Audrina turned the bloodletter over in her palm. Considered its edge. “No matter how hard I worked, they only ever looked at me with disgust, because I reminded them of what they’d done. How they’d created me.” She bared her teeth. “I tried to tell Mother about the crimes you and your bastard sisters committed, that night in the sky gardens. She wouldn’t listen; she just went on and on about my sins. Yelled at me for threatening you all, for ruining Father’s plans.”

“That’s when you pushed her,” Ren murmured. It wasn’t a question.

Aud wiped at her cheek with one fist. “I didn’t mean to. I was just so angry.…” She scowled. “But when she fell, a weight lifted. One less voice in my head calling me a monster.”

“So you decided to kill me next,” Ren guessed. “What’s a little bit more murder, once you’ve offed your own mother?”

“You’re traitors,” Audrina replied simply. “You deserve to be punished.”

“I deserved to drown in a bathtub?” Ren raised her bloodletter.

So did Audrina. “You’re just as bad as Father. You used me the same way he did. ‘Oh, Audrina, my best friend, you mean so much to me… Now could you please spy on Sarella? Run these errands? Follow Lexana around, because I think that bumbling idiot is blackmailing me. Oh, are you upset, Aud? Let me bribe you with a fancy dinner and we’ll call it even.’”

Ren flinched.

For a second, real pain flickered across Audrina’s face. “I thought you were my friend, Ren, but you’re just like the rest of my family. I’m nothing but a tool to you.” She tugged up her sleeve. “Unfortunately for you, this tool has a mind of her own.”

Ren’s heart lurched at the sight of Audrina’s arm. Bright blue scars crisscrossed her skin. They glowed even brighter where they intersected, nearly blinding. No wonder she needed the long sleeves, the dark gowns.

Ren raised her bloodletter, too, but she pointed it at Audrina instead. What am I going to do, stab my best friend? But what else could she do now, except bluff?

“Killing your way to the throne will only prove your parents right about you, Aud.”

Aud’s smile twisted, went vicious. “I never said they were wrong.” She rested her bloodletter against her forearm. “This country needs someone like me. Someone who does what’s necessary.” Then her blade flashed, and Ren stumbled backward on instinct.

She’d shielded that morning. She shouldn’t feel any effect from Audrina’s efforts. But her breath came shorter, harder. Panic, perhaps?

She looked down at her hands and dropped the knife in shock.

Impossible.

She was shielded. She should be impervious to curses. And yet, tendrils of black appeared under her fingernails. Inched toward her knuckles. Small thin spiderwebs at first, but growing by the second.