My mother’s ladies came in footfalls and whispers—porcelain plates clattering as they collected what remained of our breakfast: scraps of honey bread smeared with butter, nubs of half-eaten strawberries weeping pools of pink juice, teacups drunk to the dregs. A three-tined fork slipped to the floor with a pathetic clang.
And I startled, blinking. I’d forgotten myself somewhere between the trails of soft sunlight on the tiles.
The offending girl scrabbled to her knees to retrieve it, widening her eyes when her gaze stumbled into mine. “Forgive me, mi—”
“That’s enough, Welyn.” A stern voice cut her short.
She pushed to her feet, offered a pitiful dip of a curtsy, and hurried out of the room. And I continued studying the mosaic of light on the floor.
Reality was harsher in the sun.
I wasn’t at Renasmere Academy with the other young witches of the winter and water. But neither were the friends I’d made there. Nycta had returned to her home in Tyafae and had scarcely written since. And sweet-natured Cyrie was dead.
“You understand what this means?” My mother’s hand touched the curve of my cheek as she continued her lecture, a lithe coil of indigo scales shimmering around her wrist. The little snake lifted its head from inside the silver-embroidered cuff of her sleeve, flicked its tongue to taste the air thick with the perfume of salt and smoke, and retreated to the darkness of her clothes again.
Tamsyn, my mother’s familiar. Golden-eyed and venom-tongued, she was as old as the city of Rynmoor itself, passed down through generations of the poisoner women of the formidable House of Torrowin. She’d served my mother well—cut down her enemies in a spectacle of strangled screams and foaming blood. No one ever made the mistake of calling Paia Torrowin subtle.
My mother knelt to stare into my downturned eyes and spoke once more.
“If they can get to you in a school, they can get to you anywhere.” She straightened her back and turned to pace the length of the room, the hem of her cobalt dress fluttering behind her like a cloak. And she almost glittered when the thousands of silver moons stitched into the fabric caught the noonday light.
There was never a moment she didn’t look beautiful. She bore the traits of the Muyn coven well: hair as dark as ink, framing her narrow chin and tumbling in loose waves past her waist; skin so fair, one could nearly glimpse the indigo of the veins underneath; her lines of her face sharpening into a warrior’s nose. She complimented it all in the manner she dressed—in rich browns and gemstone blues fit for a queen.
I wondered what it was like—being so lovely and so feared all at once.
“The headmistress assured me that Renasmere would be the exception.” She sighed and picked at the poison-pale blotches in her leather apron as she went on. “And now they have a dead girl on their hands.”
My gaze shifted to the window, down to the scarlet bursts of sun-drenched poppies in the garden and the bees that doted over them, and I snatched my quivering lip between my teeth before whispering, “She was my friend.”
“She was your shield.” My mother looked up sharply, raising her voice as if her words were the only truth worth speaking, and let her hands fall to her sides. “And while—yes—unfortunate, she served her purpose well.”
I wrenched my stare from the flowers to look at her, the edges of my vision blurring with tears.
She faltered, collected herself with a long-drawn breath, and softened her tone to a murmur. “We can’t risk losing you, Norrie. The people out there—” she glanced over her shoulder, through the glass doors of the balcony and the sun-speckled canals beyond it “—those same families that helped our ancestors build Rynmoor all those years ago, we mean nothing to them now.” There was a break in her voice. “Not without a Legacy to back our claim to power. And they’ll tear this House down on our heads and build another with our bones if we’re not careful.”
My mouth ran dry.
I could never stomach the talk of Houses and their politics.
I’d heard the story often—how their founders had begun as exiles, wanderers of the eastern wilds. Centuries ago, they’d become the first of the witches. Unpracticed and unrestrained, bringing floods and fires and storms before they’d learned to control their gifts. But the eight kingdoms of the west had no tolerance for the danger of their newfound magic, called it blasphemy, and cast them out. And so they’d fled into the strange east, raised the Free Cities from the dust and the earth, and set the boundaries of their kings aside. Their children, the first twenty-eight born in the new world, bridged both kingdoms and magics. And from them, the Houses came to be. Generations thereafter would inherit their Legacy, a most peculiar gift, the mark of a true heir of those twenty-eight. The House of Notus, the House of Metal and Ice, inflicted their will upon the stars. The House of Thryss, of Wood and the Arcane, the bending of reality itself. But the House of Torrowin, the House of Water and Earth, inherited nothing.
And others had taken notice.
“I understand.” I bowed my head, swallowing the ache in my throat. “I suppose…you’ll want me to finish school here, then?” Tutors already frequented our gates. They’d come with the doctors seven years prior, stayed long after the physicians’ work was done. In the long months after the bombing, my mother kept me from my brother’s door. Drew me away with tea parties in the garden, playdates with friends she’d chosen for me. But his teachers were like moths, flittering back and forth from his room in their silver robes, arms heavy with all manner of books and papers, pamphlets and pens. I’d find them lingering in the corners of the house, whispering amongst themselves of the little boy deprived of his leg. Until they saw me, pressed their thin lips into sympathetic smiles, and scattered.
“Well,” my mother stifled a noise that almost sounded like a scoff, “you’re certainly not going back.” She prefaced the rest with a small pause. “But you can’t stay.”
I sat up in alarm. “You’re sending me away?”
“As opposed to what?” She anchored her hands on her hips, her sleeves hanging off her arms like sheets of dark water. “Giving the dissenters another chance at killing you? Or worse, all of us at once? They’ve already maimed and disfigured your brother.”
“Mother.” Mysric, who’d been leaning against the dormant fireplace, rubbed his forehead with a sigh and pushed off the mantel, gesturing to his legs. “May I remind you that I’m standing quite ably—and handsomely, I might add—right here?”
She raised her hand to quiet him. “Sit down, darling. You don’t have to be brave for us.”
He obliged, though a little grudgingly, and massaged his right knee as he sank into one of the twin chaises by the fireplace. The joint buckled on the way down, looking not quite right beneath the woven pant of his navy slacks. And he doubled over to shift it back into place with a bone-chilling click.
“I’ve offered to host the lord of Phaenn at a ball tonight,” she said, the words sloughing off her tongue like molasses. “Apparently, he’s in search of a wife.” She fixed her gaze on me then, and the breath soured in my lungs. “I want that to be you.”
She knew full well what that would mean for me. Mysric and I, born minutes apart, had always been told that we would rule together. Me, a Wonder, a wielder of all three magics of our city, and my brother, the brightest scholar I’d ever met. Twin heirs to the seat of Rynmoor. When I was of age and finished with my schooling, I’d take a husband from her choice of respectable men within our coven. But never a lord. Never someone who required, or even wanted, little more than a breeding ground of his wife.
“Mother, y-you can’t be serious…” Mysric moved to stand in protest, but his leg, long past its use for the afternoon, wouldn’t allow it. And he slumped into the chaise with gritted teeth.
She went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “You’ll have to charm him first, of course. Girls from the lesser sister cities will be falling at his feet trying to catch his eye. I had a dress delivered to your room this morning. That should be a good start.”
“We can’t just marry her off to a stranger,” my brother pressed further. “What has Father said about this—”
“That’s enough from you,” Mother turned to snap at him, and he fell silent, the corners of his mouth twisting in a grimace. “You’re only here to learn. Do you understand?”
He said nothing else, simply chewed at the dead skin of his lips.
“I sent word to him last night, and we’re in agreement.” She interlaced her fingers at the sharp taper of her waist. “You’ll stay here, Mysric, and continue your instruction as my successor. And Xeanora will secure a strong alliance as the next lady of Phaenn.”
Consigned to a life in quiet service, cut at the knees and shackled to a man old enough to be my father.
“I…” My voice began to shake, my hands with it. “I can’t.”
“Xeanora,” Mother said, with an edge of frustration, “the Torrowin claim to Rynmoor has been challenged for the last two hundred years. And that doubt has only grown louder. Mercenaries like the one that killed your friend and much worse will continue to come for us until our position is sure. Until Elynea—wherever she may be—dies, a marriage alliance is our only path forward. If you want this family to survive, I need you to smile and do as you’re told. Can you do that?”
I’d believed the rumors they used to tell: that the infant Elynea Torrowin, moon-blessed and first of her House, had been murdered in her crib the night she was born. But I’d seen her—once—when I was little. As a sixteen-year-old specter, a year younger than I was now. Wandering the halls like the ghost of a drowned girl, wet footprints shimmering in the dark. Mother had poisoned her with Tamsyn’s venom, believing her death would rattle her Legacy free and onto our shoulders. But I’d drawn it out of her, saving her life and damning ours, and she’d nearly leveled the house in her escape.
“Yes, Mother.” I cast a glance at my brother, but he’d taken up my pastime of staring at the floor, his hands folded in contrition.
“Good. We just need an heir or two.” She drew a satisfied breath, unfastened her apron, and draped it over her arm before sweeping out of the room. “Then you and I can poison him when it’s over.”