Mayhew, Major Langer, the animal called Parker, soon they would all reach her, and then—
“You leave her alone.”
Brenna jumped away. The contact in Kelsea’s head broke, and she moaned at the mercy of that, the relief of Lily’s memories falling back into the darkness of her mind, where they belonged. Her eyes were dry and aching; she had to blink a few times before she could focus on the figure in the doorway. There she found the last person she would ever have expected: Ewen, the Keep jailor.
“Ewen, run!” Kelsea shouted. Ewen had a knife, but his eyes were wide, the eyes of a child afraid of the dark. Kelsea could not have him die here, not Ewen, not when she had already killed so many others . . .
“Yes, get out of here, boy,” Brenna snarled. “This is none of your business.”
“That’s the Queen of the Tearling,” Ewen replied, his voice trembling, “and I am a Queen’s Guard. The Queen is my business. You leave her alone.”
“Queen’s Guard,” Brenna repeated, her voice dripping with mockery. “You’re a plaything to them, a mascot. You don’t even have a sword.”
These words took a visible toll on Ewen; his white face paled even further and he took a great gulp of air. But still, he raised his knife and took another step forward into the room.
“Ewen, don’t look at her!” Kelsea cried. The sound of gagging came from her left, and when she turned, she saw the Red Queen throttling herself. With a tremendous heave, Kelsea rolled onto her stomach and began wriggling toward her.
“Evelyn!”
Staring off into the distance, the Red Queen removed her hands from her throat and reached down, her fingers hooked into claws. Then, in a single swipe, she tore a wide gash open on her right thigh. Kelsea tried to kick her hands away, but could find no leverage.