Page 8 of Iridian

“Yes.”

A moment of silence as she watched me intently but just now I couldn’t decipher that look at all. “And it worked.”

“It did.”

“You made…” Her voice trailed off, and I gladly finished for her. At this point I didn’t even want to hide anything anymore. So fucking tired of secrets.

“Colorful magic. Powerful magic,” I said, and I could have sworn her cheeks flushed a soft pink. “Hill has been planning for this since you were still in charge of the IDD. I know you don’t trust him, are probably weary of him, but he used me for that mission in school because I am your granddaughter, because if something went wrong,you’dbe implicated as well, and the Council has a soft spot for you.” I leaned forward as far as her magic allowed me, which was actually more than I expected. “He’s a double agent, Grandmother. His mother was a Mergenbach, his grandfather the founder of Selem.Hetook Taland to that school to steal the veler.”

“He wouldn’t,” Madeline whispered, but even she didn’t believe herself.

“He did. Then he sent meto supposedlystop him,but he was never really going to allow Taland to actually steal the veler. He merely needed an excuse for the Council when he demanded they take that veler to the IDD Vault. I imagine it must have beeneasyat that point for him.”

“It was quite easy, yes,” she said, surprising me again.

“So, he has the veler that he needs right there, and he has all these other things, too. No idea how he collected them, but he has them. And the Devil helped him. He actually broke Taland out of prison to try to steal something from Hill, so that when Hill rose in power, he said, he’d rise with him. They’d planned everything in detail.” And nobody had even figured it out.

Iwouldn’t have ever figured it out either, had I not stolen that bracelet when I did.

“I always knew Ammiz was a dangerous man. Him, I could even be persuaded to throw into the Blackrealm,” said Madeline, shaking her head.

“He’s in the Tomb. There’s only so much he can do. I think Hill is far more dangerous.”

“Oh, but Ammiz isweak.Weak men are the most dangerous out there,” she insisted.

“Regardless—Hill is the guy who actually plans to find and bring back the Delaetus Army, as absurd as it sounds.”

She slammed the book closed so abruptly I jumped, and this time I could. Either she was willingly letting me move more freely, or her spell had faded and she didn’t seem interested in reinforcing it.

I had no complaints.

“I guess I should have seen it,” Madeline whispered. “There were signs.”

As much as I would have loved to rub that in her face, I stopped myself. “You can still put an end to it. Where is Hill?”

Madeline looked me in the eye without even blinking for a good long moment. I thought for sure she’d tell me that he was captured, that he was in jail or something, but no. She didn’t answer me at all.

“Where is the bracelet, Rosabel?”

Fuck.“I don’t know.”

“But you had it. You used it.”

“Yes. I destroyed the screen of the Regah chamber with it and that’s how the Devil lost control of…our sideof the room.”

“You destroyed the screen of the Regah,” Madeline repeated.

“I did.” Except…that’s notallI’d done, was it? The memories kept coming back to me, and I remembered dragging myself and Taland out of that basement, up the stairs and out the door, the yard…theruinedbasement and stairs and yard.All of it hadbeen ruined, the people knocked out, the ground with holes in it.Holes.

“It takes a lot of power to break a Regah. That’s the connection of magic between a person and a place. It takes…a lotof power.” Slowly, Madeline put the book down on the table and crossed her legs again. “You did it by yourself?”

I analyzed her for a moment. She didn’t seem suspicious, and she didn’t judge me or despise me or anything like that—no, she simply seemed curious.

“Yes.”

“You used all the colors of magic.” Again—a statement.

“I did, Grandmother. All the colors of magic and more. But right now, I don’t know where the bracelet is, if it fell off me when I passed out in Silver Spring, or if it was taken. Either way, I need to leave.” I pushed against her magic, and though it let me move, it still didn’t let me stand up, like this invisible blanket wrapped around my legs that was as strong as fucking concrete. Impossible to break through by myself.

---