29
I lie awake, tossing and turning in bed well past midnight. Three words echo in my brain on a soul-crushing loop. She was Bitten she was Bitten she was Bitten.
How could I not have known? How could I not have guessed?
It explains so much about her ever-shifting personality in that last week.
Her chaos at both parties we attended and her anger in the fight.
And that rash . Not a hickey after all, but a webbing of scars.
I lift my nightgown from my ribs and expose my own scar.
It’s fainter, silver and cracked on my pale skin, but it spirals and tangles like a spider’s web.
That’s because you were meant to survive it.
I roll onto my side and stuff my hands under my pillow. Had Celeste even known herself? Surely if she had, she would’ve told me. Celeste held out her pinky to me in third grade and made me swear on my future grave that we would never keep secrets from each other.
“Ever,” she said. “No matter what.”
I twined my pinky with hers and agreed. “No matter what.”
No , I think to myself. She couldn’t have known.
Now, if only I could figure out which werewolf did it and for what reason.
Glaring at the waxing gibbous moon hanging in my window, I will it to darken, will the stars to stop shining so brightly that it feels like my bedroom is lit by the sun.
I’ll never be able to sleep. I’ll probably watch dawn spring forth without ever shutting my eyes once.
She was Bitten. If not for that night on the beach, Celeste could have shifted into a werewolf. She could have become what I am now.
Suddenly, a piercing scream rends the air, and I bolt upright. My pulse quickens as I fist the sheets of my bed.
Ignore it. Just ignore it.
Another scream—a woman’s. Shrill and terrified.
I plug my ears. It’s not the first time I’ve heard screams here. I’m sure it won’t be the last. But the noise digs beyond my hands and into my ears. There’s something about the sound. It’s different. It’s familiar.
I try not to listen, even as it pierces my werewolf hearing and coils like a snake in my brain. The shriek is… it’s… weak . Whiny and feeble and—
Mortal.
“ Please ,” I make out from the depths of wherever the screams come from, “please help us.”
Tonight, the screams are loud enough I can hear the cadence perfectly, can hear each rasping of their breath. This voice does not belong to a woman.
It belongs to a child.
Claws rip from my hands as, instinctually, I leap out of bed and snatch a silk robe from my wardrobe.
When the next scream rings out, my vision tunnels on the door.
I forget to tie the belt around my waist. Forget that I shouldn’t be walking around this late.
Forget that soldiers have been following my every move for weeks. None of that matters anyway.
A child is being hurt. A human child. And the sound—it’s coming from below. Deep, deep down in the underbelly of the castle.
My heart races, beating violently against my ribs, and I throw myself into the hallway. I don’t think; I just move. Fast as my reflexes allow it, I charge toward the winding staircase. I’m not even sure why. But somewhere a child is hurt, and maybe I can help them. I want to help them.
Torchlight flickers, dimmer than usual, charcoal-gray flames dancing along empty stone walls and casting crooked shadows on tapestries and statues.
Another scream—and it’s louder. It’s closer .
I race after it. Down the stairwell, around and around, as quietly as I can manage while maintaining my pace.
If I make enough racket, guards will come.
I’ll either be tried for treason or locked in my room—or maybe stabbed again.
My clammy grip slides over the wrought iron, and my legs tremble, but I keep going.
I have to keep going. Those screams don’t stop, and no one else is helping. No one else seems to care.
When I finally reach the bottom, the source of the noise, my lungs threaten to burst, and the world tilts as adrenaline consumes me. I hold on to the railing and close my eyes, breathing until the world straightens and I’m certain I can continue walking without collapsing.
“There you are.”
I startle at the voice—jump and knock into the railing painfully as my eyes pop open—however, I don’t scream. If I must, I will incapacitate the intruder. I will save the child.
But the girl in front of me isn’t an intruder at all.
Dazzling sapphire eyes watch me, unblinking, as she tilts her head. Straight black hair falls over pale shoulders, constellations inked above her brow. Along her nose and cheeks. Like freckles.
The Oracle.
Lyra.
Why is she down here? Is she torturing humans? And if she is—my stomach sinks—she’ll have me brought before the queen for intervening. “I… um… I was just on a nightly stroll,” I hasten to say, trying to glimpse the location of the last scream over her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I’ll go back to bed.”
Lyra grins, sweeping aside the delicate skirts of her nightgown. “You don’t need to whisper. The stars hear all regardless.” She gestures for me to enter the spacious cavern. The lagoon .
Seawater swirls black in the pool, and the moon and stars cast the limestone rock and seashell walls in silvered, dancing lights. “I thought you would be here tonight, although the future isn’t written in stone. You can always change your mind.”
Shit. I’ve been caught by the Wolf Queen’s fortune-telling lap dog. I hesitate to follow her deeper into the antechamber. “Are you going to turn me in?”
“I waited for you, didn’t I?” Lyra waves her arms, and the wings of her nightgown flutter behind her like a swan’s. “The future must come to fruition.”
“You just said the future isn’t written in stone.”
“Yours isn’t.” Lyra tiptoes around the lagoon. “This castle’s is.”
I glance back up the stairwell. The screams may have died down, but that child is still here. I can either run away or stay. Stay and fight for them. Perhaps I can convince Lyra to leave. Perhaps she won’t intervene.
Taking another step forward, I ask, “Lyra, why are you down here?”
“If you’re asking if I’m the reason for the screams, I am not.” Truth. She gestures to the hole in the rock that leads to the sky. “The universe did not raise me to hurt others.”
My eyes narrow. “What did it raise you for?”
“I do not know.” Hollow distance fills her gaze. “Perhaps pain. Perhaps glory. Sometimes they seem much the same, don’t they?”
“I… don’t actually know what you’re saying,” I admit.
Lyra cackles. I glance nervously at the stairs, listening for any sound of guards in the stairwell or beyond. So far, silence.
“The universe bestows its gifts justly, Vanessa Serafina Hart.”
I still. My grandmother’s name passes between us like a secret. “How do you know my middle name?”
She smiles at the stars and ignores the question.
I suppose for an oracle it is rather redundant.
“Queen Sybil was not always as she is now. She spent her twelve wolf-less years as a young girl obsessed with dealings. Traded chores with other girls. Swapped clothing with her sister. Bargaining for a better place here. A more important one.”
I lean against the wall of rock, and it slices my skin, sharp as claws. I hiss, and blood trickles down my arm. “Are you saying the universe gave Queen Sybil power over magical, blood-binding bargains because she wanted to wear her sister’s dresses?”
“The universe can only return to us what it’s been given.
” Lyra watches the wound on my arm heal itself, and her blue gaze pales to white.
She blinks furiously before it returns to normal once more.
I think to ask her about it, but she’s speaking again.
“You wield honesty like a sword, unashamed and proud. The universe has thus gifted you the ability to sense that in others.”
“I would have preferred the universe to keep me human.”
“Yes. You would have.” She inclines her chin. “You ask all the wrong questions, you know. You miss all the answers even as they’re in front of you.”
I loathe that her honesty feels like home. I flex my hands, forcing my claws at bay. “I’m doing the best I can.”
“Are you?” She shakes her head and holds out a hand. “Come.”
“Where?”
“He is on his way.” She wiggles her fingers. “One minute to choose your future, Vanessa Serafina Hart.”
I growl as frustration clogs my throat. My claws don’t break free, but my hands shake. My cheeks flush red hot. “You are the most confusing person I have ever met, and I’m—”
My ears perk up. I stop speaking immediately. There is an echo in the stairwell. A clatter of footsteps. I listen closer. One, two, three steps at a time.
Someone is coming.
Shit.
Lyra stands as motionless as the current in the lagoon. “Your choice,” she whispers.
If I don’t trust her, I’m as good as caught.
Damn it. I grab her hand, and faster than I could have imagined she yanks me into the water.
“What the—” But that strange, magical liquid fills my mouth and smothers my words as Lyra holds my head under.
As she presses down on my shoulders while her gaze sparkles beneath the sea.
She’s drowning me with a goddamned smile on her face.