“Why don’t you find something to do with all that rage?”
He’d walked into the Hall, collected the thimble of blood from Jaenelle Saetien, collected the blood from Delora and the other “guests” before delivering all the girls as his Queen had commanded. He hadn’t discussed anything with Surreal, hadn’t talked to anyone. What was he supposed to say? That he’d allowed the Queen who was his life to take this burden because he didn’t have the balls to do what needed to be done?
The headache seemed a fitting punishment, but if he damaged himself and was no longer fit to serve his Queen . . .
“Why don’t you find something to do with all that rage?”
What was he supposed to do? What compensation could he offer the Queens until they saw proof that the debts had been paid?
When the healing brew had steeped for the proper amount of time, he set the tray aside and settled in the chair behind the desk. Then he looked at Holt. “Let’s start with the letters from the Queens.”
Surreal looked at the tray and wondered when Mrs. Beale would relinquish her anger. Not that the food wasn’t good, but there weren’t any of the extras that had been included with her own meal.
The Queens were enraged—and they had a right to be. But until she could get Sadi to sit down and explain things to his second-in-command, she couldn’t do anything that might interfere with whatever he had set in motion. She didn’t doubt for a minute that he had set something in motion.
She released the Gray lock on Jaenelle Saetien’s bedroom door and walked in. “Listen, sugar, you can piss and moan all you want about the meal but . . .”
She dropped the tray and rushed across the room to where Jaenelle Saetien lay on the floor. The girl was breathing and her heart beat, but there was a chilling blankness in those gold eyes.
Surreal reached for the girl’s mind—and found that same terrible blankness.
*Beale!* she called. *Beale! We need the Healer and the Black Widow here right now.*
“Hang on,” she whispered as she picked up the girl and laid her on the bed. She heard someone running moments before Beale appeared at the door.
“They’re on their way,” he said. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Surreal pulled off Jaenelle Saetien’s shoes and covered the girl with a quilt. “But we may need the Black Widow more than we need the Healer.”
Jaenelle Saetien opened her eyes and studied the plain ceiling. She pushed herself into a sitting position and looked around.
A room with a narrow bed that had leather straps at the top and bottom of the frame. The door was strange, with its knob set up high, as if only adults could reach it.
She remembered feeling intensely cold for a moment, and then . . . Nothing. Where was she?
Then a midnight, cavernous, ancient, raging voice that held a whisper of madness seemed to rise out of the floor and the walls, out of the air that suddenly burned her lungs, out of her very blood and bones. And that sepulchral voice whispered, *Briarwood is the pretty poison. There is no cure for Briarwood.*
FORTY-FOUR
Have to get out of here. Have to get out.
Jaenelle Saetien reached for the knob set high on the door. Her fingers closed over it, turned it.
When she tried to use Craft to open the door, nothing happened. Locked? No. Stuck. As if no one had been here for a long time and the knob had rusted.
She tried again, felt some give. She pulled on the door. Pulled and pulled, desperate to get out of that room and find her father or . . . someone. The door’s swollen wood resisted, then gave way just a little, then a little more. She pulled and pulled until she could squeeze through the opening.
Free of that horrid room, she found herself in a short, empty corridor. Nowhere to go behind her, so she moved toward the other end of the corridor, step by cautious step. A left-hand turn . . . and another door.
*To each is given what she gave,* the midnight voice said.
“Who are you?” Jaenelle Saetien shouted. “What do you want?”
Was there something familiar about that voice?
*Each of you must pay the debt you owe to those who were harmed by the coven of malice. Their pain will become your pain. What they experienced, you will experience. Everything that came from you will come back to you. You have seventy-two hours to find the way out and pay your debt. The sand is running in the glass. If you don’t leave before the last grain falls, the link between your body and your Self will be gone. Your body will die, and your Self will stay here for as long as it takes for your power to fade.*
Find the way out. Yes!
She shaped a Green shield around herself, protection against whatever was behind that door. At least the knob was properly positioned. For a moment, it felt insubstantial. Then she felt the smooth metal. She turned the knob and walked into the room, prepared for anything.
Except a girl swinging from a noose tied to a tree’s perfect branch. Blood stained the girl’s cheeks from the empty eye sockets down to her chin. Blood stained the dress.
Jaenelle Saetien whirled around to run away, to escape.
The door was gone.
“You don’t get out until you stand witness or a tally is made of the debt you owe to whoever is in the room,” a voice said.
She spun around. Another girl—a girl who hadn’t been in the room a moment ago—stood almost within reach. She wore a blood-soaked dress, and her throat was slit.
Jaenelle Saetien put her hands over her eyes. She wouldn’t look. She wouldn’t.
“Are you only brave when you’re hurting someone else? Don’t have enough spine to look at what was done, to look at what you and your friends wanted to do?”
She dropped her hands and bared her teeth. “This isn’t what my friends wanted to do!”
The girl laughed. “The sand is running in the glass. There are a lot of rooms between you and the way out. Or you can stay here with Marjane and become another of Briarwood’s ghosts. Or memories, if you prefer. We’ve been gone a long time, but she remembers us. She can tell you the names of all the ones who died in this place.”
“Who is she?”
The girl just smiled.
Feeling sick, Jaenelle Saetien looked at the girl hanging from the tree. Marjane. “Why did she end up that way?”
“She told an uncle she couldn’t stand the sight of him, so they smeared honey on her eyes and hung her there for the crows.” The girl tipped her head, considering. “Do you know what an uncle is?”
“My father’s brother. A close relation.”
“Not here. In Briarwood, an uncle is a man who likes to play with little girls. Sometimes boys, but mostly girls. Rape is more fun when a girl is too young to fight back. Or when they’re given ‘medicine’ that makes them unable to think clearly enough to get away. You helped make a girl sick with that kind of medicine.”
“I didn’t!”
The girl shrugged. “Then you’ll have nothing to fear when you reach that room.”
She felt queasy. “What’s your name?”
“My name is Rose. I wouldn’t lick an uncle’s lollipop so . . .” She drew a finger across her throat.
Jaenelle Saetien wasn’t sure what the girl meant about the lollipop, but she wasn’t going to ask.
“There’s the door,” Rose said. “Stay or go?”
“What’s in that room?”
“Don’t know. This is your debt to pay.”
A last look at Marjane, then Jaenelle Saetien opened the next door.