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Then I saw her buttons.
Arceneaux’s robe was decorated with four matching buttons, made of shining white gold, in the shape of a flower.
“Lilies,” I said.
“What?” she asked flatly.
“Lilies.” I looked up at her, into her eyes. “Your name was supposed to be Lily.”
“Shut your mouth,” she warned. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“That is what Lyall meant when he said this was your coronation. You were the daughter of a king.”
“Daughter of a king and a queen. But what did it matter? They gave me away. Cast me aside.”
“Iresine was not your mother,” I stated surely, feeling the sweetness and bitterness of it both at once, like one of her herbal remedies. “Your true mother was Onal. She made those buttons for you. She was going to name you Lily.”
Arceneaux was shaking. “Shut up.”
“She wanted you. She wanted you so badly.”
“No.”
“But they took you from her. She never got a chance to say goodbye.”
“No!” Arceneaux was growing shrill.
“They tried to make her believe she was crazy, that you didn’t exist, but she knew better . . . She tried to track you down, but she found the carriage crashed. Burned to nothing. She thought you were dead.”
“That woman could never be my mother. No. You’re a liar.”
“She died believing that you never lived past the day you were stolen from her.” I went quiet. “She is one of the best women I have ever known. It is an honor to be her granddaughter. You have been given an honor to know that she was your mother.”
She bared her teeth. “I am the chosen vessel for the Empyrea. I have no mother. I will be no crone. The Empyrea will take my body and then I will be the Maid forever as she rules over the world for all time.”
“Take your body, and leave no room for you? You are about to erase yourself. Your consciousness, the thing that makes you you, will be gone. There will be no Isobel Arceneaux. There will be no Lily. There will be only Her.” I leaned in closer, letting her feel the heat of my animosity. “And She is not the Empyrea. It is not the goddess of the stars that you serve; it never was. It’s the goddess of the underworld. You’re about to let yourself be taken over by the Malefica.”
“You can call her by whatever name you choose,” she said. “I know the goddess I serve.”
“Your hands,” I said. “You tried to hold her spirit once already, didn’t you? On the night of the black moon, when Toris killed a city to set her free—”
“Toris failed too,” she said. “I will not. Lyall figured it out. I’ve already marked myself with the seal. She’ll come to me, and I will give myself to her completely. I will be a queen. I will be a goddess.”
“You will be nothing,” I spat. “You will be gone. Erased. Forgotten forever.” Just an inch or two more, and I could lunge for Zan.
I wouldn’t get the chance. Arceneaux’s knife slid into my belly on the left side, in and out.
Stunned, I stared down at the wound, then grabbed her wrist with one hand while covering my torso with the other. The sigil she’d carved into the skin of her own arm was hot to the touch. Burning, even.
Zan, so close and yet now so impossibly far, was faltering. The Malefica’s arrival in the material plane was very close at hand.
Arceneaux dropped her knife. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she said in disgust. “You just made me so angry. But I can’t let you die. He has to die, not you. I have to finish what Toris started.”
I stumbled backwards against the altar. Pain made pinpricks of light dart across my sight, but her words struck me harder than her knife.
He has to die, not you.
One or the other.
