“You knew Raffiel?” Remy asked, her chest rising and falling sharply.

“No,” Baba Monroe said with a sneer. “But I received his message loud and clear.”

“What message?” Rua’s hand drifted to the Immortal Blade. “What does that mean?”

Lina’s shuddering breath interrupted the witch’s diatribe. There was no time to hear her deranged stories, not when Lina was barely breathing.

“Did you create this poison?” Bri growled, pulling everyone’s attention to her.

The witch turned her violet glare toward Bri, a smile twisting her pale lips. “I did.” She spoke with such unnerving pride. “A terrible way to go. What my soldiers get is far more concentrated, only seconds to end them.” Her eyes dropped to Lina. “They don’t spend their last hours in agony, frantically screaming for a way to reverse it, unlike my enemies.”

Bri’s throat constricted. “And can you reverse it?”

The witch flashed a feral smile. “I can.”

Bri’s eyes guttered, a painful flicker of hope sparking within her.

“Do it, then,” Bri commanded, absently stroking her thumb down Lina’s cheek as the Princess stared vacantly toward the sky again. The blood on her thumbs mixed with the metallic paint on Lina’s cheekbones, making a swirl of sparkling constellations down her face.

“I will need my dagger.” The witch scanned the room again, her eyes landing on the amethyst blade resting on Lina’s throne. “And a blood promise that you will let me leave unharmed and unfollowed if I save her.”

Rua stepped forward before the witch’s words even finished, gripping the Immortal Blade in her hand and tugging. She sliced across her palm, blood welling as Renwick gritted his teeth. She held out her bleeding hand to the witch.

Baba Monroe shook Rua’s hand with a mirthless smile. She turned to Bri, expectantly lifting her eyebrows. “My dagger?”

Lina’s eyes rolled back, her breathing jagged, as she let out a heartbreaking cry. Bri’s hands gripped her tighter, the sounds of Lina’s agony making more hot tears stream down her cheeks. Hale rushed to the throne and pulled the dagger from its sheath.

Holding out her palm coated in Rua’s blood, the witch took the amethyst blade from him. As her hand touched the purple stones, her magic flared and her eyes glowed an unsettling shade of mauve. She sighed as if the magic stones soothed something within her. Steadying her breath, she looked down at Lina.