“They were plotting to overthrow His Majesty with the Madame Royale,” Yvonne said to me. “Apparently we’re all out of the loop.”
Aaliz nodded. “It’s a very small loop.”
“You want to do it now?” I asked. Aaliz and Yvonne glimmered, the magic they could store as alchemists collected in their hands. Brigitte was blank. “We get Coline and kill them? We’d be breaking Estrel’s deal, but—”
“If Estrel Charron and Laurence du Montimer made that deal thinking it would stick, they weren’t half as smart as anyone thought.” Aaliz sucked on their teeth and shook their head. “They made sure His Majesty couldn’t touch us for now. The court probably knows it too. They were just buying time.”
“Great,” I said, clapping my hands together once. “Let’s kill them.”
Aaliz and Brigitte glanced at each other.
“We were going to wait for reinforcements,” Brigitte said. “What’s your plan?”
“Them sickles decoration?” I pointed to the weapons she’d hidden under her coat. “I can tell you when to dodge and when to swing, and none of them will touch you.”
The future was mine, and they could not take it away from me.
Yvonne sucked in a breath, and Aaliz shook their head again.
“No one could keep up with that much channeling.” Their brow furrowed. “Even if you could, it could kill you. You’d wear down faster than we could fight.”
“There’s only one chevalier here, and that’s the executioner,” I said. “Henry XII was one, but I’ll bet I can survive longer divining than he can fighting.”
Brigitte laughed. “You’re—”
“She is that good,” a soft voice said. “She is very good.”
I turned to the little nook my back had been facing this whole time. Isabelle ducked when I looked at her, shoulders rolled in. She was smaller and paler and sadder than I’d ever seen her, and the distance she’d put between us hurt. I sniffed.
Yvonne pulled me back. “She’s the one who told Aaliz and I what happened, and she helped me get in here.”
“I’m still angry,” I said. “But you’ll help, right?”
“Yes.” Isabelle came to us. A mottling of bruises speckled her arms and neck, and paint stained her hands. “Anything. I’m so sorry.”
“Right,” Brigitte said quickly. “Reunions when we survive. Let’s go get our queen.”
Aaliz stopped us at the stairs out of the cell block.
“I need to find the others and make sure there isn’t a massacre in Serre. People are still angry, and they’re not backing down. The court holds power because they have power, martial and magical, and they’ll kill every Laurel supporter in Serre if things go badly.” Aaliz sighed, the light catching in all the wrinkles of their face, and I realized they weren’t that much older than me. Only tired. “Can you kill the king alone?”
I nodded. “We can do this.”
And even if we couldn’t, someone had to save everyone else.
“Good.” Aaliz touched Brigitte’s shoulder. “Until next time.”
“There will be one,” Brigitte said as Aaliz left. She turned to the rest of us. “Let’s go.”
I divined the guard positions. When they moved, where they walked—I saw it all, and we wove through the building like shadows. It was easy, scrying, when I had nothing to lose, and Yvonne curled one arm around my waist, leading me down the halls as I was lost in visions of the present and pointing where to go. Coline was a star, a beacon behind the walls of this wing. She’d fought.
She’d bled, the magic her channeling had left in her smeared along the floor and walls.
I stopped us outside a door where a guard had been standing moments before. Isabelle had brought her paints, and she’d drawn an illusion so real, it made me wince when I looked at it. Gabriel, alive, sprinting down the hall. The guard had taken off after him.
I opened the door. A teacup shattered on the wall next to my head.
“You’re welcome.” I ducked, waiting for the next blow. “Madame Royale Nicole du Rand, duchesse de Segance.”
I picked up the nearest thing to me and hurled it at Coline. She shrieked, arms up and blue ink splattering across her shoulders. A small pot of ink bounced off her arm. “Annette! What was that for?”
I swallowed. Permanent ink by the looks of the magic stored in the bottle. “You liar!”
“Like you aren’t?” Coline, blond hair tangled behind her, threw up her ink arms, and flung more ink across the floor. “You had so many lies going, you couldn’t even keep yours straight. Least mine was because my father would’ve killed me