Page 19 of Anchor

“You’ve requested to see my granddaughter, Rosabel La Rouge,” Madeline continued. “She is honored to be in your presence.”

My grandmother stepped to the side and waved a manicured hand toward me just slightly.

I forgot what it’s like to breathe all over again as I met the eyes of the woman in the middle of the six people sitting in front of us.Sixmembers of the Council who’d requested to see me, apparently.

A bad feeling settled over my shoulders, wrapped around me like a damn coat. These men and women sat up there in their fancy chairs like they thought themselves kings and queens—but they were much more powerful than that.

Then the woman in the middle spoke.

“Thank you for bringing her in, in such short notice, Madeline,” she said, and her voice was just as sharp as my grandmother’s, those big blue eyes just as attentive. They all wore black robes over their clothes, with sleeves that extended over their knuckles as they held their hands over the table, all of them in the same way. But the colors of their chairs gave away which coven they belonged to, and this woman here was Whitefire.

She was possibly my grandmother’s age, silver hair lighter, almost completely white, longer and done in waves that fell in front of her shoulders. To her right was a man with a round faceand not a single hair on his shiny head, with dark eyes and thin lips pressed tightly as he looked at me, analyzed me and judged me openly. The color of his chair said he was Bluefire.

“Always a pleasure,” Madeline said with a deep nod of her head, something I’d never seen her do before. People nodded and curtsied to her, not the other way around.

But this was the Council.

Then the man to the left of the Bluefire guy spoke. “I believe all of us would like to know how your granddaughter managed to sneak into the Iris Roe, Madeline—and win, considering her…status.”

My status beingMud, the guy meant. He was younger than the bald one to his side, the color of his chair black. He had a full head of hair, too, almost as dark as Taland’s, and his eyes were the same, except his were also full of malice. He looked pure evil, and it freaked me the hell out. That’s why I quickly looked away before Madeline answered.

“She paid people to smuggle her in.”

By that point I didn’t have it in me to be surprised anymore—I just listened to her lying to the Council through her teeth.

“She has plenty of money at her disposal, passed onto her by her parents, and she used a good amount to pay staff members at the playground to let her through illegally.”

I looked at the back of Madeline’s head. My goddess, she really was an impeccable liar. I was almost impressed.

“Andwhywould she do that, knowing what she is?” This from the woman sitting on the right of the Whitefire. Her skin was dark, her hair more salt than pepper, long and curly and half tied in a bun atop her head. Her eyes were a brown so light they looked as orange as mine had in the mirror. The color of her chair said she was Redfire.

Madeline threw a quick look back at me. “Because she hoped to cleanse her color and become Iridian again.”

I was nevernotIridian,said the voice in my head, but of course, I bit my tongue. Not just because it was my instinct to do so—Madeline was here and these people oozed enough magical power to make anyone shut their mouths—but because I could be wrong. We were always taught that the Mud arenotIridian. Who was I to claim I was when I’d felt how much my magic had changed, how inaccessible it had become?

“And she actually did it.” This from the last guy to my left, one possibly older than all the rest, yet his dark eyes were much more alert as they took me in.

This man wore black, and his chair was made of only gold and silver and his thinning hair was identical to Madeline’s in color andhe was Mud.

It wasn’t just the lack of color on his chair that gave it away—it was a feeling deep inside my bones. It was a voice in my head that whispered it to me.

The rumors were true. There was a Mud member in the Council.

And that shocked me more than anything else so far—much more than Madeline’s effortless lying.

“That remains to be determined,” said the woman sitting between him and the Redfire. Her chair was as green as her eyes, and her hair was dyed a rich copper. The contrast to her pale skin was almost scary, but she somehow pulled it off. “Speak, Rosabel La Rouge. Is what your grandmother says true? Did you pay your way into the Iris Roe?”

A second of silence. I held onto the air in my lungs, my face instinctively passive, like I wasn’t bothered in the least, like I felt nothing at all. In reality, I was drowning in emotions, barely keeping my head above the surface.

I waited a second more.

Madeline turned her head to the side just slightly, eyes to the floor, but I knew that look. I knew what it meant.

“Yes.”

My voice sounded so strange. Maybe it was the tall ceiling of the room or maybe my fear—but it sounded like I wasn’t me at all.

The Council members looked at one another.

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