Angie refastened the necklace, feeding the chain through the pendant until the jewel was centered at her throat. Their mother’s moonstone shimmered like a knife above her heart.
“You’re wondering about the stone. I thought you’d know all about that, since you’ve been off studying magic.” Angie’s words had an edge. “I’ve been experimenting with various gems, but the moonstone is unequivocally the best. There’s no question why Mother used it—it can store an enthrall for days at a time. Particularly helpful when you’re trying to, say, send someone out on an important errand. Such as a certain duke, sent to retrieve a certain Mia Rose.”
She glared at Tristan. “Not that the stone ensures success. The duke did not bring you back to me.”
Tristan was motionless. He stared blankly ahead, a thin line of sweat glistening at his scalp.
“You have magic,” Mia said. Her voice was unrecognizable, an invasive species of vowels and consonants swarming her mouth.
Angie fixed her with a curious look. “Of course I do. You thought you were the only one? Just imagine the things we’ll do together! A little raven and a little swan.”
She laced her fingers through Mia’s, but her skin felt coarse, foreign. Mia retracted her hand.
“It was you who sent the swan.”
“Macabre, I know. But I didn’t want you getting too comfortable out there. We have work to do here, in our own kingdom.” She shot Zaga a withering glance. “Never mind that I was never invited to Refúj to study magic.”
Mia kept her voice low. “If you had studied magic, you’d know to free the people in this room from whatever enchantment you’ve put them under. Someone is going to get hurt.”
The smile slid off Angie’s face. “You think I don’t know that? I’ve been practicing magic for almost three years now. I’m self-taught. I’m far more powerful than you.”
Angie’s betrayal was a knife to the gut. Her sister had wanted this. She had orchestrated the whole thing.
“You were the castle spy.”
Angelyne combed her fingers through a strand of long strawberry hair, then rubbed the moonstone’s pearled surface.
“I don’t care for that word. Spy. It sounds so nefarious. I serve the Dujia. I fight for our mother’s true family. Not her family of origin—her family of choice.”
“You told Pilar to put an arrow through my heart!”
“I told you to run! Remember? I sat in your chambers the night before the wedding and begged you to escape and leave me behind. You had the same kind of headaches I had when I bloomed.”
She shook her head. “But then you practically ordered a massacre of Gwyrach as a dinner toast. Our own kind. Our mother’s kind. You brought this on yourself, Mi. Pilar heard what you said at the final feast, which only confirmed what I’d been telling Zaga for months. After that, it wasn’t really up to me anymore. Things were already under way.”
Mia’s eyes found Pilar’s. She thought she saw a trace of regret beneath the black glaze.
She turned back to Angelyne. “If you knew Mother had magic, why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve always been so black-and-white. You know it’s true. You fancied yourself a Huntress, a cool-headed scientist, but you were a bit of an ogre, weren’t you? All you had was hate and fury in your heart. If I had told you I had magic, you would have killed me.”
“I would never hurt you.” Her hands were shaking. “You were all I cared about.”
“That’s what you told yourself. But you’ve never cared about me. Not really. You cared about the version of me you kept safe in your head, the fragile little sister who couldn’t survive without you. You don’t even know me. What’s my favorite color?”
Mia paused. “Lavender.”
“Wrong. Green. What’s my favorite song?”
“I don’t . . . ‘Under the Snow Plum Tree’?”
“I can’t stand that song. It’s been stuck in my head for years, ever since you and I went dancing around the house pretending to be ladies.” Her gaze was piercing. “What did I want to be when I grew up?”
Mia’s palms were sticky with sweat. “An explorer.”
“Wrong again. That was you. You wanted those things. I wanted to get married and have a family, and you thought those things made me weak. I dreamed of being a princess. A queen.” She touched her crown. “And here we are.”
“You were willing to let me die for it.”
“I never wanted that. You’re my sister. Sisters do anything for each other.” She twisted her hair into a rope and tossed it over her shoulder. “But the Dujia are my sisters, too, and I had to protect them. You know all about that, don’t you? A sister who needs protecting?”
Mia had misinterpreted everything. She was so fixated on avenging their mother’s death, her little sister had bloomed into someone else right beneath her nose. Angelyne was an equation she hadn’t known she needed to solve.
No. That was just it. Angie wasn’t an equation at all: she was a person. A hurt, sad, lost, angry girl. And somehow Mia had missed all of it.
Angie coughed, then smoothed her gown.
“My point is that we can put all that behind us now. You’re a Dujia. That changes everything. I’m glad it happened this way—glad our archer was atrocious.” She glowered at Pilar, then turned back to Mia. “I’m grateful you’re alive. Zaga tells me you’re talented.”
Angie’s eyes narrowed. “Very talented, I hear.”
Mia felt bile burbling in her throat. She had to close her eyes to keep the Gallery from spinning. So this was jealousy. It had a taste, foul and putrid, like a slab of cheese gone moldy. It had a color, too, but that wasn’t surprising. Envy was green.
Her gaze combed the feasting table, lighting on her father’s face, then Quin’s, then Domeniq’s. Their eyes were all empty, wiped clean of agency. No one could help her. Standing in a roomful of people, she’d never been more alone.
“Impressive, isn’t it?” Angie smiled.
“I don’t understand. You’re not even touching them.”
“You’re being very stubborn about this, Mi. Magic is not what we think it is. Our father lied to us.” She gestured toward Zaga. “Even she lied to us. It’s more powerful than we were ever taught. There are ways to test it—to push beyond the existing boundaries. While you’ve been daydreaming about exploring the four kingdoms, I’ve been exploring a far richer kingdom: the magic brewing under my own skin.”
“What you’re doing is wrong, Ange. You’re taking away their choice. To enthrall someone is to—”
“Oh, this isn’t an enthrall. What gave you that impression? Enthrallment is for juveniles. I told you: I’ve been practicing magic ever since Mother died. I’ve taught myself all sorts of wonderful things. I haven’t enthralled these people. I’ve enkindled them.”
Angie’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “In the old language, kindyl means torch or flame. Enkindyl means to light something on fire. But for my purposes, it means to inspire or ignite. When I enkindle someone, I ignite a fervor in their heart. That fervor shifts the way the blood flows through their limbs, rewriting the messages their brain sends to their body. They desire something with every fiber of their being. They yearn for it. It replaces every other thought in their head.”
“That’s mind control.”
“Wrong again. If anything, it’s heart control.” Angie smiled, pleased. “I know you like your logic and your theories, but a message forged in the brain will never carry the same weight as a feeling forged in the heart. Once that feeling has taken root, it’s powerful. The brain has to accept it. Because, when all is said and done, the heart is the mind’s master. Our minds can only accept the things our hearts tell us are true.”
She smiled at the guests in the Grand Gallery, an indulgent smile, as if they were dogs waiting to have their ears scratched. “I’m not hurting them. Their bodies are intimately in tune with mine: they want what I want, feel what I feel.”
She flourished a slender hand. “Speak!”
A cacophony of voices flooded the Gallery—screams, shouts, pleas for help, frantic words tumbling out in an ardent jumble.
“Be silent,” Angie said.
Instantly they fell silent. The fires breathed and crackled in the hearth.