Page 77 of Mud

“To try to blame a man, a true agent, for such heinous crimes?—”

“Grandmother, I swear it, he tried to k?—”

“Enough!”

The ring on her middle finger pulsated with light—a gorgeous golden piece with three rubies going vertically from her knuckle down her finger. I felt her magic,sawit so clearly it shocked me a little bit. I had never quite seen it so vividly before.Toovividly.

And it made this hole in my chest expand more—with panic, with envy, with regret.What the hell had I done?!

“You are a stained, good-for-nothing woman, and your only good fortune is that you carry my blood in your veins,” Madeline said, putting down her newspaper before she stood up, looking at me with so much hatred she could give the Tivoux brothers a run for their money.

“My hand was forced in a lot of matters when it comes to you, just like it was with your father,” she spit, then turned away from me and toward the windows to look outside at her vast estate.

Stabs at my gut.Thatwas the reason why my grandmother couldn’t look at me—my father. Mainly my mother, her daughter, who marriedfor loveand didn’t choose the man Madeline chose for her. She chose to marry my father, loved him even though he wasn’t powerful, he wasn’t rich, he wasn’t related to the IDD in any way. She loved him and she defied her for him. Andhedefied Madeline regularly for me.

Madeline hated him so much that when they died, all that hatred transferred to me.

Not like she needed an excuse, really—she was bad to the core, I believed, and she would have used any reason tojustify her actions to herself. That is,ifshe ever had trouble sleeping at night, which I doubted.

“You’re Mud, Rosabel. My own blood, and you are Mud,” she said in a tired whisper, eyes closed though she’d stopped in front of the window. I could barely see her reflection in the polished glass, and for a moment, I imagined running and pushing her right through that window, sending her to the ground. But we were only two stories high, and the fall wouldn’t kill her, even if I could somehow manage to stand up.

“It wasn’t a choice,” I repeated through gritted teeth, more to myself than to her. Because even though I knew exactly who Madeline Rogan was, her words still got to me. She still shaped my image of myself with her poisonous words and looks. I still saw in the mirror exactly what she saw when she looked at me—and I hated it.

It wasn’t a choice to becomestained.I’d acted on instinct in that forest. I hadn’t meant to let out my magic the way I had—it was an accident!

And I’d regret it with all my heart until the day I died—but it wasnot my choice.

Madeline pretended I hadn’t spoken at all.

“You know I can’t have that. My name, stained—never.” Again, she shivered, then turned around to face me, and she genuinely looked terrified. I’d only seen her afraid a handful of times before, if that, but she looked really scared right now at the idea ofher name, stained.

I don’t go by your name,I wanted to say, but I bit my tongue. Because even though I had my father’s last name, everyone knew I was her granddaughter. There was no escaping her if I tried.

Madeline raised her chin as if to dare me to defy hereven before she said, “You will be entering the Iris Roe tomorrow evening.”

My ears rang for a good long minute. I blinked and blinked, and watched her red lips, certain I’d heard her wrong. Certainallof this was wrong.

Then I shook my head. “I’m sorry, what?”

She flinched. Actually flinched. Took two steps closer, folded her hands behind her back and leaned down just a bit. “You will be entering the Iris Roe tomorrow evening, Rosabel.Pay. Attention.I don’t like to repeat myself.”

Oh, yes. She most definitely didn’t like that, never did. But I still needed her to right now because what she was saying made no sense.

“The Iris Roe,” I repeated just so it didn’t sound like a question outright.

“Yes, the Iris Roe. You will enter it tomorrow evening. A team will take you to one of the gates,” she said, clearly. Slowly. Very easy to understand.

“As…as a guard?” I wondered because that was the only thing that made sense. “As an agent.”

That’s what I did, that was my job. Screw the fact that nobody had ever asked me whatI actually wanted to do or thatIdidn’t know what I wanted to do myself because I’d never had the time or the chance to wonder—I wasan agent.

Madeline laughed.

She rarely laughed, and I was thankful for it because the sound was not pleasant. It was cold and sharp, coming at me like ice shards, attacking the inside of my mind relentlessly, yet I didn’t dare flinch or lean away.

“As a player,” she finally said, making the hair on the back of my neck stand at attention.

A player in the Iris Roe.

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