Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
B riony
The door slams behind them and then I’m alone in the kitchen. Okay, it’s a really nice kitchen. The nicest kitchen I’ve ever been in. Possibly one of the nicest rooms I’ve ever been in full stop – glistening marble worktops, expensive-looking gadgets and polished floor.
It doesn’t really matter. I’m still locked in.
Or so they say, anyway. I decide it’s best to check. I walk to the door and try the handle. It’s locked and a thin wisp of shadow curls around my wrist, making my skin tingle with pleasure. I shake my arm, trying to detract it, but it only slides further up my arm.
I swipe at it with my other hand, trying to dislodge it. My fingers simply float straight through the misty shadow.
I jump away from the door, shaking my arm more violently and the shadow slides down my arm and glides back towards the door.
“Asshole,” I mutter, assuming the window will be guarded in the same way.
I’m guessing this is punishment for not playing along. If it is, it’s a pretty pathetic punishment. Nothing compared to the ones doled out by Muriel. It still sucks. My room may be dingy, cold and damp compared to this room but at least I have Fly across the hallway to talk to, plus a book to read and I can keep guard of the package hidden in my wardrobe. All I have in here is kitchen gadgets and food.
Food!
I swing my gaze around, finding a small larder door at the back of the room. As I stalk that way, I hear laughter and voices radiating from elsewhere in this tower – a tower that these three men have all to themselves.
As I pull back the door, I find a small room laden with food – so much food it has my stomach aching and my eyes watering. This is too much for three people – even three very large people who must burn through food at a rate of knots. I think of how little fills the meager pantry back at my home in Slate Quarter and for a moment I have the desire to smash this all up. However, my stomach rumbles in protest at that idea and I decide I’ll have myself a little feast instead. May as well make the best of this situation while I can and I did skip dinner.
I laden my arms with as much as I can carry – bread rolls, whole slabs of cheese, cured meats, jars of pickles and sweetened fruits.
Then I carry it back to the table and go in search of a plate and cutlery. The cupboards are full of pots and pans and at least three different types of dinner services as if these guys are going to be hosting dinner parties every day. I pick one plate made of fine bone porcelain, an intricate flower design hand painted across its surface and take it over to the table, staring at it the whole time. This plate in itself is probably worth more than my dad makes in a month. Again I have the desire to smash it into a thousand pieces. Again my stomach protests and I sit and make myself the biggest, most decadent sandwich of my life.
As I hold the thing between both hands and bring it up to my mouth, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I don’t mean eating the sandwich, as I sink my teeth into the fresh white bread, I conclude this was the best decision I ever made.
No, I mean about the Princes.
Fly and Clare both seem to think I’m mad for not accepting my fate as a thrall.
Beaufort certainly seems to agree. Not accepting my fate has led me into an awful lot of danger.
I lower my sandwich to the pretty plate and lean back in the chair, closing my eyes.
It would make sense. Just do as they say. It’s only a goddamn year. And can it be any worse than what I’ve endured back home?
I could eat food like this every day. Maybe I could even live in this palace of a tower. They’d protect me.
Sure, there’d be things I’d have to give in return. Things I’m not sure I even understand. But wouldn’t it be worth it?
But then Amelia’s face comes floating into my head. So like mine. Only painted with hope and excitement. Believing, truly believing things could change.
I can’t betray her like that. I can’t let her down.
I open my eyes, pick up that pretty plate and sling it across the room.
They took her from me. And there’s no way – no way in hell – I could trust them. No way I’ll be anything but a spitting hissing hellcat to them.
When I’ve stuffed as much food down my throat as I can stomach, I decide I’m going to show them just how much of a hellcat I can be. I start with the crockery. It pains me – the plates and bowls are beautifully crafted and obviously hand painted with care, most probably by some poor bastard back in Slate Quarter. I do it anyway. Hurtling plate after plate, bowl after bowl at the walls and the floor.
It proves to be pretty cathartic. I imagine I’m tossing the plates at Odessa’s head, at Stanley’s face and at the fleeing back of those Iron Quarter girls. Once I’m done, I start on the glasses and then the cups. The pots and pans turn out to be unsmashable but throwing them at the floor does dent and bend them out of shape and I manage to snap all the wooden spoons and cooking implements in half.
I make my way through every cupboard until the only thing left to damage is the remaining food.
I can’t bring myself to do that though. It’s just too damn wasteful, besides all that destruction has worn me out – especially after the lack of sleep last night and the run this morning.
I listen out for the clock tower and after a while I hear it ring out eleven o’clock.
I smother a yawn, then spot a cushioned seat under the window.
I was hoping to be awake to witness their expression when they discover my trail of destruction, but my eyelids have other plans and wrapping myself up in Clare’s coat, I curl up on the seat, falling asleep with a sly smile on my lips.
I’m going to make them regret they ever chose me.
Something stroking my cheek wakes me later.
I blink awake, my mind taking several minutes to remember where I am.
For a moment, I think it’s Baxter’s soft head snuggled against mine. Or my sister climbing into bed with me. But soon I realize it isn’t.
I’m not back home, or snuggled up with Baxter out in the woods somewhere, not even in my new room at the academy.
No, I’m in the kitchen in the Princes Tower. A kitchen I have destroyed.
And that softness against my cheek is a hand.
I peer up into the face of Beaufort Lincoln.
Before I went to sleep, trashing the room they locked me in seemed like a really clever idea. Now faced with the imminent consequences of their disapproval, I’m less sure.
Except he doesn’t look angry, he looks pretty amused.
“Did your little temper tantrum wear you out, sweetheart?” he says, still stroking my cheek.
I snap up to sitting and jerk my head away from his hand.
“It wasn’t a temper tantrum,” I snarl.
“Looks like it to me,” he says, jerking his head towards all the mess I’ve caused.
I smile sweetly at him. “Just a little gift from me to you, to thank you for your wonderful hospitality.”
“Very thoughtful of you, sweetheart. I understand this is how you may like things back in Slate Quarter, but I preferred it the way it was.”
He sweeps his hand in the direction of the room, and just like before shadows race from his fingertips, curling across the room and engulfing the mess of smashed-up plates, bowls, cups and glasses.
I watch in amazement as the shadows weave the destruction back together, piling the plates neatly on top of one another, stacking the glasses, and returning everything to their shelves.
“Ahhh, and I see you did enjoy our food.” My cheeks burn in annoyance. “You’re free to help yourself to anything in the pantry any time you like.”
“No, thank you,” I say. I swing my legs to the floor, ignoring the way my knees brush against his. “I’m going home.”
“Not yet,” he says, grabbing ahold of my wrist, his fingers curling around my skin, his magic making it tingle. Tingles that race right up my arm into my chest and down into my core. Those are tingles, right?
Despite myself, I freeze.
“I have something for you,” he says.
“I don’t want anything of yours. In fact …” I reach into the pocket of Clare’s coat and pull out his watch, thrusting it at him.
He takes it, examines it and then straps it back onto his wrist without comment.
“It’s not mine,” he says. “It’s a gift.”
“I don’t want …” My words fade away as he reaches into the pocket of his pants and, tantalizingly slowly, pulls out a golden collar.
It possesses a shine, a light, of its own, the threads expertly and intricately woven and the effect both delicate and dazzling.
It’s more beautiful than any of the collars worn by the other thralls. A million times more beautiful. My fingers itch to reach out and touch it – to stroke my fingertips down the exquisite threads.
But it’s a trap. One I don’t intend to walk into. He can offer me all the gold and jewels in the realm and I would still refuse to be his, to be theirs.
They are my enemy.
“I don’t want it,” I tell him, tearing my eyes away from it.
“Really?” he says with sarcasm, “because you seem to like it.”
“You’re mistaken.”
“You don’t like the way it looks.” He draws it over his hands and it slithers like a grass snake. “It was made by the finest craftsmen in Onyx Quarter. It’s made from the threads of velvet silkworms.”
“Then give it to someone else.”
“It’s meant for our thrall. For you.” He holds it up to my throat and once again I can’t resist the temptation to let it rest there, his touch electric against my skin, the collar warm and seductive. His eyes fall dark. “That looks damn good,” he growls.
My heart beats ferociously in my chest. The warmth and the magic from his body is palatable and he smells of orange and cedar. A scent so different from everything back home.
My cheeks warm, the beat of my heart jumps to my throat. It would be so easy to close my eyes and let him tie this collar around my neck.
I duck my head away.
“I told you, I don’t want it.”
He considers me for a moment, then obviously decides to change tactics. “It will keep you safe.”
“I don’t need the three of you to keep me safe. I can look after myself.”
“You know you can’t win at this little game of yours, right?”
I stand up and storm towards the door before he can stop me.
“Make sure you’re back here again, same time Saturday night.”
“We’ll see,” I tell him.
“Yeah,” he says, “we will.”
His words irk me but I resist the urge to snipe back and keep walking out of the kitchen and into the hallway. The light is extinguished out here and as I walk towards the door, I almost don’t see him lurking in the darkness. The third Prince. The third shadow weaver. Thorne.
He’s watching me with that same look of disdain painted all over his face. Beaufort might be insistent that he and his brothers want me but it’s clear as day that Thorne does not. Everything in his expression tells me how much he despises and loathes me. A commoner. A Slate girl. Clearly not worthy of a man like him.
“Don’t worry,” I snap, “I’m going. I don’t want to be here any more than you want me here.”
His face doesn’t alter and he doesn’t say a word.
I toss my head in annoyance and stride right out of the door.
I won’t be back.