Page 116 of The Witch Queen

Deep down, I know that Shade is right. Blodwyn might be working with us for now, but what about after? Will she simply ignore the fact that I’m a witch? One who she’s convinced murdered her mother? Not a full day ago, things were improving between us. I thought I’d reached her. Now that she knows the truth, she wants nothing to do with me.

Just like everyone else,that small voice slinks through my mind.

“Well, you’re certainly in a mess,” Callen drawls, his face appearing in the mirror. The imprisoned king has made no secret of his delight in my current predicament. “Tell me, are you expecting anyone else to show up and claim their right to the throne? Even the dead are rising.”

I glower at him. But he’s not wrong. The deadarerising. The book Blodwyn left rests on a nearby table. I’ve read the text a dozen times, but still struggle to wrap my mind around the details. The claim about Braxos and the trials. The princess who should have inherited the throne and her mysterious disappearance. The cryptic message left in her rooms.

I am thetrue queen.

The creature’s words roll around my skull.

“Do you think the story is true?” I ask Callen, frowning at the book.

He scoffs. “Of course it isn’t. Complete nonsense, invented by a rival, no doubt. As if my ancestor could have lost to awoman.”

“You did,” I remind him.

Nettle trills, agreeing. Callen merely rolls his eyes. But I don’t take as much pleasure in agitating him as I usually do.

“Well, who—orwhat—ever it is, that creature certainly seems far more powerful than you are. Perhaps even more so than that Huntsman of yours. Do you really believe you and that other little witch will be able to fight it off? All on your own?”

This again. “Let me guess, you’ll help us if I release you from the mirror?”

“Perhaps,” he replies, a shrug in his voice. “There’s only one way to find out. Besides, what else are you going to do? You and I both know that you’re running out of time. Thatthingwill return soon enough. Even if it doesn’t, the last trial will be here before you know it.”

Wind pushes against the palace. Just two short weeks until the Justice trial. And we’ve already lost a day.

“I know what I’m doing.”

Callen laughs. “Oh, it certainly appears that way. Keep your stubbornness if it suits you. But remember—if you don’t let me out, Blodwyn may very well take your place. I wonder what she’ll decide to do with the witches living under her roof.Bothof them.”

You will burn.

The words have never felt closer than they do now.

—

Court resumes two days after the attack at the ball.

To my immense frustration, Parnell and his minions couldn’t determine how the Followers broke into the palace, or anything else regarding the corpse-like creature. But there’s no shortage of rumors buzzing around court. The halls are crammed with courtiers, all of them trading theories like they’re playing cards. A throng is clustered around the doors to the Great Hall, which have been shut and locked while workers attempt to repair the damage from the attack. Though the chasm sealed up, the hall is in shambles. Not that I care. I have no desire to set foot within its walls after what happened.

“She must have been a witch,” a woman in the group says. She and the others are watching the doors like the creature might burst through them at any moment.

“She wasdead,” another returns.

“And?”

“Well, I think she was Meira,” a third comments.

“Meira?After what happened to the Follower? Don’t be daft.”

“What about Sybil?” yet another suggests. “She certainly has reason enough to—”

Their conversation ceases when they spot me, and I quicken my pace. The sooner this creature is banished, the better. But that’s easier said than done. Jacquetta, Blodwyn, and I have agreed to meet in secret tonight to begin our investigation. Until then, I’m thrown right back into preparations for the trials.

Margaret’s demands were upheld, of course. The last known standings of the wisdom trial were used to select the participants for the final challenge. Which means that, in just under two weeks’ time, Blodwyn, Warbeck’s son, and a young man from one of the eastern provinces will face off against one another in the justice trial.

Two weeks until you lose everything,that voice reminds me.