Beatriz

When Gisella begins to stir, Beatriz straightens up, smothering a yawn. "Oh, good," Beatriz says when Gisella opens her eyes, groggy and confused. "It's been some time since I knocked someone unconscious and I was beginning to think I'd done some serious damage, which wasn't my intent. This time."

Beatriz watches with no small amount of satisfaction as Gisella remembers what happened before she passed out. Of course she tries to struggle at the scraps of fabric binding her to the dining chair. Of course she tries to scream before realizing how effective the gag Beatriz fashioned out of another bit of fabric is. When she's finally satisfied that she's properly trapped, she opens her eyes fully and looks at Beatriz with pure loathing.

Beatriz matches the loathing with a cold smile. "Perhaps now you're more amenable to a proper chat."

Gisella rolls her eyes and tries to speak again—likely something along the lines of How can I chat when you've gagged me? Though it's impossible to say for certain.

"Unfortunately, you and Nicolo ensured that I never had access to anything sharper than a butter knife," Beatriz continues, fiddling with an item in her lap and drawing Gisella's gaze there. Her face goes slightly paler when she realizes what it is. "But you were asleep for a few hours, and that was plenty of time to fashion something suitable for my purposes."

Beatriz holds up the wooden leg she's broken off one of the dining chairs. She used the hard edge of one of her silver hair combs to sharpen the already tapered shape into a fine point. It took time and a good bit of work, but Beatriz is confident that she can do some damage with it if she exerts enough pressure.

Beatriz stands, moving toward Gisella, who flinches. Her fear makes Beatriz's smile widen, and she holds up the makeshift stake, pressing the point of it to the delicate hollow of Gisella's throat.

"I want to know the full extent of your arrangement with my mother," Beatriz tells her. "And if I suspect you're lying or holding anything back, I won't hesitate to use this."

Gisella glares at Beatriz as she roughly yanks the gag from her mouth, letting it hang around Gisella's neck, just above the stake.

"Well?" Beatriz prompts.

"You know already," Gisella says, her voice calmer than it has any right to be given the circumstances. "Your mother gave me my freedom and I agreed to kill you—on Cellarian soil, with my own hands. I'd intended to do it quickly, but now I'm rethinking that."

Beatriz presses the pointed tip of the wood against Gisella's throat hard enough that she feels the skin break. Gisella lets out a quiet cry, more shocked than pained, but that's exactly what Beatriz wants. For now.

"You've lost your mind," Gisella says, struggling harder against her bonds, but when Beatriz tightens her hold on the stake, a reminder of the damage it can do, Gisella goes still.

"And you seem to believe lying to me is in your best interests," Beatriz counters. "Try again. You told me yourself there was more at play."

"I was goading you," Gisella scoffs.

"Your freedom has been promised to you already, and if you didn't believe me, you had to know Pas would keep his word," Beatriz says. "You're many things, Gigi, but I don't believe you're a poor negotiator. What else did my mother promise you?"

Gisella meets her gaze for a moment before relaxing, her shoulders slumping. She even leans into the stake's point, as if daring Beatriz to use it.

"I'd rather hear about your plan, Beatriz. What do you imagine will happen when someone discovers you've kidnapped me, that you've tied me to a chair and drawn blood? As you yourself have pointed out several times, I'm not a princess, but I don't think it will go well for you, attacking the king's sister."

"Perhaps not," Beatriz counters with a smile. "But we both know that Nicolo won't be too upset by it, will he?"

Gisella's eyes flash.

"Besides, I don't plan on staying long," Beatriz adds, gesturing to the dining table, where the remains of the candle are, the vial of stardust laid out and glittering among the chunks of wax. But where surprise and horror showed clearly on Gisella's face when she discovered her bindings and Beatriz's stake, now there is only amusement.

"Oh, that must have been difficult to get your hands on. I'm impressed, though I'd caution against celebrating too soon," Gisella says.

She's bluffing,Beatriz thinks. She has to be. But the more Beatriz stares at her, the casual way she sits, the small smile on her lips, the confidence in her eyes…

"What are you talking about?" Beatriz asks, unease worming into her gut.

Gisella's smile stretches wider, and suddenly, Beatriz feels like the other girl is the one with a weapon. "If magic could rescue you, Triz, surely you wouldn't need stardust to escape. You could have disappeared the first night you were conscious here, the moment you saw a star shine through the window. Don't tell me you didn't attempt it."

Beatriz feels ice slither through her veins.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she says, her voice coming out surprisingly level, but Gisella is having none of it.

"You think using stardust will go differently? Go on, then. Try it."

Beatriz shakes her head. "You really don't want me to know about your agreement with my mother," she says.

"Beatriz, I don't even have to tell you what I had for breakfast," Gisella says. "You made a grave miscalculation. You've showed your hand and emptied your arsenal, believing you had an escape hatch. But whether it takes a moment or an hour, soon you'll realize you're trapped here, with me, with no way to escape the consequences coming for you. I'd recommend untying me now, before you do anything even more foolish."

Dread pools in Beatriz's stomach, but she tries not to show her uncertainty. She pulls the gag back up into Gisella's mouth, stifling her protest, and then she tucks the stake between her upper arm and rib cage as she snatches the vial from the table, using both hands to open the stardust. Perhaps it is a bluff, she thinks, but something in her gut says it isn't.

With shaking hands, she empties the stardust onto the back of one hand. Since it's only stardust, she needs to keep her wish small and simple. She won't take chances asking for something too big, especially not now. Wishing to be outside the palace won't work, and she no longer feels confident about using the stardust to restore her own magic. Her best bet is on wishing for the tools to escape.

Beatriz clears her throat, a new plan coming to her. "I wish my hair were the same color as Gisella's," she says. It's a simple plan, disguising herself as Gisella to walk past the guards outside her door, but it's the best plan she has now.

She waits for the change in the air that she feels when using magic, the quiet buzz that fills her, the tingle at her scalp she's felt in the past when using stardust to alter her hair color. It doesn't come.

"It didn't work," Beatriz says, more to herself than Gisella, but even with the gag in place, she can feel Gisella's smugness.

Beatriz grabs her stake again, pressing it to Gisella's throat before removing the gag.

"What did you do?" Beatriz demands, panic finally sinking in.

"Nothing," Gisella says quickly, but when Beatriz presses the stake harder, in the exact same place she drew blood before, Gisella's eyes widen. She realizes that Beatriz is backed into a corner now, not helpless so much as desperate. "It was your mother. Before we left the palace, she gave me a potion to give you, to knock you unconscious."

"Yes, I remember that," Beatriz says through clenched teeth.

"But it had something else in it. She said it was from an empyrea—something that would keep you from using magic—whether that's your own or stardust."

Beatriz's jaw tightens and she presses the stake tighter to Gisella's throat. "She knew?" Before Gisella can answer, Beatriz laughs, shaking her head. "Of course she knew. She knows everything."

Did Nigellus make the poison? Beatriz wonders. She doubts it. If he had, he wouldn't have been so desperate to take her magic from her. What would have been the point, if the poison he made would do the job in a few hours' time? Who, then?

An answer doesn't come, but it doesn't matter. Gisella is right—Beatriz has made a massive miscalculation. The escape route she was counting on to take her out of Cellaria has disappeared, and now she's trapped in a room, holding the king's sister hostage, the day before Beatriz is supposed to marry him.

"Fuck," Beatriz bites out.