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“Yes. Then it trapped me under the floor.”

“It likes you. Harrowmere has always had a possessive streak.”

Her mouth almost curved. Almost. Then the chain at my right wrist pulled, and the moment disappeared.

I braced before it could drag me closer to the gate. Iron cut into skin that had barely healed from the last time. Fresh blood ran over my palm.

Bryony’s torch followed it. “How long have you been here?”

“One hundred and twelve years.”

She stopped breathing for a beat.

I’d learned to measure shock by silence. Hers lasted less time than most.

“How are you still alive? Don’t say vampire. You know what I mean.”

I did. The court had kept my body from dying while Adrian made sure I never had enough strength to challenge the chains. Explaining every year of it wouldn’t help either of us.

“Harrowmere needs a living Blood King,” I said. “It repairs what the restraints damage. Adrian controls how much blood I receive, so I heal slowly and stay weak. He can’t kill me until he has what he needs from the next heir.”

Her eyes went to the old blood around the cuffs. “He needs me. Can I open the chains?”

The question sent hunger through me so fast that the nearest link jumped against the floor.

Bryony took one step back.

“Your freely offered blood might loosen them,” I said. “Don’t test it. I don’t have enough control to take a little from you and politely stop.”

“Then you’re going to be disappointed.”

“I expected to be.”

The corner of her mouth moved, but the expression disappeared when she glanced at the sealed wall behind her.

“The noise in the passage was you,” she said. “You let me think an animal was trapped.”

She was right. “The chain was mine. The rest was what happens when it tears through skin. I needed you to open the outer door before Adrian reached you. Once it opened and I smelled the blood, I told you to stay away.”

“You could’ve called out before I came down.”

“Sound travels through this court. I didn’t know who had entered or who might be listening. A chain could be dismissed as a prisoner making trouble. Your name in my mouth couldn’t.”

She weighed the answer rather than accepting it because I’d spoken calmly. “So you did lure me. At least you admit it.”

“Yes.”

“Who chained you?”

“Adrian Rook.”

The name changed her expression. Her shoulders tightened, and her wrapped hand closed around Edith’s key.

“You know him,” I said.

“I know my grandmother told me never to sign anything he gives me and never to let him put a crown on my head.”

Relief made me light-headed. Edith had managed one last defence after all.