I screamed.
A hand clamped over my mouth, and I was dragged backward into the darkness.
I fought wildly, kicking and twisting until my fingers caught the edge of a sleeve.
"Rose!"
Lucien's voice thundered through the room.
The hand released me.
I stumbled into his arms just as the lanterns flared back to life. He held me upright for a moment, his fingers digging into my shoulders, then turned toward the far end of the room.
Adrian was still kneeling before the mirror.
But his chains had tightened around his wrists, and his head hung forward.
The silver mirror was empty.
"Who grabbed me?" I demanded.
Lucien searched the room, his expression murderous.
"No one."
I stared at him.
"I have several flaws, Your Highness, but hallucinating entire hands is not one of them."
His gaze shifted to the broken mirrors scattered across the floor.
"Something in this room has awakened."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one I have."
I stepped away from him, rubbing the place where the unseen hand had covered my mouth.
"Your brother says the ritual is a lie. My mother appeared in a mirror and warned me not to let you take me to an altar. You refuse to explain what happened three hundred years ago. At this point, I would trust a suspicious-looking rat more than I trust you."
"Then trust the rat."
I blinked.
He looked entirely serious.
Despite everything, a disbelieving laugh escaped me. It came out thin and breathless, more shock than amusement. It died quickly when I noticed his hand trembling.
Lucien looked down at it and curled his fingers into a fist, hiding it against his side.
"Your mother left that message for a reason," he said. "We need to find out what she knew."
"We?"
"You are welcome to investigate alone."
"Wonderful. I shall bring the suspicious rat."
His mouth twitched, but the expression vanished almost immediately.
He turned toward Adrian.
"Can you tell us anything useful?"
His brother lifted his head.
"Ask the council."
"About what?"
"The first bargain."
Lucien's face hardened.
"They will never tell her."
"Then perhaps she should hear what they are afraid of."
The chains around Adrian's wrists pulled tight. He winced, and a dark line spread beneath his skin.
I moved toward him instinctively.
Lucien caught my arm.
"Don't."
"He's hurt."
"He is not what he appears to be."
"Neither are you, apparently. Yet people keep expecting me to listen to you."
His grip fell away.
I approached Adrian carefully. Up close, he looked exhausted. The chains had left deep marks around his wrists, but there was something strange about the wounds. They were not bleeding. Instead, a faint silver light pulsed beneath his skin.
"Can you leave this room?" I asked.
Adrian looked at me sadly.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because I am the lock."
The words made no sense.
He glanced at Lucien.
"And he is the key."
Lucien flinched so slightly I might have imagined it. His gaze dropped to the floor, and for a moment his face tightened with something like guilt.
Before I could ask what that meant, the bells began ringing again.
This time, the sound came from the council tower.
Lucien swore under his breath.
"They know the seal has been broken."
"Then let's go ask them our questions."
He looked at me as though I had suggested setting fire to the entire mansion.
"You cannot walk into the council chamber and demand answers."
"Watch me."
"Rose."
I lifted my chin, though my pulse was still racing from the hand in the dark.
"Seven days, remember? We are already wasting them."
For several seconds, he studied me. His expression shifted almost imperceptibly, as if he wanted to argue but knew he had forfeited the right. Then he gave a small, reluctant nod.
"Stay close."
We left the west wing together.
Behind us, Adrian's voice followed us through the corridor.
"Lucien!"
The prince stopped.
His brother lifted his head.
"If she reaches the altar, you will have to choose."
Lucien's expression went cold.
"Between what?"
Adrian's eyes shifted toward me.
"Her life."
Then he looked at his brother.
"And your freedom."
The doors slammed shut.
I walked beside Lucien in silence, turning those words over in my mind. I had thought the ritual would save him and perhaps save me. Now I wondered whether it would force Lucien to choose between the curse that had imprisoned him and the girl whose blood might finally release him.
I did not know which answer frightened me more. The thought of dying should have been the obvious one. Instead, some treacherous part of me feared the other possibility: that he might choose me, and lose whatever freedom Adrian believed was waiting for him.
---
The council chamber was already occupied when we arrived.
The silver-haired woman stood before the empty seventh chair. A black bowl rested on a pedestal in front of her, filled with water so dark it reflected no light.
Her eyes moved from Lucien to me.
"You opened the west wing."
It was not a question.
"Your door was making an awful noise," I replied. "I thought someone might need help."
Several council members stared at me in disbelief.
The silver-haired woman did not smile.
"Do you understand what you have done?"
"I am beginning to understand that every time I ask a question, somebody threatens me. Perhaps you could try something new."
Lucien stepped beside me.
"Tell her about the first bargain."
The woman went still.
"No."
"Tell her," he repeated.
"You would endanger the entire kingdom."
"The kingdom is already in danger."
A murmur rose among the council members.
The woman lifted her hand, and the room fell silent.
"Three hundred years ago, the royal family was dying," she began. "A curse had taken hold of the prince's bloodline. Every heir born into the family was destined to become a beast, until no trace of humanity remained."
I glanced at Lucien.
He did not look at me. His face was rigid, but his thumb rubbed restlessly against the side of his hand.
"The royal family sought a way to survive," she continued. "A family of guardians offered their blood in exchange for protection. Their daughters would marry into the royal line, and the bond would hold the curse in check."
"My mother's family," I said.
"Yes."
"And the ritual?"
"The ritual renews that bond."
Adrian's words echoed in my head.
The first bargain was never meant to save him.
"Then why did my mother run away?"
The woman's expression sharpened.
"Because she was selfish."
The answer came too quickly.
I stared at her, feeling anger rise beneath my fear like a match catching flame.
"Or because she discovered something you wanted to keep hidden."
A council member rose from his chair.
"Enough insolence!"
Lucien turned toward him.
"Sit down."
The man hesitated, then obeyed.
I looked at the silver-haired woman.
"What happens to the girl who performs the ritual?"
Silence.
The bowl of black water rippled.
The woman lowered her eyes.
"Her blood becomes part of the curse."
"What does that mean?"
"It means she will be bound to the royal heir for as long as the curse exists."
"And if the curse ends?"
The woman said nothing.
My stomach tightened.
"Will she survive?"
Lucien moved toward the pedestal.
"Rose, we are leaving."
"No."
His eyes flashed.
"Now."
I ignored him, though every instinct told me to run before the room swallowed me whole.
The silver-haired woman finally answered.
"Some have survived. Others have not."
The room tilted.
Some.
Not all.
I had been brought here to save a prince, and nobody could even promise that I would live through the process.
I turned to Lucien.
"Did you know?"
His silence was unbearable.
"Did you know the ritual could kill me?"
"I knew there was a risk."
A bitter laugh escaped me, sharp enough to hurt my throat.
"A risk. You make it sound like crossing a road."
"Rose, I am trying to find another way."
"Then why did you let them tell me I had seven days to save you?"
"Because if I had told you the truth, you would have run."
"Yes!" I shouted. "That was the idea!"
My voice broke on the final word, betraying the fear I had been forcing into anger since the moment I arrived.
For a moment, nobody moved.
I had wanted answers, but now that they were coming, each one seemed to strip away another piece of the life I thought I understood. My father had sold me. My mother had hidden a bargain. The prince had kept the truth from me. And the council had reduced my future to a ritual whose price they would not even name.
Lucien reached toward me.
I stepped back, wrapping my arms around myself before he could mistake my shaking for surrender.
"Don't touch me."
His hand fell. His fingers remained half-curled, as though he had forgotten what he meant to do with them.
The silver-haired woman watched us with a strange expression, almost pitying.
"You should be grateful, child. The prince has offered you a place in the royal family."
I turned on her.
"I would rather be free."
"Freedom is an expensive thing."
"Then why does everyone keep spending my life to buy it?"
For the first time, the woman's expression changed.
Fear flickered across her face.
Not fear of me.
Fear of what I had said.
The black water in the bowl began to bubble.
A whisper rose from its depths.
"Margaret."
The council members backed away.
The woman seized the pedestal.
"No."
The whisper grew louder.
"Margaret's daughter."
The water rose over the rim, spilling down the sides of the bowl without wetting the stone.
Then a hand emerged from its black surface.
Pale fingers curled around the edge.
I stumbled backward.
Lucien seized my hand, but I barely felt it. His grip was tight, almost desperate, and his thumb pressed against my knuckles as if he feared I might vanish. I was staring at the hand, at the silver ring now burning against my skin, and at the shape slowly rising from the bowl.
A woman's face appeared above the water.
My mother's face.
But this time, she was not a memory trapped in a mirror.
She looked directly at me.
Her lips trembled.
"Rose," she whispered. "You must listen to me."
I could barely breathe.
"Mother?"
The word came out small, humiliatingly young. For one heartbeat, I was not a girl standing before a council or a pawn in a royal bargain. I was a daughter who had spent years pretending she did not still wait for her mother to come back.
Her gaze shifted toward Lucien.
Terror filled her eyes.
Lucien's fingers tightened around mine, then abruptly loosened. His face had gone utterly still, but a muscle fluttered in his jaw.
Then she spoke the words that shattered everything I thought I knew.
"He is not the prince you were promised."
Lucien released my hand.
My mother's eyes filled with tears.
"He is the one who killed me."
The chamber seemed to inhale.
Lucien did not deny it.
He only looked at me with the same devastated expression I had seen on my mother's face, as though he had been waiting three hundred years for this moment and had never once stopped fearing it.
Then every council member dropped to their knees.