Page 113 of The Witch Queen

“You found me with the scrying cards,” I press. From the look on her face, I know she remembers. “Hours later, Mother was dead and nowyou’rethe queen. Do you really expect me to believe that was all a coincidence?”

“I didn’t harm Sybil,” Ayleth insists. “I tried to help her.”

“It’s true,” Jacquetta says. “I was there. Your mother was being poisoned, but not by us.”

“Oh, and I’m just supposed to take your word for that?” I ask, rolling my eyes.

Ayleth exhales a frustrated breath.

“I know it might be hard for you to trust me,” she allows. “But I’m telling the truth about your mother. The reason I came to the White Palace had nothing to do with any of you.”

“No, my family members just happen to die or be maimed in horribleaccidentswhen you’re around,” I comment.

Jacquetta mutters something unintelligible. Ayleth presses her lips together.

“I will explain,” she says, her tone strained, “if you willlisten.”

The fire crackles in the silence. She can’t possibly say anything that will change my mind. But any chance of escape is far behind me—fornow, anyway. Better to buy time. I cross my arms and sit back in my chair, expectant.

Ayleth smooths her skirts before continuing. “I assume that you’re familiar with the events of the Covens’ War. The mortals’ version, at least.”

She pauses until I give a stiff nod.

“Things were…somewhat different for witches. We lost everything. Our homes. Our families. My own sister, Rhea, was slain by the Hunt. I would have done anything to bring her back. Togoback to the way I thought my life should be.”

She presses her thumb into the palm of her left hand, just as she did in the garden. And I recall what she said—that going back was impossible. That sometimes, it was worse.

“There was only one thing that I believed might help me achieve that end,” she continues. “The Bloodstones. They were forged by the Ancients—the first coven witches—and contained their power. Magic strong enough to create the Veil.”

My brow furrows. “The Veil? I thought Meira held the Veil.”

Jacquetta snorts. “This again.”

“A lie invented by the Order,” Ayleth says, disgust clear in her words. “Their false goddess had nothing to do with the Veil. TheBloodstonescarried that magic. They were the strongest pieces of power in existence. And so I believed that one of them might be enough to resurrect Rhea. Given that the stones were stolen by the Hunt, I reasoned that they must be here, at the palace.Thatis why I came.”

The pieces of her story tumble through my mind. If it’s true, then Ayleth came searching for something that belonged to the witches by right. Something robbed of them by my own family. I recall the illustration in the book.

Pay the price,I hear beneath the howl of the wind outside.

I force myself to sit up straighter. Whatever happened with the covens doesn’t excuse what Ayleth did.

“So why did you stay?” I ask. “If you came for the stones, why not just take them and leave?”

Ayleth shifts in her seat. “Things…complicated for me.”

I bark a rueful laugh. “I can guess what: You decided that you wanted the throne more than your sister.”

Jacquetta makes a noise in her throat and Ayleth glares at her.

“It’s not that simple,” she says. “By the time I discovered the Bloodstones, I’d realized how corrupt the covens had become. The White Court as well. And the war…if I didn’t intervene, your father would have only continued hunting us.”

That sharp-edged, conflicted feeling churns inside me, reconciling the man I knew, full of smiles and gifts and adventures, with the monster he could become.

“The realm needed a new direction,” Ayleth goes on. “An end to the power that was tearing everything apart. That’s what my sister would have wanted. So when I found the Bloodstones…I destroyed them.”

“When you found them?” I echo, my brow furrowing. “You mean—”

My gaze flits to a box on the other side of the room. Ayleth’s crown rests inside it, firelight glimmering on its crimson jewels, those I’ve always considered so gaudy and strange. Realization hits in a rush.