“And eliminate the blood geas?” Rose pressed, strongly suspecting otherwise.
“For some, yes.” Clotaire held up a finger in a cautionary gesture. “Keep in mind why the blood geas was implemented to begin with. Surely they taught you that in school?”
“Yes, because centuries ago the most powerful sorcerers battled to rule, laying waste to entire kingdoms in their vendettas against one another,” Rose answered slowly, considering that very familiar history with a more cynical eye for the first time. She thought also of Thorn’s untutored bumbling, her great potential, the disaster at the inn, the loss of Nina. None of that would have happened if she hadn’t been uncontrolled. “Their lust for power drove them to tyrannical heights and the abyss of the worst atrocities.”
Her father was nodding along. “It was critical for those sorcerers to be contained and controlled—or civilization wouldn’t have survived. They’d have destroyed all the world in their greed. Left unchecked, unprincipled sorcerers could rise again. Not everyone can be trusted to do the right thing.”
“So, you would be the one to decide?” Rose asked. “Who can be freed and who cannot?”
He nodded, then shook his head, frowning at her. “You’re talking about decisions to be made years from now. We’d have to purchase the contract on one of the sorcerers employed by the Guild for Sorcerous Compliance, so that they could then break the blood geas on those selected. They’d have to be chosen carefully, perhaps reviewed by some sort of council who would decide.” He shook his head again. “That’s a long time in the future, but you can be part of that decision process, Rose. You see?”
She did. All too well. And her mind was too sorrow-laden, too overwhelmed with all the implications and ramifications, for her to think straight. So, she nodded, drumming up a smile, which seemed to please Clotaire and earned her the side-eye from Shoshan. “Thank you for explaining,” she said, then pointedly looked at the clock on the wall and let out a sigh, as if aggrieved. “I’ve been away too long from the academy. I must go.”
“But you haven’t explained how you found Thorn,” Clotaire protested.
“You know where she is. Ask her.”
“I’m not free to travel there yet.”
“Not my problem.”
Her father rose as she did. “Now see here, Rose. You’re still—”
Her mother saved her saying something that would cause a permanent breach, interrupting. “Sit. You and I have more to discuss.”
He didn’t accede right away, fastening his beseeching gaze on Rose. “Must I enjoin you to speak of this to no one else? Especially Prince Sebastien. I realize you may be inclined, by habit, to confide in him, but he cannot know about Thorn, about any of our plan. What he knows, the king will know, and then all of our lives are forfeit. Including yours, and Thorn’s.”
The words hovered on her tongue, longing to be flung at him, that Sebastien already knew, that he’d suffered from this plot of Clotaire’s along with them. But that would gain nothing. And it bothered her on a level she’d not yet examined, that she’d performed the same political calculus as her father. How different were they, under it all? Except he was human and she was… not.
She needed time to think.
She needed to talk to Sebastien, though she had no idea what to say.
But she owed Thorn the most. That meant walking the Dream back to the cottage.
So, she nodded to her father, a guarantee of nothing. “I’ll be in touch,” she said.
Shoshan rose with her, giving her a gentle, trembling embrace. “Will you… Would you, please, give Thorn a message from me?”
Throat thick, Rose nodded again, for entirely different reasons. “Of course,” she got out.
“Tell her…” Shoshan pressed her lips together. “There is so much to say. I trust you to tell her what you think will most benefit her.” She flashed a hard glare at Clotaire. “But please convey how very sorry I am. That I wish I’d known about her and now that I do, well, I want to arrange to meet her, to do whatever I can for her.”
“Of course,” Rose repeated, then hugged her mother tightly. “It will matter to her,” Rose said quietly, “that you didn’t know. I’ll make sure she understands that.”
Tears spilled down Shoshan’s cheeks. “Thank you. I love you, so very much. And Rose?” She gently stroked Rose’s hair. “Youarehuman,” she whispered. “I carried you in my womb and I know you. You are a person, not a creature, or some facsimile.”
Rose managed a wobbly smile and left before she started weeping, too. All the grandiose demonstrations from Clotaire, the dramatic protestations of love and gifts, faded in the face of this quiet support from her mother, who had already forgotten that she hadn’t carriedthisRose in her body at all. This Rose was a changeling from the Dream, left in the cradle in place of the true Rose, the human child who’d perished before she truly lived.
22
In the silent, lonely wake of Moriah’s departure, with the unsettling story of the witch Gornicka rattling around her head, Thorn contemplated going back inside the cottage.Only one of them lived.Moriah’s words echoed still. Was that how it had to be with Rose and her? Could only one of them survive?
Certainly, only one of them could have Sebastien. And he’d sent her a forget-me-not. She had to know now if they had a future or if she needed to reconcile her heart to being forever broken.
Well, if she couldn’t walk the Dream, she could still communicate with Sebastien. There was more than one way to navigate the Dream, wasn’t there? Rose had mentioned it: finding dreamers.
With her finger on the gem and Sebastien’s bright essence, Thorn searched the Dream, seeking his dreaming mind. She found him, not exactly easily, but quickly enough that she knew it was meant to be. He bloomed in her mind with all his familiar light, warm and beloved.
