Chapter 2
Jane
The vital-signs orb pulsed in rhythm with father’s heart, its steady beat pounding until it blended with my headache.
A strange little thing. Not like the monitors I’d seen in human hospitals, with no wires, no screens with jagged lines, no numbers ticking up and down.
Just a white, circular case with a clear panel and a narrow sound port.
Healer Hildegard had said that if his heart rate faltered, the orb would change rhythm and colour.
She’d shown us how it linked with the band around his arm, how the mana read his pulse, how it would hum faster or slower depending on his state.
It never did change. Not once in four days.
The sound had become maddening, but if I hadn’t been glaring at it for hours, I might never have noticed the sharp scalpel lying near its base yesterday.
Might never have asked my closet for a small object like a hairpin and decided to turn it into something useful, despite Reagan’s chiding about it being forbidden.
Based on what I’d read, it was forbidden when used against someone's will. And in court.
I had idle time sitting here, counting seven days since Father had fallen unconscious.
Healer Hildegard had informed us there was no harm to his body, no lasting injuries. His mind, though, that was the uncertain part. He would wake, she said, only when his body deemed it safe, fully rested and ready.
My spine ached as I sat in that damned chair, eyes fixed on that blasted orb as it beat, beat, beat. The air was dry, smelling faintly of herbs.
Joy was curled on the sofa, fast asleep. Dark rings smudged the delicate skin beneath her eyes, her small hands still clasped over the long cotton sweater I’d lent her. We were close enough in size for it to fit, though she was shorter.
She’d only agreed to wash up after I swore I wouldn’t leave Father’s side. Even then, she’d rushed back, wide-eyed and cursing about the sentient washroom. She didn’t trust the castle nor the staff.
She had good reasons to doubt my new position in the Capital, not the least of which was that it had been Finnegan who came instead of me, returning with the profits from our deals.
She had gone to Father after her suspicions had grown too large to ignore.
It seemed that her obsession with what troubled her was not something Finn’s draught could prevent.
The two of them took the same express train I had, leaving at the station in Mountheim.
Only, that part didn’t sit right with me. Father knew what the Capital looked like. Why had he agreed to get off at Mountheim?
My eyes darted from him to the heirloom ring on Joy’s finger, its twin glinting on my own. Neither of us had taken them off in days, not even to sleep.
I knew it was impossible, yet Reagan’s conviction had unsettled me. The way he’d looked at us that day, utterly certain, made me wonder whether there might be truth in his ideas.
He’d left us alone after bringing us to the infirmary, wanting to give us privacy.
He had. Four days of it. Even though he couldn’t have bothered to tell me for three days prior that my family was here, knowing how much I’d missed them, knowing my father was hurt and Joy had been locked away in that tower.
My need to know why he’d done it made me want to hear him.
I pressed at my temples, remembering the way he’d looked at me then, his eyes intent and searching, coaxing me to understand. His expression had changed somewhere along the line. It had become too intense and unwavering. A few moments ago, it was almost pleading.
Joy stirred, drawing a long breath.
“Anything?” she asked.
We’d slept poorly here, if at all.
“Not yet,” I said. “How are you feeling?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Like I’ve been sleeping on a couch. You?”
My lips quirked. “Like I’ve been sleeping on a chair.”
“You should sleep on the couch tonight.”
“It’s fine,” I murmured, thinking of that freezing tower she’d been locked in.
She rose and walked to Father’s gurney, surveying him with tired eyes. Her strawberry-blonde hair was knotted in a messy bun, gleaming faintly with the kind of shine that came from needing a wash. Mine wasn’t much better.
“What did your boyfriend want?” she asked without looking up.
My brows lifted. I didn’t miss the resentment in her tone or the way her fingers tapped against the gurney’s metal rail, an anxious rhythm that stopped only when she realised the sound it made.
“You were awake?” I asked.
“I’m never fully asleep in this place,” she muttered.
My leg bounced. She needed rest. We both did.
“He invited us to dinner,” I said after a beat.
She snorted, then winced. “How nice of our captor. Good luck with that.”
I couldn’t blame her for feeling resentful.
My reaction had been the same when I first arrived and realised, I was, technically, a prisoner.
I’d tried to explain how it hadn’t been Reagan’s choice, how things had changed, how I’d grown to like him, even admire him, before anything else had taken shape between us.
Joy hadn’t taken it well. She’d asked if it had ever crossed my mind that they had fabricated everything just to justify keeping me here. That I’d been manipulated the same way she and Father had. That Finnegan had given them some draught to dull their minds, and I’d fallen for it too.
I might have thought the same if I hadn’t seen their displeasure when I'd arrived here.
Her anger had faded only slightly since then, but her suspicion of Reagan hadn’t budged an inch.
“I said he invited us.”
Her features pinched with sudden distaste. “I’m not leaving his side,” she said flatly. “You go.”
“Joy,” I began, standing and circling to the other side of the bed. “We don’t know how long it’ll take him to wake up. We can’t just sit here. There are things we need to understand.”
Her shoulders rose and fell in a measured breath. “You can't seriously believe the nonsense they're trying to feed us."
I sighed. “After months here, I’ve learned not to dismiss what I don’t understand. Especially after Caedmon told me what you did.”
Her eyes dropped, and mine narrowed. “What did your boyfriend tell you?” she asked.
I kept my tone steady despite the sourness in her voice. “He said you don’t remember exactly what happened in the forest. That you were the one who fought the Strzyga.”
“I did fight it,” she said quickly, “but he killed it.”
“He said you did,” I replied softly.
She blinked, uncertainty flickering in her features. “He’s wrong. There was light, some blast of energy that came from him. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“You saw him do it? You saw Caedmon aim the power at the creature?”
“I…” She hesitated. “I don’t know what I saw, Jan. It was chaos. I was freezing. He pulled Father away and—”
“Pulled him away?” I pressed. “To protect him?”
Her eyes darted away again, as if she was searching her memory. My heart clenched as I watched confusion cross her face.
“I suppose he could’ve been pulling him out of the blast,” she murmured. “I don’t know. He was a brute after, and then I saw the one who poisoned us, and I knew he was at fault.”
“Right. We need to go to this dinner. Hear what they have to say.”
I wasn’t sure if she even heard me. Her eyes had gone unfocused again, her expression distant.
“Dove?” I reached for her hand, fingers brushing hers where they rested on the gurney.
“Huh?” She blinked, not quite looking at me.
I forced a small smile. “It’ll be all right. Let’s go to dinner and talk this through.”
Her lips parted, before she exhaled and nodded once.
“I’ve got you,” I whispered. “I always do.”