Chapter 9
Nelle
When I finally dragged myself out of bed for the day, I found Penn placing a second cloche next to my untouched breakfast on the dining table. “You’ve slept late,” she said.
I almost rolled my eyes. What else was there to do but pace or sleep?
“You told me he’d be back by now.” A cough tore up my throat, and I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to ease the wet rasp in my lungs. I cleared my throat before asking, “Where is he? When is he going to return?” I’d been stuck in this room, this prison cell, for three days.
She lifted the cloche, and I drew closer to see there was a light lunch of salad and cold meats. “I’m not sure what is detaining the Crowthers, or when Graysen will be back.”
I didn’t care what detained him or where he had gone on whatever business that needed the Crowthers.
His safe and unharmed return didn’t even matter to me.
He was only needed here, so I could roar at him to free me.
I wanted to chip away at the ice wall he’d built around himself and make him let me go.
I couldn’t do any of that if he wasn’t here, and the only person I saw was Penn.
She couldn’t remove the collar from my neck. Only a Crowther could.
She pulled back a wooden chair. “Please…sit and eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat. You must be starving.”
But as I checked myself, my stomach and its twisting emptiness, the listlessness in my body and mind, I realized I had no desire to eat. No desire, really, to do anything.
Because I was sure she’d argue if I told her the truth, I sat down and picked up the fork and knife, stabbing at the crisp salad.
As I crunched down on lettuce and capsicum, their juices bursting along my teeth and tongue, I heard her retreating footsteps, and the door shut softly behind her.
I swallowed the measly mouthful, dropped the cutlery on the plate with a clatter, pushed the meal aside and rose.
I’ll return as soon as I can, he’d said.
Liar.
The soft carpet muffled my footsteps as I walked around and around. I was surprised that I hadn’t worn away the looped fibers with my endless pacing the past few days.
Silence was welcome.
Silence filled my head, pushing everything else out.
I welcomed the emptiness of my mind. The nothingness.
My skin wasn’t warmed by sunlight or caressed by moonlight. A breeze didn’t slink around my limbs or kiss my cheek. Just the steady, controlled flow of conditioned air flooded my lungs and skated over my flesh.
As the next few days passed, I could only tell what time of day it was from Penn’s arrival, carrying her godsdamned silver trays of breakfast, lunch, and then supper.
I didn’t speak to her. It was too exhausting to even bother trying, and she’d merely tell me what I already knew. Graysen hadn’t come back.
There was nothing but endless time and the same curved walls that seemed to press in on my very soul. Lethargy sank into my body. A racking cough had prevailed, and I shivered constantly as if I’d leeched an ice-biting chill from the stone walls and it had settled deep inside my bones.
There was nothing to do but stare at stone and wait.
Was this to be the rest of my life? An eternity spent staring at stone walls?
No.
In a few months’ time, I’d step upon an auction block, my body prodded and poked at like a cow while I was deliberated over.
Which parts would be best carved up, ground down, the fat boiled and rendered off.
The pieces that could be woven into spells to lengthen their lifespan or cast a glamour of beauty over their repulsive features, or twisted into other abominations of magic.
I dragged myself into the closet that served as my makeshift bedroom, closed the door, and slid into bed.
I slept, and when I awoke I wasn’t hungry, but I tried to force a few bites of something small to eat.
And I went back to bed and did not rise.
Not the next day, nor the next, nor the one after that.
And each time I was roused to consciousness, a glass of water or a spoonful of broth pressed to my lips, it was too much to bear. I didn’t want to face where I was or what was to become of me. I wanted to sleep it away.
There were almost-lucid moments. Brief windows of reality breaking through my dream state.
Penn staring down at me with worry…
Her voice drifting like music being played in another room, begging me to wake…
Hands as hot as a burning furnace on my forehead, my cheeks, my upper arms.
As I fell back into blissful nothingness, even I recognized my lungs rattled in my chest, the wet rasping of my breath, and how shivers racked my body. It was too hard to raise a limb that felt weighed down as if it were bound with iron chains.
And on I slept.