Page 111 of The Court of Venus

“Bianca’s plan does not involve you harming a Guildford at all. And when we have disgraced them, you will join us and live wherever you wish. You can take the Guildford seat of Foxhall as your own. Or we can find you someone who already has sons, someone who would take a magician for a wife. Ah. That got your attention.” He leaned forward, startled by the subtle flush in her cheeks. “Marriage? Foxhall?” He studied her. “Marriage,” he breathed. “Oh, you hope for it. You’ve surprised me, Mars.”

I wasn’t surprised at all—not since I’d seen her flinch from Charles Guildford. She had told us she was forged in cruelty; of course she longed for softness.

“And you.” Roland spun toward Oliver. “You’ve won this tournament. You may have a home at court for now, but I am proof that the king’s loyalty does not endure. We offer you revenge against the one who killed Ambrose, Fulke Roet. If you help us, you can have an ambassadorship to any nation you wish—Lionesse, Carmin, Estellan, take your pick, though I can see you long for the Estellan countryside.” He added a generous income to further tempt him.

Oliver straightened in his seat and twirled a quill through his fingers, while Miranda toyed with her ring. Her thumb stroking the griffin stamped in iron.

She suddenly scowled. “You offer us the world, yet you own nothing.”

“You forget who I am,” I said.

“And who is that?” Miranda taunted.

“Prospero’s daughter.”

At his name, a strike of fear. “So, a devious little snake—and a dead man?” Miranda said. “The two of you were chosen to apprentice to him, and you must think yourselves so special. Do you think that earns you favor with me? Do you know where I grew up? Polishing Guildford silver, and before that, in a crumbling village. When I was born, a midwife told my father I was the spawn of a demon, that my mother had lain with the devil instead of him and that was why my eyes were red. He murdered my mother for it, then turned the blade on himself. I was left in the cold forest to die. A local soothsayer who knew the planets saw what I was and took me in. But she did not love me. She saw my value alone. She tried her best to teach me rudimentary Mars magic, waited until I had my first blood, and sent me to the Guildfords, our local lords. I was never invited to court.” A twist of her mouth. “I taught myself magic. Alone. Experimenting on my own body, and then later, the cruel children Tom Guildford ordered me to punish.”

The scars on her hands, her face. They were self-inflicted. At the Tomb, Roland had suggested as much. “You do not have to be alone,” I said softly. “You can join us.”

“Why not twist my desire?” She pointed at Roland with her chin. “Why not make me your scampering dog, panting my tongue and following you wherever you go?”

“Because I choose not to,” Roland said simply.

She muttered something spiteful under her breath. Only Oliver heard it. “We are all capable of terrible things,” he told her. “You could make us attack one another, here at this table, couldn’t you?” He pointed to me. “She could make us all descend into madness. I could bind you to a family that hurts you.”

Roland studied him for several moments. “You have a way with words,” he said, and to my surprise, Oliver flushed. “Now, if we’re finished arguing, Bianca will tell you both what she has in mind.”

Miranda snorted, drawing a line between the two of us, though she directed her question at me. “Why are you working for him, truly?”

“Are you daft?” asked Oliver.

“Because he has a pretty face?” Her eyes probed mine.

“Oh, I assure you, I’m much more than a pretty face.” Roland smirked. “That’s the least of her reasons for supporting me.”

He stifled a laugh as I stabbed my nails into his knuckles.

“Miranda, you are essential to this plan,” I insisted. “I need you. We both do.”

“You need me? After all we did to each other in the tournament? At the Tomb?”

Ah. No one had ever needed her before. And no one had ever forgiven her.

“I believe you can be more than Charles Guildford’s sword arm. Prospero wrote something about Mars that I remember well. He said, ‘Of all the planets, Mars is the most misunderstood. For it is a planet of action, and we must all be called to act in the face of injustice or neglect. A king raises his sword high, and the army is undaunted. A healer raises her knife to cut off rotted flesh and starve infection. A rebel raises his fist, anger spurring his cause.’”

She studied me carefully, biting her cheek as she came to a decision.

Far above, our ruling planets must have spun in wonder. Our heads bent together. The candles melted down to stubs. The Moon unleashed its light over the map of Redhall I laid out before them.

Twenty-Six

The first known magician, Oberon, ruled beside his king with a steady, guiding hand. When the Sun shone through Oberon’s eyes, the king knew truth.

—THOMAS FEYDON, A HISTORY OF MAGIC IN ALVION

The day before the Final Breath, a light rain fell. The stone castle gleamed, adorned from every angle.

Roland and I entered Redhall through the gatehouse, loaded in carts and disguised as servants, our features constructed from scratch. As I held both of our transformations at once, I felt that same sense of expansion as I had in the chapel, as if the lungs of my magic could take deeper, more luxurious breaths.