She pushed up slowly, touching her aching head. Her mouth tasted as though it had been stuffed with fabric and her eyes were sticky from watering—crying?—while she’d had them closed.

Flashes of memory returned to her. Entering the room at the Temple of Dreams with her chest bursting with despair, needing to find a quiet place where she could parse her feelings and think about what she’d done. The strange men. Confusion.

Then the hood.

It had frightened her into complete immobility for a heartbeat and then she’d driven herself out of the shock and fought. But three men on one blinded woman hadn’t been good odds. She didn’t remember much after that, though she did recall that the fabric of the sack had been slightly damp and had smelled sweet. Perhaps they’d drugged her?

Oh, Joshui, Dora. She’d been the one to lead her into the trap. Had she been a sympathizer to the Revolutionaries? Had Dora called her friends when she’d shown up that night to the Temple of Dreams? It was beginning to seem that way.

After the burlap sack she remembered waking for short periods of time, drowsily consuming food and water, taking care of all the necessary things it took to stay alive. The faces of her captors swam in her mind’s eyes. Harsh faces. Harsher hands. In those brief periods when she’d been aware she had been so confused by the drugs they’d given her that she hadn’t even fought.

The drugs had finally worn off. Now she wanted to fight.

She pushed to her feet, her unwashed hair hanging into her face. Reaching out with her magick, she tried to sense emotion in her surroundings. Emotion meant her captors were nearby. Immediately she picked up one person just outside the door. She had a guard.

Turning in a circle, she glanced around the room for something she could use as a weapon. The only things in the small room were the table and chairs. There were no windows and no doors other than the guarded one. She considered the chairs. She couldn’t break any of the legs off because that would make enough noise to rouse suspicion. Hefting the chair and using it to bludgeon her captors was also not an option simply because she lacked the strength. The conditions of her captivity had left her legs and arms shaky, her mouth parched, and her stomach gnawing on itself.

Her only hope was to find a way to run.

Just then the doorknob turned. Her body on alert, she watched as the door slowly whined opened, revealing a shadow on the floor. Then a large, dark-haired woman stepped through. “Ah, you’re awake. Been wondering when the drugs would wear off.”

Evangeline tasted the woman’s emotions and found not anger or hatred, but a mild dislike and a sense of duty. She licked her dry lips, examining the stout woman from head to toe. In her weakened condition she didn’t think she could fight her. “Who are you?”

The woman smiled, revealing one missing tooth in front. “Who are we? You haven’t figured that out already?”

“The Revolutionaries.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, girl, no offense against you, but you people can’t be allowed to run around free. Vikhin, great man that he is, has a soft spot for the magicked, but he fails to see the larger picture. We are striving for true equality, and as long as there are people out there who have abilities that go beyond the ordinary, true equality cannot be achieved.”

Evangeline took a step backward, away from the woman. Again, there was no outward hatred, just a matter-of-factness. “We didn’t ask to be born with these abilities. It’s Joshui’s will that makes us so.” Invoking Joshui’s name was deliberate. An appeal to her religious side wouldn’t hurt.

“Joshui created the magicked to test the rest of us. The magicked are an abomination to be rid of. Joshui will bless us for recognizing the blight and correcting it.”

Or maybe mentioning Joshui wasn’t such a good idea. Nausea roiled in her stomach at the woman’s rationalization.

“What do you plan to do with me?” she asked, taking another step backward. It was an involuntary action. It wasn’t as though she had anywhere to go.

The woman just gave her a look that said you already know and smiled sadly. “Sorry, child.”

She swallowed hard. “Then why am I still alive?”

“We’re waiting for the boss. He wants to talk to you.”

Delightful. “I’m the lover of Gregorio Vikhin. Don’t you care that this will hurt him?” Was the lover, but she didn’t need to know that.

“We know that Vikhin has taken up with you and one other. This was a mistake on his part and many of his people are not happy with him for it. We intend to take care of the other magicked who lives with him, too. The opportunity to take you simply fell into our laps like a gem from the sky.”

Cold fear washed through her. “You leave Anatol alone!” she yelled.

The woman laughed. “Or you’ll do what? Don’t worry. We’re very humane in our disposal methods.”

She swayed on her feet. Humane in our disposal methods. As if they were diseased cattle that needed to be slaughtered. She had to get out of here. To save her own life, to be sure, but also to warn and protect Anatol. She needed to find a way out of this room, first of all. Into the air and open sunlight. She wasn’t well enough to fight, but she might be well enough to run.

“I need to go to the bathroom.” She glanced toward the door. “Before you humanely slaughter me, do you think I might be allowed to relieve my bladder?”

That earned her a cold little smile and a flash of annoyance. Evangeline was pleased to feel an emotion from the woman that wasn’t borne from a sense of doing a good deed. “Certainly.” She paused. “But I hope you understand that since you’re not groggy from the drugs anymore that I’ll have to tie your hands.”

Her hopes sunk. Tied hands wouldn’t help her keep her balance if she had the opportunity to run. At least it wouldn’t be her feet. Evangeline gave her a smile of cold, haughty hatred—the muscles of her mouth remembered how to do it well. “Do what you feel you need to do.”

The woman produced a length of rope from the pocket of her dress and came toward her. Evangeline watched every move the woman made, wondering if she could dart around her and out the door. She couldn’t sense any more emotion nearby, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more guards outside the building, beyond her ability to sense. She needed to go along with this and get a better idea of what she would find before she took such a big risk.

The woman knotted the rope tightly around Evangeline’s wrists, making her wince and her fingers begin to immediately go numb. Then she pushed her forward. Evangeline stumbled on purpose and then shuffled her feet slowly out the door. It was better that the woman think her more affected by the drugs than she actually was—it was better to be underestimated in this situation.

The room beyond was also mostly bare and completely empty of people. A moment of disorientation hit her when she looked out the window. The sky was that hazy gray that might be early morning or could be twilight—Evangeline had no idea which.

The chill outside air forced her already cold body into a bout of wracking shivers, also not an advantage for her plans to escape. Two men sat outside on a couple of fallen logs talking to each other in low, rumbling tones. They both broke off when she came out and hot anger hit her in a wave that almost drove the cold from her bones. Evangeline returned their looks of cool hatred with practiced indifference.

“Need some help with her, Vita?” one of the men called, eying Evangeline from head to toe. She prayed that Vita wouldn’t say yes.

“I have her,” Vita called back and Evangeline let out a careful breath.

The men’s eyes followed them into the nearby woods. Vita directed her a short ways into the foliage and then directed her behind a tree. “There’s your bathroom. Hope you don’t mind if I don’t give you any privacy.”

Evangeline glanced around for something she could use to help her escape and then spied a heavy branch in the deadfall. “How am I supposed to lower my panties or squat with my hands tied this way?” she asked, raising her arms to demonstrate. “I’ll have no balance.”

“Do whatever you need to do.” Vita shrugged. “It’s not my concern if you pee on yourself.”

Great.

Evangeline glared at her, then made a show of reaching out to the tree trunk in front of her to steady herself. When she got down low enough, she grabbed the branch and brought it up hard and fast, right into Vita’s face. It was a good shot—right in the eye.

Vita screamed in pain and began to sob, holding her hands to her face.

Evangeline didn’t waste any time, knowing Vita’s cries would bring the hateful men. She plunged through the undergrowth and ran, dodging trees and leaping over clumps of deadfall and rotting logs. Branches caught at her skirt and clawed her cheeks. Her hands and abused physical condition hindered her, but her body had not forgotten her years of training. The dancing she’d done at Belai helped her now—to move fast, to move well, to keep her balance and not slip in the slick leaves.

Yet behind her she could hear the men shouting, branches breaking under their boots. They were following her trail easily and they were gaining on her. She forced herself to move faster, her breath huffing out white in the chilly air of what she had determined was early morning. Her legs muscles protested every movement, wanting non-drugged rest, wanting water, wanting the sustenance she’d had so little of for whatever amount of time she’d spent drowsing in and out of consciousness.

“There!” one of the men yelled. “Right there!”

Ah, Joshui, they were close. All the hope she had died with a quiet gasp in her chest. Still her legs churned as fast as they could go. She held her bound hands in front of her and moved them as required to best keep her balance as she fled.

A log rose up in front of her and she jumped it. On the other side was a bog. Her feet sank into the muck and she slipped, falling backward and narrowly missing hitting her head on the log. Footfalls approached and she scrambled to get back onto her feet. As long as they didn’t have her, she would try and get away.

“There you are, you bitch,” growled one of the men, coming around a tree about five feet away from her.

She turned and pushed to her feet, lurching out of the mud, but the other man was there. He grabbed her by the upper arm and hauled her out of the bog, making her stumble. She jerked her arm away from him, but he only held on tighter.

“Hey, girl,” he growled, “I admire your spirit, but it’s not going to get you anywhere.” He smiled into her face, though it didn’t reach his cold eyes. Hatred rolled like a poison out of him and into her. “The boss is here and he’ll have you put down right away for doing this.”

So if she had “behaved” they would have let her live a few more hours before ridding the world of her pestilence? She could be glad she’d misbehaved in that case.

“I bet Vita wants a word with her first,” said the other man picking his way around the bog toward him.

Evangeline was too exerted and heartbroken to say anything in response. She glared at them, her breathing heavy and her body shaking from the cold and the wet. The man holding her arm yanked her forward and she had no choice but to follow.

Her steps heavy, they made their way back to the house.

Anatol and Gregorio.

They were her biggest regrets. That evening would be the last memory they had of her. They would never hear how sorry she was she’d hurt them. Mostly likely they would think she’d just run away and never returned.

Ah, Joshui, what had she done?

Yearning for them filled her, made her knees go weak. Love. Love was everything. She’d had it—truly, deeply, completely. And not only once, but twice over.

And she’d thrown it away because she was scared.

Tears pricked her eyes, but she swallowed them back. Crying in front of these men would only make them revel in her misery and she didn’t need that.

She’d made a horrible mistake and she would never be able to set it right.

As they approached the house she picked up on the pain and rage of Vita. She’d hurt her badly with the branch. They came through the tree line and Evangeline saw her sitting on the ground by the house with another woman who glared at Evangeline as they passed. Blood streamed down Vita’s face, but it was hard to feel regret when she’d inflicted the injury while fleeing for her life.

Besides the two men who guarded her, Vita, and the other woman, Evangeline sensed another’s emotion. Contentment. A sense of satisfaction. Righteousness. This person had no guilt. No anger, either. Like Vita, he or she believed this was the right thing to do. Perhaps he or she even believed, like Vita, that it was Joshui’s will.

The sound of twigs breaking under a person’s tread came from around the side of the house.

The men stopped and she was forced to halt also. “Boss is here,” murmured the one on her left. “You’re dead now, girl.”

Numbly she glanced at him. She already knew that.

Their boss turned the corner and shock broke through her frozen grief. “Markoff,” she breathed. Disappointment hollowed her stomach. “How could you do this?”

Markoff came to a stop and smiled at her. “I truly am sorry, Evangeline. It’s nothing personal. I actually even like you.” He paused. “But this is the only way to make sure Vikhin’s vision is truly realized. Don’t you see?”

“Considering that you’re about to kill me, no, I don’t see.”

He gazed up and down her body. “You’re lovely even now, after a week of abuse and a dunk in a bog. I can see why Gregorio has been so affected by your absence. I almost feel sorry for him. Especially since he thinks you’ve run away from him. But, of course, he was terribly ill-advised in falling in love with a magicked. He should have known better.” Markoff tsk tsked. “Oh, I see that stricken look on your face. Don’t worry, darling, he’ll get over you eventually.”

“What should we do with her?” asked the thug on her right.

Markoff studied her critically for a long moment while she shivered. “Normally I would interview her, but—”

“Interview me?” she asked.

“Gather all the information about you that I can. About your magick. About your friends. That’s why we’ve been keeping you alive for the last week. I do the interviewing and I couldn’t get here until now.”

“Ah. Interviewing. But you actually mean interrogate me for information.”

He smiled. It was maddening how nothing seemed to sway his temper. This man was in complete, icy control. She had nothing to work with here, no emotions to trade to help her gain the upper hand. “Yes, you could put it that way. However, considering how much trouble you’ve been ...” He glanced at Vita. “And considering the fact you seem to be a bit more dangerous than you appear, I believe we’ll kill you now.” He glanced at the two men in turn, giving them each a little nod.

She should have been expecting it, but the words still made the blood drain from her face and the strength go out of her limbs. She didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not after having made the worst mistake of her life. Not after leaving the men she loved in such pain.

She would give anything to tell Anatol and Gregorio how she felt and to apologize to them. If she could do that, she would be able to die in peace.

But she would like better to spend the rest of her life with them.

“Oh, child, surely you must have known you’ve been living on borrowed time since the storming of Belai.”

“Actually, I’d hoped I’d have more time than this.” She swallowed hard.

Markoff smiled apologetically and shrugged. A rush of anger hit her and all she wanted in the world—other than to be with Anatol and Gregorio—was to lunge forward and strangle this man.

Instead the thugs jerked her to the side, around Markoff, and began dragging her to the other side of the house.

“Good-bye, my dear,” called Markoff as she rounded the corner. “Be confident that your demise is for the best. For Rylisk and for Gregorio.”

What she saw on the other side of the house made her stomach drop into a cold hell. The setup was simple, but chilling. A pillow on the muddy ground. A stump to the side and a little behind it. A shiny, sharp axe suitable for removing heads.

The dry grass in the area in front of the pillow had been stained dark brown with blood.

Her stomach roiled at the sight. “Why a pillow?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Do you really care how comfortable your victims are right before you take an axe to the back of their necks?”

“It’s not our idea,” growled the man on her left. “The boss thinks it’s more humane.”

The other man pushed her toward the pillow. “Kneel.”

She stared down at the filthy red cushion. How many others of her kind had knelt here? Died here? These people were systematically killing all the magick in the world.

Time crawled to a near standstill as she stood there. Suddenly every sound near her registered—the few birds in the trees, Vita’s low sobbing, the murmuring of others who milled around the small house. These would be the last moments of her life. She’d wanted to spend them with Anatol and Gregorio when she was old and gray, having enjoyed a long life with them.

She would never have children. Her chest clenched. She would have liked to have children . . .

She squeezed her eyes shut against the rising tang of regret at the back of her throat. She would give anything to go back in time, make a different decision. Lilya had been right, she’d been a slave to her fears.

Now, finally, Evangeline had clarity.

No one could know the future. She couldn’t be totally sure that one day she wouldn’t be rejected by Anatol and Gregorio. Words and feelings given today could change tomorrow. But she couldn’t run from their love based on that possibility. Their love was worth the risk. She couldn’t flee her tomorrows. She had to live today.

Of course, today would be the day she died.

Oddly empty of fear, she opened her eyes and stared at the stump.

“Kneel!” one of the men barked at her.

When she didn’t immediately drop to her knees, he pushed her. One kneecap hit the pillow and the other the half-frozen muddy ground, making her wince. The pain hardly mattered since it was only a drop compared to the intense—but brief—agony to come.

The two men positioned themselves behind her and she heard one of them close his hand around the handle of the axe. With a grunt, he pulled it free from the stump.

She twisted her bound hands, hearing the rope creak. A curious numb disconnection stole over her. A tear rolled down her cheek, but she didn’t feel inclined to beg for her life or try to run. She would have thought that in this situation anyone would do that. That no one would be able to look death in the face and not cower.

Yet, here she was. Perhaps it was Joshui enfolding her in his warm embrace, helping her to accept this as her end.

The cold edge of the axe touched her neck.

Her executioner drew the axe back, steadied his boots on the ground for balance.