to sweeten the deal,” Estrel said and groaned. “I’m regretting it.”
“He was so excited, he didn’t question that wage clause, though.” Laurence grunted. “No, can’t sit up. Ribs are all over the place.”
Estrel knelt down, so her cheek was to the floor and her face was near his. Her hand slipped between the bars and brushed his hair from his face. She twirled a strand around her fingers. He kissed her palm.
“I’m sorry you won’t get to talk to Annette.” Laurence’s eyes fluttered shut. “I had to say goodbye to Charles. He said I was ‘a very annoying older sibling he didn’t ask for with a lot of advice he definitely never asked for but cherished.’” He chuckled and turned his face to her. “I named him my heir in my will, for my books and research if the title and holdings are disbanded.”
I swallowed. The vision wavered, the power I was channeling rising up in my skin as welts.
“That has given me a lovely idea.” Estrel sat up, kicked off her shoes, and gnawed open the wound on her hand until it bled.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Take pity—it hurts too much for me to look.”
“Annette is going to scry me, and I’m going to have my last words with her.” Estrel scribbled in the bottoms of her shoes and let them dry. She tucked herself back up against the gate. Her forehead pressed to the bars. “I agreed not to speak with her. Me talking to nothing and her scrying me doesn’t count.”
Laurence laughed and turned his head so his nose was against hers. “You could’ve written a normal letter in your will. I did. It was very cathartic.”
“There wasn’t time,” she said. “I didn’t realize… It doesn’t matter.”
“You are such an exquisite pain,” he muttered. “Have your conversation. It’s not as if I can leave, though.”
Estrel rolled up into a sitting position. She looked horrible and wonderful, everything I wanted but not here. She narrowed her eyes and glanced around. Then, as if I had really been there, her eyes stared straight at mine.
“Right, there you are, Annette,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, darling, but I’m going to die tomorrow. Luckily, that’s part of the plan. Unluckily, it happened sooner than I thought it would. I hope you didn’t watch.”
“I didn’t,” I said to the ghost of her that couldn’t hear me. Couldn’t know I’d ever see this.
“I don’t have a title or land to offer you.” She wiped her cheeks clean and closed her eyes. “I don’t remember my family. I don’t know if I had siblings, but I know that, if you wanted, I would have been very happy to think of you as one. And if nothing else, you were my apprentice, Annette Boucher. You are brilliant, and you are enough. You always were. They’re probably going to attempt to go back on the deal we made with them, and that’s fine. We expected that. They’re going to underestimate you and the rest of the people, though. They think removing the instigators will remove the problem because they’re shortsighted. Make them regret it. Make them acknowledge you. I love you.”
The metal cracked. My magic broke, channeling slowing to a creep. I sobbed and bowed my head into my lap, face wet, throat tight. I couldn’t say the words.
What did it matter? There was no one left to hear them.
“Mistress,” I whispered. “We deserve better than this.”
I sunk into my power like I always did. No water. No bowls. No quicksilver. Down and down and down to the little bits of me too small to be tangible, to where power flickered between my pieces, and I searched for other bodies, other people. A soldier guarded the door outside this block of cells, and his body was nothing but flickering parts. Illusions work by tricking the brain, laying down a blanket of magic and covering it over with what the artist want to show them. We believe so easily what the world shows us.
I dredged up the guard’s memories of home. I made the world seem dark to him, like evening at shift change. The hallway to this cell block became the twisting roads and alleys of Serre, and he stumbled down them as if drunk. The keys in his pocket were to the room he rented. He opened my cell.
“Thank you,” I said, standing to meet him.
He whistled and didn’t hear me because I was in his mind and didn’t want