If I thought I had escaped my madness down in the dungeons, I was wrong. The whispers haunted me there. My blood thrummed loudly in my veins and my head throbbed from the constant onslaught of the Angels whispering.

When sleep started to grip me, I awakened, shoulder blades burning. A bloody feather sat beside me. The red was a vibrant smear against the grime of my cell. I shoved it under me before anyone say, hand shaking so hard I had to ball them into fists.

It shouldn't be possible. The longer I was here, the more it felt like my Gift was on the verge of breaking free.

"Your Highness," Sabine whispered.

I jumped, looking across from me through the bars. They hadn't put us together in a cell.

"Ophelia."

I groaned as I tried to straighten. Darkness swarmed across my vision, blotting out the flickering light of the single torch that lit the dungeons. It sat into a sconce beside the black-clad guard outside our cell.

"I'm fine," I mumbled. It wasn't the first time Sabine had sounded concerned. I wasn't sure why it mattered. I would be dead soon enough.

I propped myself up against the cold stone wall, my dress from the ball a grimy tattered mess. I licked my dry lips, the taste in my mouth sour. How long had it been? A day? Two? There was no way of knowing.

I peered into the darkness. Sabine's bruised, and battered face looked back at me. I flinched at the sight, tearing my gaze away.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

Sabine shifted in the dark, resting on the wall as close to me as she could get. "There is no point apologizing. I'm more concerned about you."

I squeezed my eyes shut, pain echoing through my head. My skin burned all over to the point it was hard to feel anything at all. "Why? What does it matter now? We're both dying anyway."

"You really think Darren is going to sit there and not try to get you out?" Her voice was low, aware of the guard outside our cell.

I didn't answer. I knew he would try, I just doubted he would be successful. Besides, I didn't want him to.

She sighed. "Fool."

I gave a short humorless laugh. I regretted it almost immediately, starting to cough . My ribs strained against the boning of my bindings. Sabine had helped me loosen it some, but it had been hard through the bars of our cell. No matter how I tried it was impossible to reach it on my own.

"He should be trying to escape on his own if he is still here. Someone needs to warn my mother before it's too late."

Sabine was silent. She knew I was right.

"You know we would never abandon you."

I ground my teeth. I wanted to scream, but I didn't have the energy to do even that. Another blinding flash of pain ricocheted through my skull. One of the Angels hovering nearby let out a laugh, the chilling sound louder than the rest of the whispers. It was hard to focus. It was all so loud.

"Then you are the fools. Both of you."

Silence fell between us and I wrapped myself up in the looming madness surrounding me. I had never experienced my Gift like this before. Even on the day they had spoken to me in the tree, they had faded away after a few hours.

Was it because they knew I was going to die?

Frustration built up inside of me, so powerful I want to scream. I didn't need their cruel whispers. I needed their help. Only a miracle would save us now.

Their whispers grew and grew, louder and louder. I could hear snippets now.

"Sweet... heirs."

"Lovely...boy...together."

I pressed my hands over my ears, but it didn't help. Nothing could mute them, nothing could make them go away. Blood pounded in my ears, a heartbeat beating slow and steady, separate from my own racing heart.

"Ophelia."

I froze. The voice hadn't been Sabine or the whispers in my head but had come from outside my cell. I opened my eyes to see the shadows outside had grown, creating three figures against the flickering wall. I didn't offer a reply as I found Pierre's face in the darkness.

"Truly vile down here, isn't it?" He looked me up and down. "But I must say, there is something about a bruised and battered rose that I find appealing." He chuckled. He glanced over at Sabine, breaking his focus on me for only a moment.

I didn't reply.

Pierre sighed. The cell door creaked, and his heeled shoes clicked closer, the door shutting behind him. Fabric shuffled as he leaned over me.

"Look at me, Ophelia."

I refused to lift my gaze, hands balling into fists on either side of my head. When Pierre had come, the whispers had faded back to almost nothing. It was a sweet, sweet reprieve. I sucked in a breath of the stale, cool air, some of the pain fading.

Slowly, he knelt on the ground. I felt him inspecting me.

Even in the dark, he glittered. Gold details were sewn into his lapels, beautiful garnets lining the corset under his coat like drops of crystalized blood. I refused to meet his eyes, even as he softly gripped my hands and pulled them away from my head.

"Better now, right? See, I told you we belonged together. Now come on. Look at me."

I furrowed my brow. How could he possibly talk of being together now?

"Do as I say." His voice had turned from sweet to cold. A hand settled under my chin. He slowly rose it, long nails digging in when I refused. But I was too weak to fight. I glared up into his face and he smiled.

"Better," he murmured. His eyes were hooded, dark. "It wasn't all a lie, love. This all could have been avoided."

I stayed silent. He had already stolen my words and taken them for his own.

Pierre's cheek twitched and he reached out to push some of the hair off my face where it had matted to my scalp in a mixture of sweat and grime. The action was almost tender. He sighed.

"If only you had listened. But don't worry, I will make it all better. You will see. We just have to play this game for a little longer." His gaze was steady, intense. If my mouth wasn't so dry, I would have spat in his face. "Soon you and I will usher in a New Age that Magierre has never seen before."

What did he mean?

He let out another sigh. "You know, you betrayed me first. Sending that little spy to my meetings. You wound me. But I suppose it's not your fault. I forgive you, my sweet. There is no way you could have known the truth about why I have involved myself with those nasty Aurelians. But you will see...they will all see, soon enough."

I tried to glance over at Sabine but Pierre jerked my chin, making sure my gaze never left his. My heart beat a bit faster. He was speaking nonsense. I had no clue what it all meant.

"Liar," I rasped, my voice strained from disuse.

A smile fluttered over Pierre's lips. "Oh, not at all. It's the truth. I never expected to be so fond of you. At first, I just was curious. Here you were, the Rose Princess, the symbol of Rosailles and everything I should hate. The Queens that stole everything from me."

His lips twisted, but then his eyes softened. "At first, I thought it was just desire and lust. And perhaps initially that's all it was." He leaned forward, inhaling my hair. "Even under all the grime and filth, surrounded by the dungeons, you still reek of it... roses."

My entire body tensed. Having him so close was unnerving. I had been as intimate with him as two people could get, but now a great void lingered where his warmth had once been. Even so, the memory of his touch... my body couldn't forget. And it responded.

I hated myself for it.

Pierre pulled back. "Before long I did not only want your secrets, but you too. When you gave yourself to me, for the first time, I considered a different outcome to all of this. A better one. I saw the future with hope, I knew then what I must do. Our true destiny wasn't to be enemies as I had long thought." He stroked a smooth thumb over my jaw. He paused, furrowing his brow, and pulled it away.

"Then you had to ruin everything. Don't worry, I will fix this. All of this."

"By having me killed?" My voice was harsh and it rung through the dungeons. Pierre seemed startled that I had spoken at all.

He turned, his defined profile giving me a brief glimpse of his mouth, red gloss catching on the single sconce outside the cell. It flickered over him, coloring him in hues of red and orange.

"I will do as I must, for my country, and my birthright. For love.

He returned his gaze to me, the shadows overtaking his face, casting his expression in darkness so I could only see the gleam of his eyes and the curve of his mouth. He lifted his chin, so he looked down at me. Any warmth that had been inside him had turned to ice.

"Where is it?"

I closed my eyes. I knew he meant the Rose Crystal. I had already said more than I wanted, the last thing I would do was tell him that.

Pierre exhaled through his nose.

"Tell me, Ophelia. No one needs to get hurt."

I clenched my jaw tighter. There was nothing he could do to me now. I was going to die anyway, and so was Sabine.

A new war was inevitable now.

I may not have access to my Rose Magic, but if war came my mother would need it. It would be the defining factor in the war. The only thing that could save my people. I just prayed my mother would use our magic before it was too late.

When Pierre spoke, his voice was sharp, like the slice of a blade. "Oh, I'm not going to hurt you. I would never, my love. But there are other ways to get you to speak."

Metal clanked, but it was not the door to my cell. I realized what he meant a moment too late, panic welling up inside of me. One of Pierre's cloaked guards entered Sabine's cell.

"No!" I cried.

The guard grasped Sabine by the hair. She fought him, but the beating she had taken before had weakened her too much.

The first hit was a strike to my heart.

Sabine's lips parted, eyes widening as she focused on me.

I knew she was strong, I knew she was a fighter. But even she could not manage when outnumbered.

Her lips parted, moving—forming. Words that no one could hear.

I didn't need to hear to know what she was saying.

"Don't tell them."

I knew that I could not give in. No matter how much it pained me, no matter how Sabine's cries echoed through my head into the hours that followed long after Pierre and the guards left, I could not tell him. Even when the whispers returned with their own sweet torture.

I carried the secrets of Rose Queens within me, even if I would never be able to sit on the throne myself.

And those secrets would die with me less than a week from now. I had to stay strong until then. If Sabine could withstand this, then I needed to as well. For her, for Darren, for my siblings—even my Mother. My country,

Whatever I did, I had to make sure at least one secret died with me.