I winced. Another image—a guard thrusting his sword through Coline’s right arm as she blocked another blade—shimmered in the silver. I whipped my head up.
Coline raised her arm to stop a blow.
“Coline!”
Brigitte moved faster than I thought possible, sliding between Coline and the guard aiming for her arm. She hooked a sickle around his neck. She tugged. He died. Coline lived.
And blood stained the silver necklace red.
Only two guards were down, and my divinations were already wavering. Isabelle’s hands were flushed, red-pricked pink, and blood oozed out from beneath my nails. We needed more. More power. More time.
We were not soldiers or noonday artists. We had never been trained to fight or to use our magic to protect us. Henry and his court had created a world where no one but them were trained to wield power. I channeled more magic, not caring where I gathered it from, and the power seared my skin, smoke curling free from the little cuts and scabs opening along my arms. An ache itched in my throat, a rotting wound where I had worn away from too much channeling. My neck creaked, more snapped twig than popping joint. Isabelle coughed, blood on her lips.
Another soldier swung, his actions clear in my divinations, and I shouted for Coline to duck. I heard her exhale. Grunt.
A body hit the floor.
I shouted instructions and the fight carried on, the sounds of the swords clashing beyond our dimming ring of fire. Not all of my divining was right, and each wrong future opened a new wound in Coline and Brigitte. I tried to channel more power with more precision, and it tore through my fingers and into the necklace. The image wavered, and a shadow covered my hands. Yvonne tossed water onto her ring of fire. White sparks skittered and melted across the stone floor. The table caught fire.
“Curious,” the executioner said, the golden coat denoting his title of chevalier smoldering. In one hand he held a sword and in the other gathered magic, and the flickers of the noonday arts in him glowed like distant stars. His gaze settled on Yvonne. “You could have been very useful if you had not chosen this.”
“Left!” I said and pulled Yvonne back with me until we hit the wall. Brigitte slid left and took out a guard too cautious after my shout. “Coline, lunge.”
She did, and the final guard stumbled out of the way, feet tangling in his fallen comrade’s coat. He hit the ground, and Brigitte hit him hard enough to keep him down. Yvonne tossed the waterskin into the flames between us and the executioner. The fire roared. He twisted his hand.
Power drenched our corner like rain. The fire died. Isabelle gasped.
I tried to breathe and nothing happened. The air was different, gone, and no matter how deeply I inhaled. Yvonne’s hands went to her stomach, her chest, her mouth. She shook her head.
“The problem with alchemistry is that it relies too much on other people not understanding it,” the executioner said, stepping over the remnants of our paltry defense. “And it’s useless when there is no hydrogen or oxygen to burn.”
He reached for Yvonne and opened his mouth. Yvonne spat a small white pastille into his mouth. The little ball shone with stored magic, and gagged, jerking away. The magic he’d channeled broke. I sucked in a deep breath, blood in my mouth. Yvonne coughed and kicked him away. He spat it out.
“What—” The words died in his throat. He croaked and narrowed his eyes at Yvonne.
I lurched, arms catching him about the knees. We fell, and I scrambled to grab his arm, his face, any part of him that would let my magic in. My fingers curled around his wrist.
The midnight arts flowed between us, a river of illusions and scrying, and dragged the man who had killed Estrel into the deep, dark past. He twisted and fought, like Alaine beneath the ice. I made him think he was choking. Made him gag. Made him scratch at the skin of his throat. Tear through the flesh and muscle and ash-white sinew of his body like his sword had torn through Estrel’s.
Alaine died drowning, and so did he.
I didn’t need their magic or power to change the world.
“No!” Isabelle slammed into me, knocking me from my seat on the executioner’s knees. I hit the floor hard. Coline screamed.
Isabelle, Henry’s sword buried in her right shoulder, whimpered. He hummed and wrenched the