Chapter Twenty-Two
The former king looked weak. It made Tem happy.
But any happiness she felt evaporated the moment the guard attached the wires to her fingers.
Each wire corresponded with a fingertip, and the moment they touched her, Tem gasped as they welded painfully to her skin.
Suddenly she understood why her father could barely speak of the experience.
The pain was horrible, but the feeling of being trapped was worse.
Even the slightest tug on the wires caused them to pinch painfully.
This is what her father endured for years?
What all the other basilisks who were kidnapped had suffered through for decades until Leo finally made them stop?
Tem couldn’t imagine ten minutes of this, much less ten years.
This was torture. True torture.
The guard turned to leave as soon as he finished attaching the wires.
Just before he reached the cell door, he pulled a lever on the wall.
Immediately, pain shot through Tem’s fingers.
Without thinking, she cried out. The wires were taking from her—extracting blood from her skin and turning the metal slowly into gold. Through the fog of agony, she heard:
“Does it hurt?”
The question was so idiotic Tem wanted to scream.
“What do you think?” she snapped.
Maximus smiled. It was a disgusting smile, filled with nothing but malice. “Pain is inevitable, Temperance. It makes us stronger.”
Tem rolled her eyes. She didn’t need a lecture about pain right now. Especially from someone whose specialty was causing it.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” Maximus said.
Tem rather wished he would shut up. The bloodletting was punishment enough. “That makes two of us.”
“You never answered my question.”
“Which question?”
“What brings you here?”
Tem held up her entangled fingers, regretting it immediately when the wires pulled at her hands. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Maximus shook his head. “That is not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I am asking why you are here. You were the one who convinced my son to cease this practice in the first place. And yet here you are, bleeding. Why?”
“Well, apparently I wasn’t very convincing because your son brought this practice back.”
Maximus let out a low chuckle. “Please, Temperance. You are not some weak creature. You don’t do anything you don’t want to do.”
The compliment wasn’t lost on her. But Tem only shook her head. She certainly didn’t want to be doing this. “Can you just shut up? This is bad enough without you talking.”
Maximus raised his eyebrows, but Tem didn’t apologize.
“I am surprised at you, Temperance. You have my undivided attention. There was once a time when you would have taken advantage of that fact.”
“Excuse me?”
“Isn’t there anything you wish to ask me while we are here?”
Tem almost scoffed but then reconsidered.
There was a great deal she wished to ask Maximus.
Such as why he’d started the bloodletting in the first place.
And why his son was acting like a spineless worm.
But one question came to the forefront of her mind, and once she thought of it, she couldn’t shake it.
Evelyn’s words came back to her suddenly: You shouldn’t be around your father.
“What did you write in the letter you gave to Evelyn?”
Maximus tilted his head. From the look on his face, it was not the question he was expecting.
There was a long silence, in which Tem called upon every ounce of patience she possessed—which wasn’t much—to wait for him to answer. When she couldn’t take it any longer, she snapped, “Are you listening?”
“Yes, impatient girl. I heard you.”
“Then why haven’t you answered me?”
“Because your question is nonsense. I have never given Evelyn a letter.”
Tem opened her mouth but her next question died on her tongue. Because as long as she didn’t ask, she didn’t know. And as long as she didn’t know, she wasn’t keeping the truth from Leo. Before she could decide whether or not to speak, Maximus spoke instead.
“Who told you I gave Evelyn a letter?”
“She did.”
“And what did she say I wrote in it?”
Tem pursed her lips. Was Maximus manipulating her? Tem didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But she had no other option. It felt like she was on the brink of the truth. And if there was truth to be found, Tem needed to find it. “She said you broke up with her as Leo.”
More silence. Then, to Tem’s shock, Maximus began to laugh.
“Is something funny?” she cried.
Maximus only laughed more. It was a horrible sound, completely devoid of humor.
Eventually, it devolved into coughing, and if Tem’s hands hadn’t been punctured with wires, she would have clenched them.
As it stood, she could do nothing but watch as the former king hunched over in his cell, coughing until nothing came out anymore.
“My son has a type,” he said when he was done. “I have told you that before.”
“Yeah. Slut.”
“Smart,” Maximus said, correcting Tem. “He falls for smart women. Far smarter than him.”
Was Maximus complimenting her again? Before Tem had time to marvel at this, he continued.
“It will be his undoing if he is not careful.”
“What are you saying?”
“I am saying that Evelyn is smart. She fooled my son once, and she has fooled him again.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You should. You are just as smart as she is.”
Tem heaved a great sigh. That was certainly no compliment. “If you don’t explain yourself, I’m going to come over there and smack you.”
Shock passed quickly over Maximus’s face, but Tem didn’t bother apologizing. He was no longer king, and even if he had been, she wouldn’t have cared anyway. She’d had enough of the men in this family tonight.
“I never liked Evelyn,” Maximus continued slowly. “At first my son met her in secret, but eventually she came to the castle. And every time she came, things went missing.”
Tem blinked. “What kind of things?”
“Forks. Knives. Cutlery of all kinds.”
“So…you didn’t like her because she was stealing forks?”
“She was stealing gold, stupid child.”
All the cutlery in the castle was a result of the bloodletting. Tem stared down at her own hands, which were turning the wires gold. She felt faint.
“She did not leave because of some ridiculous letter. She left because I offered her a higher price than what she could steal from me one fork at a time.”
Tem went cold.
Here it was, straight from Maximus’s lips: the truth.
The thing she suspected but hadn’t wanted to face.
The thing Leo was unwilling to face. Because if what Maximus said was true, it meant that Tem had made a terrible mistake.
It meant that she had been utterly wrong in ordering Leo to find Evelyn.
It meant that everything they had fought for was for nothing—that the promise of a future for him and his supposed true love was moot.
It meant that Evelyn was not who she pretended to be.
It meant that nothing would ever be the same.
Tem said the only thing she could think of: “Fuck you.”
Another strangled laugh, dark with vindication. “Why do you care?” Maximus sneered. “You left him just like she did. And she will leave again.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Evelyn left on the promise of riches, and I have no doubt she returned for the same.”
Tem frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means she only returned when my son became king. No doubt she thought that status would guarantee her lifestyle. As you can see”—he looked pointedly at the wires attached to Tem’s hands—“it didn’t. Evelyn did not return for love. She left once. She will leave again.”
“You can’t know that.”
“History will always repeat itself,” Maximus sneered. “We do not learn. We do not correct. We forget, and then we repeat the mistakes of our past. It’s a pattern, Temperance. One that cannot be broken.”
Tem shook her head. She refused to believe that the future was written—that they had no say in the outcome. It was what Apollo believed—that fate was predetermined. But Tem believed that history only repeated itself if you let it. And Tem would not let it.
“Tell me, Temperance. Have the villagers taken kindly to your decision?”
Guilt swooped in her stomach. “What decision?”
“The decision to cut off their food supply?”
The guilt only grew.
“Ah,” said Maximus. “You did not think it through, did you? The effects would have been nearly immediate, I assume. We pay for our imports on the day they arrive. Without the bloodletting, there would be no means to pay for more. But that was of no concern to you, was it? You just wanted to stop the bleeding.”
“I wanted to protect my people.”
“Are the villagers not also your people? Your mother raised you. Surely that counts for something.”
Of course it counted for something. But it was not everything. Just because Tem was raised a certain way, that didn’t mean it was the only part of her identity that mattered. Tem was made up of two things, both of equal value.
“Don’t talk about my mother,” Tem snapped.
Maximus gave her a slow, strange smile. “Your mother,” he said, “was just like you.”
Tem had no idea what to say to that. Of all the things Maximus had told her tonight, that was the least of her worries. “I was trying to do the right thing,” she whispered.
“Right is relative, Temperance. You are a fool if you think you can do things better than I did.”
“There has to be another way.”
“Ignorant child. This is always the way things have been done.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It’s the way you do them.”
“You know nothing of how the world works, of how adults make their decisions. Power is hard-won and not so easily kept. It takes a miracle to obtain it and a single moment of weakness to lose it.”
“I don’t want power.”
“That is because you already have it. And tell me, Temperance. Would you give it up?”
Tem stared at him. Did she really covet power the way Bastian had—the way Maximus had?
It was abhorrent to her. She didn’t want to be like them.
But perhaps it was unavoidable. Tem had never been powerful until now.
She knew what it meant to want something, especially something she would never have.
She certainly never thought she’d have power.
It was a new thing for her to be like this—to be a Hybreed. Would she give it up?
“You think you are so much better than your ancestors,” Maximus said, interrupting her thoughts. “You think you can do it all differently. But something always has to give, Temperance. Peace is an illusion.”
But Tem was not Maximus; she would not give up hope. She could choose a different path—for the kingdom, and for herself. “Peace is possible.”
“There is always a winner and a loser. The cycle cannot be broken.”
“You’re wrong,” Tem whispered.
“I am not wrong. And you will realize that before the end.”
But Tem was done listening to men who had no idea what it meant to sacrifice—men like Maximus who were born at the top of the food chain and would always remain there.
Even now, imprisoned in his own home, he was sequestered from the outside world, safe from the basilisks he had tortured to get here.
There was no justice, no fairness to any of it.
Tem whispered, “I will break it.”
Maximus didn’t reply.
They sat in silence until the guard returned to release her. The stairs were dark; Leo was nowhere to be found.
I will wait for you. More lies.
If Tem weren’t so weak from the bloodletting, she might have cared. Instead she ascended the staircase slowly, using the wall to hold herself upright. By the time she reached the landing, she was out of breath.
Caspen was nowhere to be found either. Had he gone back to the caves alone?
Was he waiting for her in a carriage? She groped for him with her mind, but the corridor between them was still closed.
Tem knew Caspen was angry about her decision.
But she’d at least expected him to see her through this—to be here when she got out.
Tem was almost at the front door when suddenly she heard her name.
Leo was before her.