“I am not helping her with her insane plans,” I said. “And she damned well knows it. Where is she anyway?”

“At afternoon tea,” said one of the guards. “We are to relay your message to her.”

“You can tell her to go fuck herself,” I replied. I turned back to Dorian and gently brushed hair away from his face. “Stay with me,” I murmured. “It was bad enough with the dryads. You can’t keep doing this to me.”

“If that is your ‘answer,’” said another of the guards coldly, “then we are to return you to your cell.”

“Fine,” I said, still not looking at any of them. “What about Dorian?”

“He stays with us,” said the female torturer.

My head jerked up. “What? He needs a healer! You’ve already pushed him to the edge. He’ll die if you keep at it.”

“I believe that is the point,” said the male torturer. He arched an eyebrow. “What exactly did you expect? That you could refuse and Her Majesty would free him? If you want him healed, comply with her requests. Those are your only choices.”

No, I actually had a couple of other choices. One was to fake them out and claim I would give in to Varia. After all, that was hardly the kind of decision I had to immediately act on. I didn’t have the Iron Crown with me. It was hidden far away in my own lands. If I claimed I would give it to her, I had plenty of time to figure out the rest of this before I actually had to produce said crown.

Just then, Dorian started coughing. No, not coughing. Gasping. Like he couldn’t get enough air. His eyes fluttered open, a frantic and desperate look in them as he fought to breathe.

“Dorian!” I cried, grabbing hold of him. “Dorian, breathe! Relax. You can do it.”

Yet, it was clear he couldn’t hear me or see me. He was somewhere else, somewhere locked in pain that had done so much damage, it was now about to finish him off. I looked up at all the gathered people in the room, unable to believe they were all just standing around.

“Ah,” remarked one of the torturers. “I wondered when his lungs would give out.”

“Do something!” I yelled. “Help him.”

Dorian suddenly stilled, a look of horror on his face. I shared his feelings because I realized he was no longer breathing. A new sort of panic shot through me, as well as frustration and a terrible aching sadness. I possessed a power that could bring many to their knees, a power that was widely envied. What good was it, I wondered angrily, when it left me completely helpless to defend those I cared about?

“We do nothing until you make your choice,” replied the male torturer.

Choice? Yeah. I was going to make my choice—and it wasn’t going to be giving in to Varia. It wouldn’t even be faking her out. It was going to be the choice I’d wanted to make from the very beginning.

I was going to blow this room apart and get Dorian out of here.

Magic surged within me, the power of water and air that surrounded all living things. The room grew thick with humidity as the air swelled and tensed, just as it had in my morning meeting with Varia. Now, I went further. The scent of ozone spread around us, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up from the electrical charges in the air. Some of those gathered sensed me pulling on my magic. Everyone else simply felt the obvious signs of a storm about to break loose. People tensed, weapons were drawn. Good luck with that, I thought.

A huge burst of air, reaching a breaking point, suddenly exploded and took out one of the room’s walls. Stone and debris flew everywhere, and I barely had the presence of mind to lean over and shield Dorian with my body. My own injury didn’t matter. Others in the room didn’t have such protection.

The funny thing was, though, I wasn’t the one who’d blown the wall apart.

From a now-visible room next door, Kiyo and Rurik surged in, the rest of our soldiers right behind them, along with some Hemlock fighters. And behind them were Jasmine and Pagiel, tipping me off about what had happened to the wall. Immediately, the Yew soldiers jumped forward to engage this new threat, forgetting all about me.

“Alistir!” I yelled, somehow making my voice heard above the fray.

Dorian’s soldier jerked his head toward me. I beckoned him over. He gave a curt nod, after first dispatching a Yew warrior. Dodging a few others, Alistir soon made his way to me. I gestured frantically to Dorian.

“Help him. He hasn’t been breathing for almost a minute.”

Alistir blanched. Quickly he put his hands on Dorian. I couldn’t sense his healing magic, but from the look on Alistir’s face, he had a struggle ahead of him. I didn’t doubt Alistir was gifted, but I also wished just then that we had brought a sure healer like Shaya after all.

“Eugenie!” Kiyo’s voice drew me from the healing drama. He punched a Yew soldier and then gave me an incredulous look. “What the hell are you doing here? Get out! You know what you have to do!”

Feeling conflicted, I cast an anxious look at Dorian. How could I leave him? I couldn’t tell what Alistir was doing or if Dorian was even breathing again.

“Go!” screamed Kiyo.

“There’s nothing you can do, Your Majesty,” said Alistir through clenched teeth. “Go. Leave him to me.”

I knew he was right, and again, that frustration filled me, the sense of being superpowerful and yet completely devoid of power. I could do nothing here, but there was a lot I could do upstairs.

The entrance I’d come in through was completely congested with fighting, so I hurried over to the impromptu door Pagiel had made in the wall. Someone fell in step beside me, and I braced myself for a fight until I realized it was Jasmine.

“I’m coming with you,” she said before I could utter a word. “They’ve got that under control. What are you doing here anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be leading a revolution?”

“I got sidetracked,” I muttered.

Making our way back to the third floor was easier than I thought. A lot of guards ran right past us, only knowing there was a fight in the basement they had to get to. It never occurred to them that they were going right by their star prisoner. Those who did challenge us were easily knocked aside with our combined magic, falling over like dominos as we cleared them out of our way.

Back in the royal holding hall, I saw the number of guards had lessened, probably because they’d been dispatched downstairs. Most of the magic users were still there, giving Jasmine and I quite the fight. One of the first soldiers I took out was someone I recognized as the chief jailer.

“Get his keys and start freeing the others,” I told Jasmine. “I’ll handle this group.”

She didn’t hesitate, and I made sure to make such a spectacle that I drew all the attention. The magic users who’d been left on duty ran a wide gamut of powers. Some I was able to toss around with wind before they even struck. One sent a wave of fire at me, inadvertently singeing one of his colleagues. As the fire raced toward me, I called on the moisture around me. The air around us went bone dry, but a wall of water materialized to stop the fire. I followed it up with a gust of wind to ensure he didn’t repeat the act.

The hall’s space limited me in some ways. Normally, I would’ve kept hurricane-worthy winds churning nonstop, in an effort to stop my adversaries from even standing. I couldn’t do that easily without affecting Jasmine, however. Likewise, I was hesitant to use lightning in such a confined space. I was pretty good at controlling it—and it was an excellent weapon—but it had the potential to get out of control. Again, I had to consider Jasmine and the prisoners’ safety.

So, I stuck to wind and water, which were effective but took a little more time in these quarters since those powers had to be wielded carefully. I’d gotten down to just one magic user when something hard, big, and solid slammed into me from the side. One of the doors of the cells had been ripped off its hinges and thrown at me. I stumbled to the ground. Judging from the satisfied look of the gentry advancing on me, that had been her doing. She must have some affinity to trees or wood in general. I would’ve sensed air magic and had warning.

I scrambled to my feet and reached for my power. Before I could do anything, what looked like a net of blue light flew out and wrapped her up like a cocoon. She screamed in pain as the net contracted tighter and tighter around her. It enveloped her torso—as well as her neck. Soon her screams quieted as her oxygen was cut off. She fell to the ground, dead or unconscious I couldn’t say. I was reminded uncomfortably of Dorian.

Looking around, I saw a tall man with shoulder-length black hair and a pointed beard standing in the doorway to one of the cells. He made a small motion with his hand, and the net of light disappeared. He surveyed his victim for a few moments and seemed satisfied with what he found. He then glanced up and gave me a nod of acknowledgment.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re Eugenie?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m indebted to you,” he said gravely. “I’m Hadic, King of the Hemlock Land.”

“Oh man,” I said. “I know some people that are going to be glad to see you.”

We were soon joined by Jasmine and the rest of the monarchs. There was no time for extensive introductions, but I quickly understood what Volusian had meant about the variety of attitudes. A few, like Hadic, looked ready to take on Varia singlehandedly. The others seemed dazed, like they had just woken from a dream. Still, as they took in their surroundings, I saw sparks of life in their eyes that I hoped would grow. All looked thin and worn, no doubt the result of a long time of eating prisoner rations and being deprived of their lands.

“Come on,” I said, not waiting to see if they would all follow. “We’ve got to defeat Varia and get rid of this blight once and for all.”

I’d memorized Kiyo’s directions and found running downstairs was much like the journey up—a mixture of obliviousness and challenges on the parts of the soldiers. One thing that had changed was that the situation had grown increasingly chaotic. Guards and civilians alike were in a panic. I guess when you were ruled by a powerful despot like Varia, you just didn’t expect many challenges to the status quo.