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Bryony turned. “He was buying time.”

“Yes. I let him.”

Adrian kept me waiting with the hope I already had.

“Because you believed him?”

“Because he told me what I wanted to hear. I knew he wanted power. I didn’t know he’d already put his blood into the Crown, and I didn’t look hard enough because I wanted Cecily alive.”

Her anger didn’t leave her face. Forgiveness offered too quickly would only become another lie between us.

“Then the chapel happened,” she said.

“Yes. You know the rest until Cecily died.”

“Adrian said Edith needed every chain in the court to hold you. Why?”

I rose, though I kept the chair between us. Sitting still made the memory harder to contain.

“I’d swallowed some of Cecily’s blood when I killed her. I was grieving, furious and close to blood frenzy. Then Adrian told Edith I’d murdered Cecily for the Crown.”

“You attacked him.”

“I tried to tear his heart out. The guards got in my way.”

I remembered their hands on my arms and the fear on faces I’d known for decades. They’d watched me kill their queen, then seen me turn on the regent accusing me of murder.

“How badly did you hurt them?”

“Eighteen were injured. I broke the first restraints Edith closed around me and kept going. She used the throat chain next. I dragged two guards across the chapel with it.”

Bryony glanced at the red marks under the skin of my wrists. “Did you kill anyone after Cecily?”

“No. Edith stopped me. I would’ve killed Adrian if she hadn’t.”

Bryony didn’t look relieved.

“Do you regret that part?”

“I regret hurting the guards. I regret making Edith fight me while Cecily was dead at my feet. I don’t regret wanting Adrian dead.”

“Good.”

The sharp answer almost pulled a laugh from me. It died when Bryony continued.

“Why did Edith leave you chained after you calmed down?”

“I told her the truth. All of it. She believed Adrian caused the Crown’s corruption, but she also knew I’d hidden Cecily’s first killing and helped keep her in power. Nine vampires and four humans were dead because I chose my friend over the court.”

Edith had listened beside the closed throne-room doors without shouting or calling me a liar. Her disappointment had been worse.

“Adrian killed them too.”

“He caused it. I gave him eight months to do more damage.”

Bryony crossed the space between us. She stopped on the other side of the chair.

“Did Edith sentence you to die?”