“My rose without a thorn,” he says. He holds the knife up to Howard’s throat. Only Henry is close enough to hear Howard’s next words.
“Maybe one.”
Henry pauses. “What, my sweet?”
Howard puts her hands over his, smiling beatifically at him.
“I said, maybe just one thorn, Henry.”
She looks to the ceiling and her wings unfurl. Her voice rings throughout the hall like the tolling of a bell. “Now, Goldfoot! Now!”
In the pause before Henry exhales, Aragon and Parr pull the binding cloths from where they are wrapped around their necks like lovers’ hands, and toss them high into the air. The lapdragon’s flame hits them at their zenith. The purple velvet catches light like a firework, the cloth brittle from their long residence in those little boxes.
In the seconds between Henry’s confusion and his rage, Howard pulls at her cloth, and then Cleves’s, while Parr tears at Seymour’s. Henry roars, reaching for the fabric as it rises into the air. Goldfoot lets out another blast of flame, incinerating all of them.
The hall is full of noise, full of bodies rushing this way and that, full of orders being shouted and followed and ignored. Howard lifts her arm once more, calling Goldfoot back to her. He screeches, flitting like liquid through the air to his mistress’s side.
Henry spins to face her. She has never seen hatred so potent. The divine power is leaving him, dissipating into the air like mist. But it is not gone yet, and she is too newly freed, too fluttery, to be able to command it as she should.
“Oh, little rose,” he growls. “How I am going to rip your petals out.”
The chaos narrows to him and her. The vestiges of the divine power gather in his hands. He will choose to use it all on her if he must, even if it means he has none left for anyone else. She cannot outrun him. But at least she sang, at the end, her very own song.
He thrusts his hands towards her, and the power flashes from him. Inescapable. She will not close her eyes. She can be brave, as Boleyn was brave.
There is a shriek, high and familiar. A whip of iridescent colour, fleeting towards her, quicker than magic.
Goldfoot somersaults through the air. He spreads his wings before her, and the power of a vengeful god smites him in his beautiful, brave little heart.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
Cecilia
He was such a sweet boy. This is all Cecilia can think as she witnesses Henry watching his youngest queen cradling the body of her lapdragon. That sneer, those red cheeks: they are not her brother’s.
He was such a sweet boy, always protecting her and her sister.
She does not recognise the man before her.
Or she does. He has turned into the other brother. The one who was supposed to have died. And she does not know when the transformation began. She has never been the sort to freeze in the face of adversity, but she freezes now, only able to watch, while all around her is movement.
Mary Boleyn pulls the cloth from around her neck and rushes to her children, standing too close to the violence, and covers their eyes. Her binding cloth lies discarded on the floor, trampled beneath panicked feet. Aragon is wheeling herself towards the door while Princess Tudor and Queen Parr fumble to untie Seymour and Cleves’s bindings.
Well, well, well. What clever women. Cecilia could never have conceived of so many of them conspiring. If she had a heart, she would find it touching.
Something of the old Cecilia winds through her. She has spent the last few days forgetting herself. It is time for Queen Cecilia to rise again.
Cromwell is directing soldiers to intercept Aragon, but Cecilia runs towards her brother. He has launched himself upon Howard, pinningher to the ground. The body of her pet lies beside her. Cecilia wonders why he does not use the divine power upon the little queen as he did her dragon. She is a mere chit, after all.
As she gets closer, she sees that they are tussling for the knife that should have already slit the girl’s throat.
“Oh,” she says, coming to a halt.
A thread of gold-pink-blue winds around the couple’s hands. Yet the divine power is not aiding Henry. His eyes flicker between Howard and the threaded light, and sweat sheens upon his brow. The power is not helping him; it is helping her.
The hunger takes Cecilia.
“Brother, allow me,” she says. She rips through their conjoined fingers, takes hold of the knife. Howard fumbles for the weapon, and Cecilia dances out of her reach.
