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“We are different,” she says, immediately contradicting my thoughts. “But you were right before, I do have the bloodline. My mother was a Baroness. My father a Baron. So in the same way you were raised to be the King’s wife, I was raised to be the actual Baroness. Except, there was nothing I wanted less in life. I had no desire to be owned by men. I wanted to live my own life—out of the shadow of my father and his obsession with tradition and legacy.”

“You’re joking.”

She shakes her head. “No. I wanted to travel. I’m good at languages, and I applied abroad. I thought if I proved myself academically and otherwise, maybe I’d have the chance. But when my father found the application, he tore it up, blocked my bank accounts, and told me this is where I belong. In Forsyth, to Forsyth.”

I can’t relate to anything she’s saying. Not really. I didn’t even have the chance to dream of something past Strong Manor until I was locked in a cage.

“I wasn’t surprised when I got the invitation to the Hunt at the end of my junior year, but I wasn’t prepared for what actually happened that night. How could I be?” Her voice grows distant, eyes glazing over with memory. “Unlike you, I was set loose in the forest with four other girls, each of us fighting for the right to be the final survivor of the night. My goal wasn’t to be the winner–I wanted to be the ultimate survivor. I’d trained for that night. My plan was to last until dawn and force them to forget about me. My cardio was good. I could run, even fight a little, just enough to stay alive. For hours, I hid in the bushes, behind fallen trees. I could hear each girl as they were caught. I could hear their screams echo against the trees. Obscured by an outcropping of rocks, I watched the girl from East End get captured when she tripped over a tree root. The Shadows bound and gagged her and then took turns ruining her for anyone else. I almost made it to dawn,” she looks down at her hands, “but Billy found me hiding in a thicket of brush. Game over.”

A single tear travels down her cheek, and she brushes it away angrily. “I wasn’t thinking about what they were doing to me when they took me on the altar, splayed out for the King to watch. I was thinking about my lost future. All the places I wanted to see, the museums, the chapels, the ancient ruins, the people I would never meet.” She inhales deeply before starting up again, “I decided that night, as the sun rose and the ritual was over, that I would make it worth it. I would be loyal to the men who took me that night, play the role of Baroness so well that I was above reproach. I was so good at it that one day I went from pretending to believing in the rites and rituals, to becoming one with light and dark.” A brown finger runs down the top of the beetle. “I think that somehow, I had to. Otherwise, what was the point of it all?”

Regina’s eyes grow distant, lost in memory. The silence stretches between us before she continues, her voice quieter now. “One morning, not long after I became Baroness, I woke up to find a thin book under my pillow.”

She pauses, as if she can still see it clearly. I have no problem imagining it–I’ve seen these books, held them in my own hands while looking for any kind of clue.

“It was old. The leather cover was cracked and dry, falling apart at the edges. The pages were yellowed and brittle, the ink faded in places. It wasn’t a standard text we used during rituals. This was something deeper. Darker. More mystical. Forbidden.”

Her lips curve into the smallest, bitter grin.

“I dove into the restricted shelves of the King’s library after that. What I found,” her eyes brightened, “changed everything. There is so much more to BRN than drug-fueled parties, rituals, and cleaning up the city’s dead. There are older traditions. Bloodier and more sacred. The kind that demands real sacrifice if you want true power.”

She lifts her chin, meeting my eyes directly.

“It wasn’t the boys who led me to the Guardian. I led the boys to them.”

The confession lands heavily in the room.

“You?” I ask, trying to follow.

She nods. “They snatched me off the street the same way they tried to take you. Lured me to an isolated part of campus and drugged me so I’d forget the path. When I woke up, I wasn’t caged or chained. I was in an unfamiliar crypt, deep underground.”

I can almost see it as she describes it–cold stone walls covered in ancient carvings, flickering black candles casting long shadows. The air is thick with incense and copper, and the shelves are lined with strange mystical objects: human skulls etched with runes, vials of dark liquid, bundles of dried herbs tied with black thread, ceremonial daggers with bone handles, and strange idols carved from obsidian and ivory. At the center of the room stood a large altar made of black marble, stained dark from generations of offerings.

I realize with chilling clarity: I’ve been in this room.

“The Guardian was there,” Regina continues, voice reverent. “Dressed in a flowing black robe, wearing a bleached white bone mask shaped like a stag’s skull. They told me the true traditions of the House of Night had been watered down. Corrupted. That the current King sits on a stolen throne. That the old ways—the real ways—demand rebirth through sacrifice. Renewal through blood. The balance of darkness and light can only be restored when the unworthy are culled, and the sacred line is purified.”

Her eyes gleam with the memory.

“They asked if I wanted to be part of something greater. If I was willing to make the necessary sacrifices to claim the real power of the Old Gods. Not the watered-down version the King preaches, but the ancient, hungry ones. The ones that reward loyalty with dominion, in this life and the next.”

She swallows hard.

“I felt the call. The urge for more. I took the oath. I drank the Guardian’s blood, committed myself to them, and went to work putting their plan into action. It wasn’t quick or easy. I had to show my Barons the true path. Only William saw what I saw. I brought him in first, gradually moving him into action. We needed one female from each territory to complete the ritual. East and West End have been accomplished, but we weren’t always successful—like with the Princess.”

My stomach twists. “Which got him killed.”

“And brought my other, reluctant Barons into the darkness.”

“And you’re all okay with this? Killing innocents?”

“None of the women in Forsyth have agency,” she says. “They’re all pawns in someone else's game. Why not be part of something bigger?”

Because they didn’t ask to be? I want to say. But I’m not getting caught up in her deluded ideas. Instead, I focus on what I want to know. Not want. Need. “Is Stella still alive?”

Her lips seal into a tight line.

“What about me?”