Chapter 4

Rosabel La Rouge

Madeline walked in first, head high, shoulders straight, as confident in her every step as ever while her heels tried to dig holes on the black and white marble floor. My body was frozen right there by the door, and I kept my attention on her, on her grey hair, the red of her suit, the shape of her that I knew in my sleep.

The guard, the same one who’d taken me to the City of Games, didn’t touch me now. He simply leaned closer and whispered in my ear, “ Move .”

I didn’t want to. My every instinct was alive and screaming, and I knew that I wasn’t going to like whatever I found in that room. But even so, I forced my legs to carry me forward because I also knew there was no escaping this. There was no way I could disappear or run away or do anything at all except get this over with. The sooner I did that, the sooner I’d be free.

Or…you know, dead.

Not going to lie, I was a bit curious. The Council was quite the mystery to the world. They were very secretive, so it did make sense that nobody was allowed to know where they held their meetings. Whatever building we were in right now, I had no doubt in my mind that Madeline was going to knock me out cold again to take me back to the mansion because she has no patience for blindfolds.

But as soon as I stepped into the chambers of the Council, all my other thoughts faded away.

It was a big room, bigger than I expected, the ceiling possibly twice as tall as in the hallway, with intricate designs on every little inch in all the main colors, as well as golden pieces around the dome-like shape that gave it an even richer feel. There were no chairs, no seats, no tables other than the ones across from us, in front of the tallest, biggest windows I’d ever seen in my life, which showed nothing but darkness beyond them. A darkness that had the hair on my forearms standing at attention because it looked exactly like the darkness of the sky while I’d been in the Iris Roe.

Breathe, Rora, I reminded myself when my eyes landed on the faces of the people sitting behind those large tables, in throne-like chairs that were three heads taller than them, perfectly carved wood decorated with colors and silver and gold. The men and women looking down at us gave no expression whatsoever.

Their tables and chairs stood on a fifty-inch platform that began somewhere close to the middle of the room. Three large chandeliers hung on the ceiling, bright enough that I saw everything in detail. The floor was made out of swirling patters of black and white, and the echo of my boots against it the closer to Madeline I got sounded so strange to my ears.

I wasn’t quite feeling like myself.

She’d stopped in the middle of the room, facing the platform on which sat the Council, and when I stopped just a step behind her, the door closed with a light click.

A long breath escaped me, as if my body knew that it was a done deal now. There was nowhere to go, and unless these people deemed me worthy of life, I was never walking out of this place again. Not on my own feet, at least.

“Thank you for having us, Council,” Madeline said, her voice strong, unwavering. The echo of it filled my ears, and I urged myself to focus, to see the faces of the people who had my life in their hands.

“You’ve requested to see my granddaughter, Rosabel La Rouge,” Madeline continued. “She is honored to be in your presence.”

My grandmother stepped to the side and waved a manicured hand toward me just slightly.

I forgot what it’s like to breathe all over again as I met the eyes of the woman in the middle of the six people sitting in front of us. Six members of the Council who’d requested to see me, apparently.

A bad feeling settled over my shoulders, wrapped around me like a damn coat. These men and women sat up there in their fancy chairs like they thought themselves kings and queens—but they were much more powerful than that.

Then the woman in the middle spoke.

“Thank you for bringing her in, in such short notice, Madeline,” she said, and her voice was just as sharp as my grandmother’s, those big blue eyes just as attentive. They all wore black robes over their clothes, with sleeves that extended over their knuckles as they held their hands over the table, all of them in the same way. But the colors of their chairs gave away which coven they belonged to, and this woman here was Whitefire.

She was possibly my grandmother’s age, silver hair lighter, almost completely white, longer and done in waves that fell in front of her shoulders. To her right was a man with a round face and not a single hair on his shiny head, with dark eyes and thin lips pressed tightly as he looked at me, analyzed me and judged me openly. The color of his chair said he was Bluefire.

“Always a pleasure,” Madeline said with a deep nod of her head, something I’d never seen her do before. People nodded and curtsied to her, not the other way around.

But this was the Council.

Then the man to the left of the Bluefire guy spoke. “I believe all of us would like to know how your granddaughter managed to sneak into the Iris Roe, Madeline—and win, considering her… status .”

My status being Mud , the guy meant. He was younger than the bald one to his side, the color of his chair black. He had a full head of hair, too, almost as dark as Taland’s, and his eyes were the same, except his were also full of malice. He looked pure evil, and it freaked me the hell out. That’s why I quickly looked away before Madeline answered.

“She paid people to smuggle her in.”

By that point I didn’t have it in me to be surprised anymore—I just listened to her lying to the Council through her teeth.

“She has plenty of money at her disposal, passed onto her by her parents, and she used a good amount to pay staff members at the playground to let her through illegally.”

I looked at the back of Madeline’s head. My goddess, she really was an impeccable liar. I was almost impressed.

“And why would she do that, knowing what she is?” This from the woman sitting on the right of the Whitefire. Her skin was dark, her hair more salt than pepper, long and curly and half tied in a bun atop her head. Her eyes were a brown so light they looked as orange as mine had in the mirror. The color of her chair said she was Redfire.

Madeline threw a quick look back at me. “Because she hoped to cleanse her color and become Iridian again.”

I was never not Iridian, said the voice in my head, but of course, I bit my tongue. Not just because it was my instinct to do so—Madeline was here and these people oozed enough magical power to make anyone shut their mouths—but because I could be wrong. We were always taught that the Mud are not Iridian. Who was I to claim I was when I’d felt how much my magic had changed, how inaccessible it had become?

“And she actually did it.” This from the last guy to my left, one possibly older than all the rest, yet his dark eyes were much more alert as they took me in.

This man wore black, and his chair was made of only gold and silver and his thinning hair was identical to Madeline’s in color and he was Mud.

It wasn’t just the lack of color on his chair that gave it away—it was a feeling deep inside my bones. It was a voice in my head that whispered it to me.

The rumors were true. There was a Mud member in the Council.

And that shocked me more than anything else so far—much more than Madeline’s effortless lying.

“That remains to be determined,” said the woman sitting between him and the Redfire. Her chair was as green as her eyes, and her hair was dyed a rich copper. The contrast to her pale skin was almost scary, but she somehow pulled it off. “Speak, Rosabel La Rouge. Is what your grandmother says true? Did you pay your way into the Iris Roe?”

A second of silence. I held onto the air in my lungs, my face instinctively passive, like I wasn’t bothered in the least, like I felt nothing at all. In reality, I was drowning in emotions, barely keeping my head above the surface.

I waited a second more.

Madeline turned her head to the side just slightly, eyes to the floor, but I knew that look. I knew what it meant.

“Yes.”

My voice sounded so strange. Maybe it was the tall ceiling of the room or maybe my fear—but it sounded like I wasn’t me at all.

The Council members looked at one another.

“How much money did you pay?” asked the Bluefire, his lips barely moving.

Now that neither of them wanted me to know what they were feeling, their faces had become neutral masks, too.

“Ten thousand dollars,” I said because that would be a reasonable price to pay to be smuggled into a deadly game, I thought.

“Whom did you pay it to?”

A lump the size of a small ball in my throat. “I didn’t ask for their names.”

Shit, shit, shit. My mind was chaotic—so many things crossing it at the same time.

“And who arranged for your meeting?”

It felt like I’d eaten rocks for lunch. “I…” Again and again I had to remind myself, breathe, Rora, breathe.

I closed my eyes, gathered my thoughts, and realized that if I screwed this up, I was really going to die in this very room. And even if I didn’t, Madeline was going to make sure I died just as soon as we walked out.

Knowing that certainly made the whole thing easier.

“A man my team and I brought in a few weeks ago. A dealer we caught in the City of Games. He said he knew people. He told me where to find the backdoor of the playground for a thousand dollars.” The lie flowed easily. I imagined the whole thing as if it were true in my head, and it was easy enough to spill it all out.

They could, of course, force the truth out of me if they wanted. Truth spells were forbidden because they didn’t always work. One could do a lot of damage with them, not to mention they were fourth-degree spells that required a lot of strength and casting them wrong could lead to altering the brainwaves of a person forever, but the IDD reserved the right to use them when it saw fit. Of course, considering this was the actual Council, I doubted they’d need permission.

And I doubted they would fail at performing it exactly as it should be performed.

The Council. I’m standing in front of the Iridian Council, a voice in my head whispered, but I ignored it. Right now, I needed my focus.

“I’m not saying that I believe you, girl,” said the Redfire woman, her fiery eyes boring into me. I was pretty sure that if we were closer, she could see right into my soul if she tried. “But you are Madeline’s granddaughter.” Goddess, I’m going to throw up .

“Which is why we will not question your story,” the Greenfire said, pointy chin raised as she looked down at me.

“And why we will allow you to keep your title as the winner of the Iris Roe, to claim your prize of five-million dollars,” the Blackfire guy said, and the way his lips stretched and stretched into an awful, wicked smile made goose bumps rise on my forearms.

Oh, no, I am not going to like this at all, I thought, even before the Bluefire said, “ If— and only if—you can prove to us that you really did drain the Rainbow. That it worked as it should. That it made you a Redfire again.”

My knees shook. Sweat beads lined my forehead, made my palms wet, made my shirt stick to my back. I found that comforting while I stood there, in front of possibly the most powerful people in the world, and I lied to their faces.

What the hell is she thinking?!

What the fuck was Madeline thinking, bringing me here, making me lie to them like this?

The truth was simple: she didn’t care. If I got caught, I’d die—she had no love for me, we all knew that by now. And she also knew that if I tried to tell these people the truth, that she had taken me to the Roe, had smuggled me in, and her guards had paid those two men to let me through and put the chip in my wrist—the Council would never believe it. Never in a billion years. They respected her enough and they just proved it— you are Madeline’s granddaughter.

That was the only reason why I wasn’t dead yet.

“Well, Rosabel?” said the Mud councilman, the only one of them who didn’t seem to hate me with all his being so far. “Did it work? Did you get your magic back?”

What the hell was the right answer? I had no idea what to tell him, and Madeline wasn’t even turning her head to me to tell me what to say. She wasn’t answering for me, either.

I was on my own.

“I…I don’t know.” This, I couldn’t lie about.

“You haven’t tried?” asked the Whitefire in the middle.

“I haven’t allowed her to without meeting the Council first,” Madeline finally spoke. “She can try in front of all of us.”

At that, she stepped to the side, then raised her hand toward me. Opened her fist.

My heart skipped a beat. My father’s ring with the colorful obsidian in the middle was right in the middle of her palm. My anchor.

That was my anchor.

As if possessed by someone else, I reached out a shaking hand to grab it before anyone said that I could. My father’s ring, which I’d made into my anchor with my own magic the day I turned eighteen. Which I was going to keep as my anchor forever.

I thought I’d lost it in that catfairie forest. I thought it fell off me because it was too big for my fingers, and I thought the IDD never found it—that’s why they didn’t return it to me.

But I should have known that they would and that Madeline would have it. I should have known she’d save it—of course she would.

“First, she must know what will happen, don’t you think? It’s only fair,” said the Blackfire, still grinning from his chair, looking at his colleagues now.

“Not really,” said the Greenfire, but the Whitefire nodded, intertwining her fingers together over the tabletop.

“She should, she should. There is a reason why we do not allow the Mud to be exposed to charges of magic, girl,” she told me—something I knew well. They’d refused to even do a healing spell on me when I needed it the most.

“A very good reason, which is that your magic, your whole person, could become sick,” the Bluefire guy said.

“Your magic, your whole person could become…” the Redfire continued, a grey brow raised as she looked down at me, and I could have sworn that she was trying to fight off a smile. “ Different. ”

I don’t know why that one word made my ears ring and made the view in front of me swim. Different, she said—but the tone of voice, the look in those strange eyes, that smile she wanted me to see that she was fighting…

“Different how?” I asked, surprised to find that I still had a voice to speak with, considering how I felt inside.

“Your magic could become very dangerous,” said the Mud. “Uncontrollable. Unpredictable.” He didn’t blink at all for a beat. “Quite deadly, I’m afraid.”

“Not only to you, girl, but to those around you. It could have fatal consequences, that magic,” said the Redfire.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.” Wasn’t a Mud supposed to have no magic to use? Whatever I’d been left with that week I was Mud, it couldn’t be accessed. It wasn’t dangerous or fatal in the least because I couldn’t use it at all, hardly even felt it.

“All you need to know is that you received a lot more than what we consider basic charges of magic when you drained the Rainbow. That is why we will be testing what it has done to you and your magic with a simple spell,” said the Whitefire.

She stood up. The rest remained seated.

“Put on your anchor,” she ordered as she continued to walk to her left, all around the large table. My eyes refused to look away from her, and I finally saw the icy white dress she had on underneath her black robe, just the edges of it.

“Do as you’re told, Rosabel,” said Madeline in a whisper, and my hands moved on their own. I put my father’s ring on the middle finger of my left hand, just like always.

And suddenly I felt complete. Like, until now, a part of me had been missing and I hadn’t even known what, but now I did. Now that I felt the cool metal of the ring around my finger, I felt whole.

And the magic under my skin reacted.

I still couldn’t tell if it was exactly the same as it had been, partly because it felt like I’d gone years without it, and partly because I didn’t think I ever paid attention to how magic felt before. It was always there, just a part of me—like a limb—and I never cared much to analyze how it felt to the rest of me, and now I was trying too hard to pick it apart.

So, I had no idea if whatever test they were going to give me now would work. I had no idea if this magic that was inside me, rushing with the blood in my veins, recognizing the anchor as its gate , so to speak, would do what these people wanted it to do.

All that effort. All that pain and that suffering. All that fear and that panic in the Iris Roe, only to win, and then to stand here in front of these people… must be a dream.

Then the Whitefire council member floated in the air, right off the edge of the platform where their table was and onto the marble floor barely seven feet away from me.

Yes, yes, definitely a dream.

People didn’t float, did they? Was there even such magic to make you float? Because this woman just did, and she moved her lips as she chanted, which meant— if this wasn’t a dream—that there really was a spell for it, and she’d executed it without breaking a sweat.

“A simple spell,” she continued and moved both hands behind her—I thought to fold them like Madeline sometimes did.

Except she then brought them in front of her again, and in her right one was a sword. An actual sword, the shiny blade as long as my arm, and the handle made out of bones. Pieces of bones glued together, no doubt by magic.

“That’s all we require. Perform a simple spell, girl.”

The woman kept her sword down, resting against her leg, the tip of it touching the floor.

I turned to Madeline because I was scared and confused and absolutely refusing to believe that any of this was even real, and I said, “ Grandmother. ”

As if I were asking her for help.

As if I had forgotten who she was.

As if, for a moment there, I really thought she might have something to say to this Whitefire woman, get her to back off with her strange sword and leave me alone.

Silly, silly Rora, I thought, but I got myself back together again quickly.

Madeline simply repeated, “ Do as you’re told. ”

What she didn’t say out loud was, don’t embarrass me, but I read those three words in her eyes just fine.

“So, you’re just…” I turned to the others, to the Mud, to the Whitefire holding that sword still, so calmly. She was slightly shorter than me, but she somehow managed to look down at me anyway, like she was still standing over that platform. “You’re just…you’re just going to kill me if I can’t do a spell?”

Was that what they were saying? Because that’s what I understood.

“Please, proceed,” said the Whitefire, and I continued to look at her, blink and wait and expect her to start laughing, to say, hey, no, of course not, just kidding! I’m not going to cut your head off with this sword—it’s a joke! You should see your face! So funny…

Except nobody laughed. Nobody made a single sound, only continued to watch me. Continued to wait.

This woman was really going to kill me with a fucking sword if I couldn’t do a spell, and nobody was going to stop her.

Get it together, I told myself in my head, and my instincts were already fired up. I’d won the Iris Roe, for fuck’s sake. I’d won a game of magic without magic.

Granted, I’d done it with Taland by my side, but I’d still done it.

Better yet—now, when it felt the threat nearby, my magic jumped at the opportunity. It heated up, prepared to unleash into the world like it used to. It was right there, and even though some part of me insisted that it was different, that it wasn’t how my magic was supposed to feel at all, I ignored it. Right now this was what I had and I was going to do the best I could with it. These people were not going to kill me before I found Taland. Before I knew that he was okay. Before I made sure that I hadn’t cost him everything once more.

My heartbeat calmed down. I raised a hand, even though it was shaking.

“Which spell?” I said, and I was surprised again to find that I sounded… not freaked out.

That’s because I wasn’t, not anymore.

“A simple one—take your pick. The spell itself isn’t important,” the Whitefire said.

I looked at her. Then why the hell are you making me do a fucking spell?!

“What is?”

She raised a brow as if she just became irritated. “Your magic.”

“All we need to see is your magic. Please proceed, Rosabel,” said the Mud councilman. Yes, he was definitely the only one in this room who didn’t hate me. Who was simply curious to see if my head would remain on my shoulders.

I don’t understand anything, I wanted to say, but bit my tongue. Every instinct in my body wanted me to turn and run and never look back, figure out a way to disappear into thin air if I had to—just get the hell away from these people.

But I knew I couldn’t. The only way out of here was if they actually let me go.

The words of the most basic spell I knew were at the tip of my tongue. I raised my left hand, and I felt the heat of the ring around my finger as if it wanted to comfort me. Four Iridian words left my lips in a whisper, and something inside me snapped.

Wrong.

In that moment I knew for a fact that my magic was not at all what it used to be. Because I remembered with clarity how it had responded to my call before, and this wasn’t it. This was far, far from normal.

It was thick, like oil moving inside me, not water. It was heavy, like falling rocks instead of floating feathers. It was intense, like bright sun rays instead of slivers of moonlight.

Wrong, wrong, wrong!

My eyes closed on instinct. I knew I was going to die, and maybe I’d spent all my will to fight while in the Roe, or maybe I knew for a fact that there was no winning here because I wasn’t searching for alternatives. I wasn’t regretful that I didn’t have weapons on me.

All I cared about was that I was going to die without seeing Taland, without making sure that he was okay.

Then my magic sprung to life.

It slipped out of my skin, and it was painful . It took so much out of me, so suddenly, like that sword of the Whitefire woman had cut right through me.

I screamed, and the sound of it surprised me, too. I screamed because of the sharp pain and my eyes opened and I saw the ball of light burning in the middle of my palm, while red flames danced around it.

Red flames, not orange like my magic.

Red flames that were fading away by the second together with the pain, while the light I’d called forth with that spell remained, bright. Brighter than any light I’d ever made before. More powerful.

My magic is not my magic anymore.

Tears in my eyes. I looked up at the Whitefire woman, sure she’d be coming to kill me now because that magic was not my magic. It was different, all right—so different. And even though it recognized my ring as my anchor, and even though the spell brought forth light just like it was supposed to, those flames were not my magic.

And the Council members had seen it. They had all seen it with their own eyes, and most of them—Mud and Greenfire and Blackfire—had stood up, too, to see better. Their eyes were on my hand, my light.

There was no denying it at this point. Now, I died.

Except…

The Whitefire woman hadn’t moved yet. Her sword was still resting against her leg, the tip of it touching the marble of the floor. She hadn’t raised it.

“That’s enough.”

The words fell from her lips, but it took a good couple of seconds for them to make sense to me.

That’s enough , she said instead of killing me. Just that’s enough.

I closed my fist and took my magic back, the magic that wasn’t mine at all. That’s what it felt like—someone else’s magic. Different and heavy and way too intense, and when I pulled it under my skin, it hurt again. It hurt like I was being burned by actual fire for a second, and then it was gone.

This time, though, I was prepared for it, so I didn’t scream. This time, I just raised my chin and held the woman’s blue eyes and I waited for her to move.

“ It worked. ”

This from the Mud councilman, who was already moving around his table, and he didn’t float off the platform like his colleague. He just jumped onto the marble floor and came closer, looking at me with a dumbfounded smile on his face.

“It worked.”

It didn’t, I wanted to say. My magic is not red; it’s orange. It didn’t work.

Why is my magic red—why?!

I bit my tongue until the taste of my blood filled my mouth.

“It did, apparently,” said the Whitefire with a sigh, and she moved her hands to her back again, just like before. When she stepped closer to me, her sword was gone.

The sword that was going to cut my head off was gone.

“Congratulations, I suppose. Your magic has been restored to its previous state,” she told me, and the rest of the council members nodded.

“It is powerful, too,” the Redfire said, and now she didn’t look at me like she hated me. No—she looked at me like she was impressed. “Well done, girl.”

Was she serious?

It is not the same magic!

“By Iris, I really didn’t think it possible,” said the Mud who was in front of me now. “Congratulations, my dear girl. You won the Iris Roe, and you got your magic back. Nobody has ever done that before. Nobody .”

So many thoughts in my head. So many words at the tip of my bleeding tongue.

“Thank you,” were the ones that I allowed to come out. Not something’s wrong. Not this isn’t my magic. Not it looks and feels and weighs different—it’s not my magic!

Just thank you .

“Tell me, how does it feel?” the man asked, his brown eyes lighter than they’d seemed from a distance. Warmer.

Different-different-different. “The same.”

“Did you have trouble calling for it? Why did you scream?”

Because it was different. Because it hurt. “No trouble. I screamed because I was surprised. I didn’t expect it to come out of me at all.”

My, my, Rora… a voice in my head whispered, a voice that sounded an awful lot like an impressed Madeline.

My grandmother, who was standing there beside me with her hands folded in front of her and her eyes on me. No expression on her face. She didn’t look like she hated or loved me or felt anything at all to find that my magic had returned to me. That I wouldn’t have to die, after all.

“Why, that’s good news,” said the Mud.

“ Secret news,” said the Redfire from where she stood in front of her chair.

“I believe it goes without saying that whatever happens in this room, stays in this room,” the Whitefire said, coming closer to the Mud, looking at me with a new light in her eyes. “We will prepare a story for you, Rosabel. You will confirm it when it is released to the public.”

What story?

“She will,” said Madeline.

The Whitefire gave a pleased nod. “You were lucky to have survived the game and to have your magic restored. We haven’t witnessed it being done before. In different circumstances, we wouldn’t have given you the chance to prove yourself, but you are who you are, so I suppose luck was on your side.”

Luck, she said.

“I can’t quite believe it, to be honest.”

The Blackfire guy had simply appeared behind the Whitefire and the Mud, when I could have sworn that he was behind the table up there on the platform a second ago.

Now he was there, analyzing me with an arched brow, his dark eyes brimming with suspicion.

“I almost want to see it again, your magic,” he said, moving around the Mud to get closer.

“We already did,” the man said. “It was right there, on her hand. Flames as red as blood.” And he was happy about it.

That’s just it—that’s not my magic, was what I thought but didn’t say.

“Exactly as they used to be.” This from Madeline.

I turned to her so fast my neck could have snapped.

“Those flames run in the family.” She raised her own hand, and red flames ignited on her skin as she whispered a couple of words—just for show.

Red flames, almost identical to the ones I’d called a minute ago.

The ones that weren’t mine , and she knew it. Mine had always been orange and she’d always told me how she hated that since the day she first saw them on my eighteenth birthday. She knew my magic was orange.

Yet now she insisted that it had always been red.

Liar, I thought.

“Show me—one more time. Show me, girl,” said the Blackfire.

“Ferid, leave her alone, won’t you? Can’t you see she’s pale?” said the Mud, but the Whitefire shrugged.

“I don’t see why not. Show us your Redfire again, Rosabel.”

It’s not mine, it’s not mine, it’s not mine— yet at the whisper of my new spell, one that created currents in the air that mimicked the wind, those red flames tore through my skin painfully and came out in the world, dancing as if they, too, were trying to prove to the Council members that they were real and they were mine and they had always been like this.

Liars, all of you…

But the Council members had no idea because the Council member had never seen my magic before.

“Lucky,” the Blackfire said, convinced now. Fully convinced. “You were very lucky, indeed. The things that Rainbow could have done to you.” A deep sigh. “I thought for sure she’d turned into a?—”

“ Ferid .”

At the sound of the Mud’s voice, the Blackfire clamped his mouth shut and looked at me like he was suddenly mortified. Like he had just said something I wasn’t supposed to hear.

Turned into what? Mud—is that what you wanted to say? I asked him with my eyes. Turned into what ?!

“You may take her away, Madeline. She can keep her title; our assistants will be in touch about the rest,” said the Whitefire, taking a step back.

My grandmother curtsied deeply, and the Mud and the Blackfire all stepped back, their eyes on me.

“Thank you, Council. We will not forget the kindness you’ve shown us here today.”

Madeline turned to me. In her eyes I saw…emotion. A lot of raw emotion, mostly pride.

And when she made for the doors, it was all I could do not to start shouting, screaming my guts out, demanding somebody tell me what the hell was happening here. Demanding they tell me why my magic was different, and what did that mean, and turned into what, Ferid? Turned into what?!

“And Madeline?” said the Redfire from her seat, her hands over the table, her chin raised as she looked down on us.

My grandmother turned.

“If this happens again, you will be responsible as much as her.”

Oh, goddess…

“Noted,” Madeline said. “Come, Rosabel.”

One last look at the Mud. I begged him with my eyes to talk to me, tell me what the hell was happening because he had to know. He was Mud, too— why hadn’t he drained the magic of the Rainbow himself? He was Mud and he was a councilman. If anybody had access to that kind of power, it would be him, and he wouldn’t even need to complete a deadly game to get to it.

So, why hadn’t he done it himself?

The thing was, I knew these people wouldn’t hesitate to kill me if they got even a hint that something was off. That my magic wasn’t what it used to be. The fact that Madeline had lied to their faces about it said as much.

And I didn’t really care about those questions haunting me right now, not close to how much I cared about Taland. About seeing him. Making sure he was okay.

So, in the end, I curtsied, too, just like Madeline had done.

“Good luck, Rosabel,” said the Mud.

I followed my grandmother out the door, praying that I never saw any of these people again.