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Bryony still hadn’t spoken.

Adrian repeated the command for her. The Crown answered with another pulse, testing the path between her authority and my blood.

I could feel the empty command waiting for her voice.

The last time I’d felt that pressure, Cecily was already lost inside the Crown. Her orders had torn through me before I understood she was fighting them. Bryony had entered knowing the risk and chosen it with her eyes open, even if they were closed now.

I wouldn’t treat her like she was already gone.

The chain around my left wrist loosened another fraction. I kept my hand relaxed and gave Adrian no reason to notice.

Lenora worked the seal blade deeper into the crack. The freed guards pressed their weight behind her while white sparks burned across their arms.

Adrian ignored them and leaned close to Bryony.

“Command him,” he said. “He’ll obey you. He has no choice.”

Adrian had built his plan around the Crown taking every choice away. Bryony kept making her own.

I let the chains hold me. The dagger remained against my heart, ready to drink the moment she spoke, and I waited.

The light stopped pulsing.

Bryony opened her eyes wearing the Blood Crown.

42

BRYONY

Every part of Harrowmere opened to me at once.

I felt the broken main doors, the damaged service gate and the rooms stretching above us. White wards ran through the walls. Red marks stained the passages wherever Adrian’s commands had touched them.

The Crown sat cold and heavy on my head.

Stellan lay beside the throne with the dagger against his heart. His blood covered Adrian’s hand, but the power inside it hadn’t crossed into the blade.

Adrian waited for me to obey.

“Go fuck yourself.”

Adrian’s face emptied of expression.

The words hadn’t carried any magic. I’d spoken to him as myself, and the Crown hadn’t stopped me.

Relief moved through Stellan so hard that I felt it in my knees. His left hand stayed loose inside the chain, hiding how close he was to pulling free.

Adrian pushed the dagger into his chest.

“You accepted the Crown,” he said. “Use it.”

“I am.”

The whole house waited behind my next breath. Harrowmere would close doors, move stone or tear its own wards apart if I gave the order. It would also reach for Stellan’s body if I named him carelessly.

I could separate the house from the people inside it. Doors registered as solid shapes, and the wards warmed my skin. Stellan was alive at the centre of the court, held by restraints placed over his body instead of belonging to it.

The Crown gave me access to all of them. It didn’t give me the right to use him.