CHAPTER SEVEN #3
I could still see the accusation in their eyes. In my aunt’s. The hatred and disdain—I’d seen it for years before I left. I braced myself for the shame and humiliation I knew would follow.
But the Hermit gathered his cloak, shoving it over my head, blanketing me completely.
Well, now I was as invisible as I felt.
Peering through the fabric, I watched as he was waved over the wall without a word. And to my shock, Erys continued flying straight over Azeal, toward the castle.
The Hermit directed the witchmoth to the south side, to the Princess’s Tower. My old tower.
“What are we doing?” I asked, but Erys was heading straight for an open window.
I ducked just as Erys flew through inside, and lay down on the ground, his wings spread wide so we could descend.
“Finally,” the Hermit muttered, pulled his cloak from my head, and lifted me to my feet and onto the castle’s stone floor. The tower walls smelled musty, like the entire structure had gone into disuse while I was away.
And yet, beneath the must, I recognized the familiar scents that had been there when I was a girl. The roses from the castle grounds. The burned incense which had become a smoky fixture within the walls.
“What is this?” I asked, my voice small, weighed down by memories of nights in these very halls. “What are we doing here?”
“The Princess’s Tower? This was your domain, was it not?”
I nodded. “Yes, but—”
“But what?” he asked. “I’m taking you to your room.
Did you think you were in any condition to speak to your aunt at this hour?
It’s nearly dawn, and the Queen has a full day of court to prepare for.
What she needs to discuss with you requires patience.
And for your mind to be fully functioning and awake. ”
I shook my head. “Why not just have her yell and send me to the dungeons?” I tried to wriggle my shoulders, since my hands were still bound.
It was all becoming too much. The sounds.
The smells. Things I hadn’t experienced, hadn’t remembered since…
since my mother died. I felt like I was going to be sick.
“You’re not sleeping in the dungeons,” he scoffed. “You have a room.”
My nostrils flared, my fingers flexing. My mind was desperately trying to send energy I no longer possessed into my arms, trying to grow muscle to break free of my bindings.
But I barely had enough energy to stand.
He stalked forward, his body towering over mine.
“You are my prisoner. And hers. But no one else, not a single witch in Azeal, is to know you’re here.
So,” he grabbed my arm and opened the door to my childhood bedroom, shoving me inside.
“If you want to eat when you wake—and by eat, I mean food for your mortal body,” light flashed in his indigo eyes, “you will be quiet. You will go to bed. And then I will bring you to Her Majesty myself for an audience when you’re fit to do so.
And when she decides she wants to see you. ”
The door slammed shut behind me, the Hermit on the opposite side.
Within seconds, my bindings dissolved and I was finally able to move my arms and legs.
Yet I couldn’t move an inch.
I was in my old room. The place where I’d grown up, slept, dreamt, and played.
The place where I’d become me. I took a tentative step forward, my mind and body flashing back and forth between the present and past as I began to take it all in, seeing the details I hadn’t thought about since I’d left.
I used to have a rug, woven from the softest wool, dyed a warm pink and purple.
It was gone. On a bureau with a mirror resting on top, I kept my comb and bottles of perfume.
They were gone, too. The room was bare save for the furniture.
The bed, the red couch where I’d read, the small writing desk and the gold-framed mirror that spanned floor to ceiling.
I used to spend hours dancing in front of it, unknowingly perfecting the choreographies that would serve me at Geoffrey’s.
And a large bay window, where I’d sit and daydream.
A window that opened …
I raced across the room to it, flashes of seeing myself over the years in my mind. Sitting at the window and reading in the morning before my lessons, and by torchlight before bed, daydreaming there on the days when the rain was endless.
The first light of sunrise glowed across the sill. I stared down, on the verge of wondering how far the drop was. Could I climb down? I’d tried once as a girl, trying to find the grooves in the wall, sticking my foot into each one as I shimmied my way to the window beneath.
But without warning, the windows shuttered, each one slamming shut around me, carrying the distinct aura of magic.
The Hermit.
The blankets on my old bed pulled back on their own, and a sharp wind swept me across the room. I tumbled onto the bed, and my boots flew off my feet, landing neatly before my locked door. It was like he was laughing at me, mocking me. And yet, I’d never been more tired.
I lay down in defeat. I couldn’t fight it any longer. Too much had happened to me through the night. And as the sun rose against the horizon, I fell asleep.