“My grandmother warned me not to deal with the aristocracy and matters of the heart. She preferred healing poultices and midwifery but I found it unpleasant business.” She wrinkled her nose. “Babies are messy.”

I stepped back warily as she stirred the contents of a stew. “Is that a spell too.?” I asked. “Because if this was a story, this is where I’d ask you if you were a good witch or a bad witch.”

“This is mutton stew,” she said, as if I was being ridiculous. “For supper.” She shrugged. “As for the rest, magic is magic. What you do with it is your own business.”

“But if the spell went dark, like you said, then you bear some of the responsibility, don’t you?” Just like I had to take responsibility for whatever was in me that had allowed itself to be seduced by Viola.

Assuming I ever got out of this weird-ass place.

When she smiled, it was half wild, half sad. “Love magic is always dark.”

I thought of Kieran and what we’d done for each other. He’d defied the Helios-Ra, he’d saved me from the hunters even after I’d bitten him. He’d given me his own blood the night I turned sixteen so I’d survive, so I’d change into the creature he was sworn to kill.

I honestly couldn’t think of anything I’d done for him that would make it all worthwhile.

The indescribable rush of warm, living human blood filling my veins made me fall back against the damp cavern wall as if I’d been shoved. The ceiling of the cave whirled above my head. Vertigo, thirst, satisfaction all prowled through me like feral cats.

I flashed back to Violet Hill, the trees dripping freezing rain on my head and blood in my mouth.

A girl I didn’t recognize fell to the ground.

I slammed back into the cave, head spinning. “No!” I closed my eyes, tried to will the spinning to bring me back home. Nothing happened. “No, please!”

Gwyneth circled me slowly, pursing her lips. “Haven’t you figured it out yet?”

I glared up at her through my hair. “Figured out what? That I’m time traveling?”

“No. That this place isn’t real.”

“I’m pretty sure if I was having a hallucination you’d be Johnny Depp, not some mouthy witch girl with burrs on her dress.”

“You’re inside Viola’s mind,” she explained impatiently.

The fact that sunlight didn’t drop me like a stone made more sense. “How do you know that? And why should I trust you?”

She snorted. “I don’t care either way. But she wanted a spell that was beyond my ken. I was reckless and proud. And she was far more clever than I could ever have imagined. Her spirit survived, she just needed a body. And she waited until she found one. Yours.”

“Why mine?” I asked, frustrated. “Forget I asked. She’s a vampire. She wanted to be queen or whatever, right?”

“No, Solange. She wants so much more than that.”

“What is there left that she can take from me?” I asked dejectedly.

“Whatever it is, she’ll find it. She’s been waiting and waiting for this chance.” Gwyneth narrowed her eyes. “You must have worked powerful magic to let her in.”

“I don’t even know how to do magic,” I said. Except for that undoing spell Isabeau had taught me. I’d had to go out in the middle of the night and pee on Montmartre’s love spell. Not pretty. And I’d totally do it again. But that was months ago. “She didn’t gain full control until the crown was on my head,” I said, thinking back. “Before that it was just whispers.”

“Magic always finds a way in. Viola should know.” Gwyneth shook her head. “Vampires and magic. They just don’t mix.”

I was sure Isabeau would disagree, but then the Hounds knew all sorts of things the rest of us didn’t. My family hadn’t even believed in magic before this year. Madame Veronique had encouraged our ignorance for her own mysterious purposes.

“So you can’t use magic to set us free?” I asked.

“Won’t,” she corrected. “Not again. And she doesn’t know I’m here. Her knights don’t come into the woods.”

“Ever?” Come to think of it, for knights bent on killing me, they’d given up fairly easily once I’d entered the forest. “Not even to kill me?”

“She doesn’t want to kill you. She needs your connection to your body. She needs someone strong enough to survive the possession.” She shook her head, stirring her cook pot again. “And if she catches you, she’ll do worse than kill you.”

“There’s worse?”

“She needs you alive here. She doesn’t need you comfortable. Believe me, you wouldn’t like spending centuries in an oubliette.” I knew that word. Oubliettes were dank holes in the dungeons of castles where prisoners were kept in the dark, without room to even stand up in. I shuddered. “After a while, you’d be lost. Nothing would be real, not even this place.”

“What, like a ghost?”

“Worse.” She laughed and it was a hollow sound.

“Why don’t you leave? She’s not possessing you.”

“I don’t have power here, not that kind.”

“But . . .”

“Leave it, Solange. I’m not your princess in the tower to be rescued.” Having uttered those very same words more times than I could count, I nearly snorted at her. But her expression was odd, tortured. Whatever it was she was feeling was physically painful. Blood oozed down her arms, soaked into the hem of her dress. The scar across her throat started to bleed as well. Her cheekbones poked through her mangled cheek.