35
Oona returns a week later to tuck me into bed, but she’s limping the whole time. Her wounds have healed, though the bones and tendons in her calf will never be the same again. She smiles and laughs through most of her evening duties even as it’s clear the labor wears on her.
As the night continues, however, her mood worsens. She swats me away when I try to help with scrubbing the tub.
“I am the same person I was,” she says. “I can do it on my own.” Then she breaks down crying beside the bath. I pick her up, an easy task thanks to the strength I’ve been cultivating in my free time, before sitting beside her on my bed and rubbing soothing circles into her back.
“It’s okay that you’re not the same now,” I tell her. “How could you be?”
I don’t care whether Oona can still run a mile in under two minutes; I care that she’s here. I care that she’s my friend.
I haven’t spoken to Calix since the match, nor any of my other classmates.
I attend lessons silently, work my ass off to pay attention, and fill any spare seconds with push-ups and sit-ups and lunges.
Sin knocks on my door nightly, but I ignore that too.
How can I face the boy whose mother maimed my friend?
And while I know that Sin isn’t the crimes of his family, that his heart is the opposite of hers , he must maintain his position in this court.
He must go along with the traditions and rituals in order to one day rule.
It’s enough to make me sick.
The future appears hazier than ever before.
If I can’t find a way to change the court from the inside out, there’s no way I’ll survive past the Ascension Rite.
The future queen hates me, and the current queen wants to use me for…
for something . I just don’t know what. I don’t know anything .
I need to sneak down into the dungeon and talk to those Bitten wolves again.
When she’s feeling better and finally cracking jokes again, Oona leaves, but I sit in bed.
Waiting. Planning. I’ve spent the last week cataloguing the guards’ nighttime routines, as well as those of the other werewolves who live on my floor.
I know exactly who sneaks out for a warm glass of milk and who naps when they’re on a long shift.
I even know that Evie snores when she sleeps—which starts precisely at 10:30 p.m. so that she can wake up before the sun.
So, once the world is dark and I hear Evie’s snores rise over those of the guards downstairs, I open the door and step into the hall.
My stomach plummets. I am not alone.
Prince Sinclair Severi leans against the wall, his foot kicked up behind him as his head lounges on the stone. He glances at me from the periphery of his gaze. “I knew you’d sneak out eventually. Back to the dungeon, I’m sure.”
I glower at him. It’s easier than focusing on the hurt in his scarlet eyes or the frown on his lips. Lips that have brushed mine. I shake my head. He laughs, a soft, humorless chuckle. “Don’t lie to me, Vanessa.”
So I don’t. Instead, I stomp down the hall.
“Careful, darling. You’re making an awful lot of noise. I’d hate for you to be caught.”
His words land like arrows. I stiffen. “No more noise than you ,” I whisper behind me.
But I do quiet my presence as I take the stairwell to the antechamber in slow, hesitant steps.
Sin follows, so close that his presence burns my skin.
His hand remains on my lower back, guiding me deeper and deeper to the lagoon.
Once we’re safely inside, I turn on him.
“Just why do you think—”
He lifts a hand to my mouth and silences me. Cornering me against the wall, he says, “You’ve had time to speak. Nearly two weeks of it. It’s my turn now.”
My eyes widen as his left hand trails over the thin gossamer of my pitch-black nightgown.
It matches the night outside. The new moon is swallowed by the sky; not an ounce of silver light streams into the pool.
Its obsidian waters remain motionless as Sin slides his hand from my mouth to my throat.
He caresses the curve with soft, tender strokes.
And I ache— god , I ache. To slap his hand.
To lean into the touch. To kiss him. To hate him.
If the world were painted in shades of black and white, this would be so much easier. It’s the nuance that hurts.
“Calix informed me of what happened, Vanessa. I should have been there for you. I should have fucking known . It was foolish of me to assume the queen would be kind. But I thought”—he shakes his head—“I thought you were keeping your distance for your own safety.”
I glance at our feet. His boots, my slippers, and the wet stone beneath them. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes,” he growls, “it does. I should have checked on you.”
My heart pangs. I don’t want to admit the truth; I wish he had checked on me too. “You… you have to protect yourself. Your future.”
His touch turns rough, his breathing ragged. He grabs my hand and presses it to his heart. “Fuck my future, Vanessa. I’m sorry.”
Truth. Truth.
But that only makes it hurt more.
“Someone sabotaged my journal,” I tell him.
“The queen isn’t the only one out for my blood.
Someone staged it to look like I’m planning a coup.
And the queen… She irreperably wounded my closest friend, Sinclair.
First Celeste died, and now Oona is hurt .
” My hand curls around his, and I wish more than ever that my claws would appear, and I could disguise my trembling chin with rage.
“How much more can this world take from us?”
He shakes his head as though he can throttle the nightmares away.
He can’t, though. The nightmares are all we have left.
“We have to find a way to change it. To make it better, but… I don’t know how .
” He breaks away from me with a growl, throwing a hand against the stone across from us.
A crater forms. Stone chisels and falls into pebbles at our feet.
He slumps against the wall, and I move closer to him, brushing tentative fingers through his hair.
“It feels like we are all just marionettes to be manipulated according to her will,” he mutters, his eyes shut as painful truths fall from his lips. “I wasn’t born to choose my own destiny. I was born to help with hers.”
“It won’t be that way forever,” I say, but it comes out less inspirational and more like a question.
Sin laughs at that, and he glances down at me with a sad smile.
“Let’s go,” he says. “You didn’t come down here to mope.
” He gestures a hand to the doorway. To the dungeon.
“I knew I couldn’t keep you away forever, but I also didn’t want you to come alone.
It’s not safe for you here.” A pause. “I’m trying my hardest to keep you safe, Vanessa. ”
His honesty, that sense of rightness, wraps me in its arms, and I do feel safe. With Sin, I always feel safe. I incline my chin. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.” He presses a hand to my back when I step forward, and instinctively, I sag against his side. “I haven’t fixed anything yet.”
His hand entwines with mine, and he leads me forward, into the horrors of the dungeon. For a moment, I feel strong. Prepared. But the scent of copper gore smacks us in the face, followed by the thick, curdling stench of decay. Sin’s grip tightens.
The older woman remains, appearing exactly as broken as she was before, but the young man is gone, replaced by an old man who rocks back and forth, cowering in his cell, facing away from us and revealing a brutal bite that oozes black blood.
And the cell behind him—I stop breathing.
My heart stutters. Between the old man’s and the older woman’s cells is an empty cell that once belonged to a child.
I fall to my knees, grabbing the bars without thinking.
The silver burns, but Sin is here this time to peel me away and hold me against his chest.
A bloodstain mars the ground where the child had been. A large spill. It doesn’t appear to be accidental.
“Did he… Was he…”
“Killed?” the woman asks, her voice a feeble croak. “Yes. One week ago. His transition… He’d begun eating himself.”
Oh god. Oh god.
“Breathe,” Sin whispers in my ear. “Just breathe, Vanessa.”
I try. I try so hard. But the child… the old man… the woman . They’re dying. They will all die. And still more will come. The death and destruction won’t end. And—and that could’ve been Celeste. It could’ve even been me .
The woman scoffs, but a cough follows the meager action, and she spits blood onto the dirty tatters of her clothes. “If you came here… to gawk at us,” she manages with shaky lips, “I suggest you leave. Let me die in peace.”
Sin turns rigid at my side, and fear, or perhaps sorrow, spikes his heart rate. “We didn’t come to gawk.”
“No?”
“We… we want to know if there’s anything you can tell us,” I intervene, stumbling forward with blistering hands. “Do you remember who bit you? Do you remember any other details that might be useful?”
“I don’t remember who bit me. I only know that… that lady stole me into her car and told me I’d either be an asset or a corpse.”
“An asset?” Sin asks.
“I don’t remember , boy.” The woman curls inward, her ribs contracting—breaking—with the movement.
She struggles to sit up or lie down, and a tear trickles down her cheek.
“It happened so suddenly. Too suddenly. I was—I was stolen. And she stuffed me in her car, and she told me… she told me…” The woman shudders.
Her back cracks. I wince, imagining exactly what she’s experiencing.
Knowing that she’s probably pleading for her death.
Being the last to go is worse, so much worse than being the first. A lump rises in my throat, but I swallow it roughly.
“She said I could change, and that if I change, I might become an asset.”