43
Calix drags me out of the party.
No one seems to care about the two of us—blood traitor and Bitten—as they celebrate and toast to the morning’s impending rite. Wild drums accompany the other instruments now, rumbling through the earth as we weave our way out of the forest and slip inside Castle Severi.
“Calix,” I force out, my arm straining against the strength of his grasp as he pulls me deeper and deeper through the halls, “this is unnecessary.”
“We don’t use the dungeon” is his only response.
Determinedly, he charges us toward the stairwell and the antechamber below.
I huff out uneven breaths, my adrenaline racing even though he is sorely mistaken.
I’ve seen those cages. I’ve smelled the blood, tasted the grit on my tongue, heard the screams.
His words, however, continue to warm my chest in direct, inimitable honesty.
Because , a little voice whispers in my head, Calix believes in nothing more than his job. To acknowledge the dungeon’s use would be to realize the true nature of Queen Sybil. And Calix… He can’t do that. Ever. Otherwise, he’d become a traitor. Just like his mother.
“Sin saw it too,” I say quietly, knowing he’s about to fall face-first into a conspiracy that will break his heart. “Calix, we don’t have to go down there. There’s nothing we can do about any of it—”
“Impossible.” He snarls, and the violence behind it echoes in the stairwell as he races us faster down the stairs. My ankle nearly twists on the last step, but Calix catches me in his arms, only to push me forward again. I glare at him. A full claw erupts from my hand.
“ Enough ,” I snap, aiming the perfect set of daggers at his chest. “You don’t want to see what waits in there. You won’t be able to unsee it. I’m trying to protect you.”
He doesn’t recoil from the threat, and his eyes flare a searing yellow. “I don’t need your protection. You need mine .”
My blood boils now, hotter and hotter as the seconds pass and we stand there, my back to the dungeon and Calix’s to the stairs.
The antechamber is otherwise silent save for our ragged breathing.
Dark save for the lights of our eyes and the stars above.
But Calix won’t be deterred. As always, he has no patience for any of this, and pushes past me without another thought.
Fine.
I can’t force him to leave, so I spin on my heel to stomp after him.
But—my steps falter, even as Calix’s continue their hasty pursuit.
The crevice in the wall isn’t so much a doorway anymore.
It appears like a natural slit in the stone.
Like an accident. Strange. Needles prick my arms. My bones beg me to stop.
Something is wrong , I think, just as I did after Evie was resurrected. But what?
I trail after Calix, tiptoeing with hesitancy, as he enters the room.
“We have no need for a dungeon,” Calix continues before I can step inside, his voice rougher now. Angrier than I’ve ever heard it before. “Our court functions by the queen doling out swift punishments. Oona was not chained up. You were not chained up. No one is ever chained up.”
Oona who was shot through with silver arrows in the throne room. And me—I’d been punished through emotional torture. No. No. I grip my head in my hands. My skull aches. Agony ripples through me. But why?
I don’t understand. His questions. The answers. My stomach churns, and bile threatens to spew from my lips.
“Come inside, Vanessa,” he commands.
But… I don’t want to. For some reason, seeing the doorway—the lack of the doorway—is enough. I don’t want to go farther. Something is very wrong.
“Th-the queen,” I stutter. “She… she trapped them here. She bit them, and she tortured them.”
“Why?” he demands, and I hate those three letters. I hate the way they puncture my nerves. I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.
“Come on.” He reappears, nearly folding in half to maneuver out of the crevice. I think back to entering with Sin—to walking inside the dungeon easily, without any trouble or effort. Calix extends a hand. I glare at it. “Vanessa,” he urges, “ please .”
A slender arch—clearly werewolf-made—gives way to a narrow room with a nauseatingly low ceiling.
I step forward and take Calix’s hand, my fingers quivering. He’s gentle, at least, and his eyes soften as he leads me through the crevice. I pivot and crouch to fit inside it.
Wrong.
Calix slides beside me and points to a row of cells. Cells , not cages. I place a hand on my stomach to calm it, but shock pummels me in a ruthless assault.
Hooks hang from the ceiling, metallic and spiky.
Wrong.
In the far back, hidden in shadows, steel prisons trap three people with erratic heartbeats and weak breaths.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
It’s—it’s all wrong.
The cells are larger. The bars are wrought iron, not silver. There are no hooks hanging from the ceiling. And the ground… It’s mildew and stone. A sheen of damp clings to the walls, the smell of musty sea pungent, but there isn’t a drop of blood.
Not a stain.
Not a stench.
Nothing.
“Calix…” I lose any sense of purpose and place and stumble for the nearest wall. Nausea roils viciously in my gut, but I can’t soothe it. I can’t make sense of any of this. This is not the place I’ve been before. It’s not even close to the dungeon of the past.
“Maybe… maybe the queen cleaned it up,” I manage, though I don’t feel the words as they escape me. “Maybe sh-she needed it to be bigger.” I blink, but the image before me doesn’t change. I think of the tortured woman, the young man, the child . They were here. Right here.
“No,” he says again. “We do not use the dungeon.”
“Then what is it?!” I whirl around, claw still fully emerged, and swipe at the stone.
Anger bursts from my chest like a geyser, and rage rattles me to the core.
I need it. I need that rage. Without it, I am confused.
I am weak. I am afraid. I inhale sharply.
“You don’t understand what I’ve witnessed.
You don’t believe me. But Sin saw it too.
He’s been in the dungeon. He trusted me when I told him that I watched the queen try to murder Evie on the beach—”
“Evie is alive,” Calix interrupts, and he’s so… so controlled now. So collected. I hate it. I lash out again, breaking pebbles off the stone. He still doesn’t react.
“Something happened ,” I growl. “You heard the howls yourself.”
“That doesn’t mean it was Queen Sybil.”
“Who else?” A shriek of frustration explodes out of me.
“You are so concerned with remaining loyal and right that you refuse to see the truth even when it’s in front of your face.
Queen Sybil is biting humans! She is biting them, and she is collecting them.
I don’t know why—it doesn’t even matter.
She’s conspiring against Evie. I heard her say it!
She does not want to lose her power. She…
she murdered Celeste ,” I hiss, adrenaline like a drug, coursing through my veins, building and bursting and building and bursting until I’m shaking with it.
Queen Sybil ruined my life. She ruined my life, and—I spin around, taking in the dungeon once more—I have no more evidence.
No explanation.
Fuck.
Calix’s expression shutters, and a strong gust of sea-salt fear blows around us. Not mine. His. Chest heaving, blood pumping, I glance at him with disdain and loathing and unbridled fury. He recoils. But I—I want a fight. I want answers .
“How could this place look so different now?”
“Vanessa,” he murmurs, and his face… He looks broken. I drop my claws to my sides and listen to the instinct in my bones.
He knows something.
“What, Calix?” I ask, but he doesn’t respond.
He studies me silently. “ What , Calix?” I echo, teeth clenched.
But whatever is coming—I can’t prepare for it.
This is Calix, I try to remind myself. Calix who made sure I didn’t die by cleaning my wound over and over.
This is Calix, who helped me rescue his cousin. I hold my breath, and he…
He begins to unbutton his shirt.
My stomach plummets into hell. “Wh-what are you doing?”
He shrugs it off, letting it fall onto the dank ground. Then he prowls forward. Is he going to shift? Is he… is he going to kill me? I back up into the wall, and his eyes glow.
Not gold.
Red.
Whatever breath remains whooshes from me in a painful second. I pick up the delicate train of my skirt and take an uneasy step backward. “Calix, p-pl—”
“I need you to listen to me,” he commands darkly. “Don’t react. Just listen.”
I palm the wall behind me and sweat breaks out on my forehead.
“Queen Sybil did not kill your friend,” Calix says. “She is not biting humans.”
His muscles flex. His abdominals. As though…
as though he’s revealing them. But that doesn’t make sense.
I’ve seen him shirtless before. And what does that have to do with Celeste?
With the queen? He reaches me and, wordlessly, peels my hand from the wall and moves it to his side.
To his ribs. I stiffen at the touch but track it with my gaze.
Beautifully tanned muscles… marred by a jagged line.
A scar.
But werewolves can’t have scars unless they’re cut with silver, and—I glance at the sunburst scar on my hand. Then back at his ribs. A cut from a silver dagger.
I lunge with my knife out and stab the wolf between its ribs, gripping its fur for leverage.
The world roars to a halt. Silence screams.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper. I don’t I don’t I don’t—
The wolf shakes, jostling me back and forth as if I’m in the midst of a tornado. Its rippling muscles bruise my skin with each hard throttle, but I can’t—I can’t let go.
“Yes, you do,” he says sadly, and his red eyes darken to twin pools of blood. My hand flexes against his skin from the memory. I force my eyes shut. No. No. No.
I stab the wolf again, deeper this time. Twisting the blade so that it hurts. So that it maims .
“It wasn’t the queen,” Calix says. “It was me.”