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Only fear.

He wasn’t afraid to die. He was afraid to lose me. Lose our love. Lose this wonderful life we had built. Though as their bonds dissipated, I couldn’t even feel their emotions any longer. Maybe that was a blessing. I didn’t want them to suffer needlessly.

Because my rage was a terrible, wild thing of nightmares. Fire itched and burned through my veins—that had nothing to do with my gift from Isis. As the illness began to work in me, it stripped away all the protections of civility and politeness and morality.

I wanted to rage and kill and destroy. Blast this entire world with my power. Break it open. Bring everything down. Kill everyone. If I couldn’t hold my Blood safe, then no one would be safe. How dare anyone remain living while the best people I knew lay dying around me?

Insanity crawled and wriggled like worms Charles had mentioned. Death. Did he know what had been waiting for us? Maybe that’s why he’d been ordered to burn the house. Not to destroy the records, but to release this pestilence. Put his blood into the air so whoever dared take her house would die. Perhaps even all Aima.

By breaking open the iron maiden, we’d released the pathogens of Pandora’s Box.

That sounded very much like something the Dauphine would have wanted to accomplish if she died. With my Blood crumpled around me, I understood that rationale more than ever.

:Shara,: Carys demanded in the bond. :What is it? What do you need?:

Leonie flooded me, whirling toward me. Running back to the fountain.

:No,: I ordered. All siblings. :Stay away. Someone must live. Never allow anyone inside this house. I’m afraid to even burn it while the source of contamination is trapped inside. I don’t know if humans are affected the same way but don’t risk it. Stay away.:

Then narrower, to my closer siblings only. :Please. I need to know you’re alive and well and happy.:

:Shara.: Mayte filled me, her hand touching my forehead as if even from a great distance she could feel the fever rising in me. :I’ve heard of plagues like this but only ones that affect humans. Not Aima. Who did this?:

:We found pestilence in House Valois. Stay far away from Paris. Please. Give Xochitl everything else.:

Gwen’s shining white light swept through me. :Goddess. It’s feeding on your blood. Your magic. That’s why you’re dying so quickly.:

:What can fight such a thing?: I asked them.

Soft, controlled sobs echoed down their bonds. All of them.

:I don’t know,: Gwen replied. :I’m so sorry. I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like it.:

I forced out a shrill, maniacal laugh. :Only zeroes, right, Carys? I know Xochitl wants unicorns, but I have two very large kitties I’ll ask Sekh to send to keep her safe. Though they need to eat a lot. Maybe that’s not a smart gift for a four-year-old little girl.:

A ripple of fire licked the edges of my mind. Send the sphinxes. Call the entire legion. Let them feast. Blast a tsunami of fire and destruction to obliterate the entire city around me. The urge to just let my power roar through me was overwhelming. Destroy everything. Kill everything.

But then I wouldn’t have this. My Blood crowded close. Even in our last moments. I wanted every second I could have with them.

Carys pushed something toward me. Hard. Almost like a bucket of cold water over my head. :I can’t see you but listen here, Shara Isador. As long as you’re still alive, there are no zeroes in this situation. You didn’t meet with Isis earlier to fade into oblivion now. The madness you’re fighting is part of the illness. Keep your head. Think, woman! You always astound me with your strategies, even when it seems hopeless. No one fights like you. Thinks like you. You have a solution. You just need to find it. But by goddess, you need to hurry the fuck up!:

SEKH

Already running toward my queen, I shouted back over my shoulder to the sphinxes. “Guard. Don’t eat him!”

I’ll be back. She’ll be back.

This isn’t the end. It can’t be.

A blink of my eyes in the span of thousands of years. A few days, weeks, months compared to the millennia I spent standing guard at the top of the world. All Seeing. Never Sleeping.

I refused to See this end.

The face in the iron maiden was rare to this world. I didn’t waste time looking through recent history. Guillaume said Old French. For anyone found inside a House Valois nest, I had to assume the prisoner had been a knight as well, around the same time as Guillaume. Though even scanning through all the Eleventh through Fourteenth Centuries would take more time than I had to waste.

As I took the stairs three at a time, forcing my body to fly through frozen time to make as much use of Thierry’s miracle as possible, I went back to the beginning of this house. I watched the brick foundation of the chimneys laid. The shell of the grand house rising around it. The bricks rising layer by layer. The roof overhead. Flipping through time as quickly as possible, watching for the iron casket to be delivered.

There. In the dead of night before the blood circle was even laid. Ropes hoisted the heavy iron cage to the roof, then they lowered him down into the attic. A woman stood by watching in the small brick room. Not Rosalind. A queen. Though I couldn’t See her face.