In the middle of a particularly delicious dream about bacon double-cheeseburgers, the door swung open, and a cool draft rushed over my skin. I woke with a start, and wiped the drool off my chin.
I crawled on the floor toward the bread, my stomach rumbling.
As I groped in the dark, a boot slammed me in the side of the skull, sending me sprawling back, too weak to even cry out. Tears stung my eyes, but I stifled a cry. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.
“Hello, Cassandra.” A familiar, soothing voice echoed around the room, and my heart tightened. I’d been putting together the pieces, and this only confirmed it.
“How nice of you to visit,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’d tell you to pull up a chair, but I don’t have any.”
I heard him crouch. “You reek like an animal. Worse than an animal.”
“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Abellio?”
“You don’t sound surprised that I’m here.”
“I’ve had time to think,” I rasped. I wanted to buy some time, gather my strength. I needed an opportunity. “You weren’t as careful as you thought you were. Do you know what gave you away?”
“What?” he asked. His voice was flat, bored. Not good. I had to keep him interested.
“Those letters we found at the safe. There were strange details in them. The nettles near the secret path. They weren’t there when I walked along the path.”
He sighed. “It does sound strange.”
“Right? And why would the traitor risk himself by meeting face to face every time? And why would he take the handler to the actual locations? So many unnecessary risks.” I wondered if my body could move fast enough now that I’d spent a few days recovering.
“Why indeed?”
I sidled even closer. “Stinging nettles that didn’t belong there. They symbolize pain. To someone who fears nature and wants to control it, they symbolize the wildness and cruelty of the natural world. The person writing these missives had inserted symbolic images into events. He also mentioned spontaneously flying. And meeting a person who looked different every time, but he knew who that person was. I’ve seen those things before.”
“Really? Where?” He was now intrigued. Good.
“During my studies of psychology. These were dream journals, weren’t they? You were meeting your handler in his dreams. Wearing different faces, flying with him across a dreamscape. Showing him what he needed to see.”
“That’s right.” A hint of surprise tinged his voice. “How clever of you.”
“On the first night I met you, you said you hardly slept at night. And yet, you went to sleep immediately on the night Branwen snuck out, and did the same on the night just before our attack. You had to sleep to meet your handler.”
“Yes, Cassandra. Right on all counts. But as interesting as it is to hear you tell me things I already know—”
“And I figured out how you framed Branwen, too. She had asked you to help her with her nightmares, right? When you entered her dreams, you learned things. You found out she’s in love with Elrine. I’d thought it was Roan. But it wasn’t him at all, was it?”
“Yes,” Abellio said. “A gutter fae in love with a noble. It would be sweet if it weren’t so pathetic.”
“You wrote Branwen a note, setting up a hidden rendezvous that night. You put some of Elrine’s perfume on the envelope. And she burned that note so no one would know.”
“I actually wrote her that she should burn it,” Abellio said. “I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“And then you quickly went to sleep, arranging for a banshee to meet Branwen, framing her. I just don’t understand why she didn’t tell her interrogators about the letter. She could have cleared this up.”
He loosed a long sigh. “Who, exactly, do you think interrogated her? I’m the fae lie detector. I shook my head sadly and regretfully at her tearful lies.”
I gritted my teeth. “How did you know I’d follow her that night?”
“I hoped that someone would. It seemed like a good night for the spy to make his move, to contact the king with news of the upcoming battle and the war council.”
“Right… Then why didn’t the king just arrest Roan and the generals during the war council? Why go through that elaborate charade?”
“Because, you grotesque fortal whore, we didn’t want to stop the rebellion,” he sneered. “We wanted to decimate it. To crush the rebel army so completely and viciously that no one would ever rise against the king again.”
A sharp pang of panic pierced my chest. Roan. What had happened to him? Was there any way he was still alive? I took a deep breath, trying not to give in to the fear. “Right.” My body tensed. Was I close enough? I had one chance to do this. “Why are you here, Abellio?”
“To talk to my sister one last time.”
Fear slammed me in the gut. “Your what?”
He laughed. An angry, venomous chuckle. “So clever, but you didn’t figure that out?”
“You’re the Rix’s son?” I stammered. “That’s why you betrayed us?”
“The Rix?” He huffed a dismissive laugh. “You honestly think you’re the Rix’s daughter? What gave you that idea?”
My mind reeled. If the Rix wasn’t my father, who was?
“The changeling…” I stuttered, my mind reeling. “Whose daughter am I? What happened to my mother? I heard her screaming.” My own voice sounded nearly hysterical.
“Sorry, Cassandra, you’re babbling, and I’m bored. Goodbye, sister—”
I lunged for him, clawing at his face. He shrieked in pain, and I could feel a slick of blood under my nails.
Then he rammed his fist into my cheek, and I was knocked sprawling onto the floor. He took a step forward, and slammed me in the stomach with his foot, knocking the air from my lungs.
“You’ll regret that, bitch,” he snarled. “You’ll beg for forgiveness when I’m done with you.”
He walked out of the cell and slammed the door shut. I lay on the floor, fighting for breath, terrified to move. Tears ran down my cheeks. His words slithered in my brain, grasping for purchase. The patronizing way he spoke about the Rix. And yet, my twin changeling was in the Rix’s home. Why? Was he told to take her in? A terrifying idea bloomed in my mind.
And my fingers tightened around Abellio’s silver fountain pen.
It was a few hours before I heard the boots outside my cell, and a lick of fear snaked up my spine. I’d attacked Abellio, and he’d promised pain in return.
My mind whirled with possibilities. Abellio’s fountain pen, if it was the same one from before, could be used as a reflection. If they were careless, and opened the door with light, I’d disappear before they knew it. If I failed somehow or didn’t have the energy, I’d lose my one pathetic chance to get out of here when they ripped it from my hand.
Swallowing hard, I decided to risk it. I crept closer to the door, wincing as the bruises from Abellio’s kicks pulsed at the sudden movement. The footfalls stopped at the door, and the lock clicked. My heart thrummed in my chest.
“Lights,” I heard Abellio warn.
Damn damn damn. I tossed the pen to the corner of the room, praying they’d never notice it.
The door swung open, and it sounded like the footfalls of several men shuffling in. Rough hands grabbed my hair and pulled me up. I scrambled to my feet, gritting my teeth to avoid screaming in pain. A fist sank into my stomach and I folded in two, winded and coughing. Before I could catch my breath, a cloth sack wrapped around my face, and someone tied it around my neck with a coarse rope. The sack smelled of sweat and blood. It had been used for this purpose before, and the smell made me gag. I tried to control my breathing. Throwing up in this thing wouldn’t help.
Rough hands shoved me from my cell, then wrenched my hands behind my back, tying my wrists tightly. Then someone grabbed the rope around my neck and pulled. I stumbled forward.
“The mongrel’s leash,” said a voice. He gave it a sharp tug, and I f
ell to my knees.
Laughter echoed off the walls. Four voices—one of them Abellio’s. Someone jerked the rope around my neck—the leash, as they’d called it—and I stumbled forward, stomach lurching.
Roan. Where are you? Please, Roan!
I walked as fast as I could, desperate to keep up. With my hands tied behind my back, every fall would be painful. Someone kicked me from behind and I slammed against the wall. More laughter, echoing in my skull. Fury was building in my chest, and I wanted to rip Abellio’s fucking heart out, the way I’d seen Roan do when he fought.
They shoved me around for several minutes more until suddenly, we stopped.
“Close the door,” Abellio said.
The sound of a slamming door echoed around the room, and a pair of hands pushed me down, onto a wooden chair. Someone grabbed my leg and I kicked at them, too weak to really fight.
Desperate, I searched for their fear, trying to recall Roan’s instructions. Empty my mind. Find my true nature, my primal, bestial side. There was nothing.
Something slammed into the side of my face. The shock drove everything away but the pounding pain.
“I could do that all day,” one of them said.
“Just standing here is intoxicating,” another said, his voice thick.
They were getting high on my fear—Weala Broc fae. Just like me.
One of them slapped my right ear, and it began ringing. They laughed again, the laughter changing, verging on hysterics.
“Pull her head back,” Abellio said.
Someone grabbed my head, pulled it backwards to face up.
“Drink up, my lovely sister,” came Abellio’s soothing voice.
A sudden shock of cold water engulfed me. He was pouring water on the sack that covered my face. I coughed and spluttered, then inhaled—
There was no air. The wet cloth had become clogged with water, and when I tried to breathe in, it clung to my mouth and nostrils. My throat spasmed, my body bucking and writing. Air. Air. Desperate for a single breath, my body convulsed. Another shock of water hit me as they poured more water on top of me.
Someone screamed, blubbered, begged. It was me. I was trying to make them stop with the little air I had left, my self-control now lost to me.
Weala Broc—Court of Terror. Skulls under water, screams at the river bank. The Drowned Man.
The water stopped pouring, and I gasped for breath, the cloth latched to my face. My lungs burned, and the world was fading away, the laughter around me getting further…
Someone lifted the sack from my mouth, keeping it firmly still over my nose and eyes. I inhaled desperately, relieved. One breath. Two. Three.
The sack came down again. More water. I struggled, sobbing. No air. No air. The Drowned Man. The Drowned Man is me.
I didn’t know how long they kept this up. It felt like hours, but it might have been only minutes. Pouring water, letting me suffocate, then giving me some desperate breaths before starting again, and again.
At last, when my mouth was free from the sack, I heard a vehement whisper in my ear. The deep, soothing voice of my brother. “Tell me you’re sorry for scratching me.”
“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I’m sorry I scratched you.”
“Beg for my forgiveness.”
No. There was no way I would… When I got free I would deliver him a painful death.
I felt the wet cloth lowering to my face again, and my legs kicked out uncontrollably.
“Please forgive me!” I shouted.
The laughter of four men echoed over the room.
“Look at how her clothes cling to her,” one said, his gravelly voice so rough, it sounded like stones rubbing together. “We could take her. Now. We could take turns.”
The laughter stopped almost instantly, and a dark silence fell over the room.
“In the king’s keep?” one of them finally said—Abellio, I thought. “Do you have a death wish?”
There was a small forced chuckle, thick with fear. “I was kidding, of course. I wouldn’t touch her pixie body. Not even… never. I would never do that.”
The seconds ticked. I breathed in and out. I’d kill him. I’d fucking kill him, take his life from him slowly and painfully.
Roan. Are you there?
“Take her back to her cell,” Abellio finally said, the mirth gone. “I got what I wanted from her.”
They didn’t untie my hands when they pushed me into my cell. They ripped the hood off me, then shoved me. I crashed into the floor, slamming my head. The world faded.
Chapter 29
I don’t know how long it took me to wriggle free from the ropes, but it was long enough that I’d fallen asleep twice, and the guards had brought me bread twice. I’d crouched over it, gnawing away at it, with my hands tied behind my back. I no longer cared how I smelled or looked. Right now, my only goal was survival. If I could survive, I could still get revenge. I could still try to save Roan, just as long as…
I pushed the dark thoughts away. I couldn’t consider the possibility that he’d died. I needed to cling on to the belief that he was alive.
As the hours dragged on, I used Abellio’s fountain pen to slowly pry away at the knot, my shoulders aching. At last, I loosened it enough that I could tear my arms free, scraping a large swath of skin against the rough rope. My body was in bad shape—battered and exhausted, and without access to human fear, I healed very slowly.
Time began to blur. In constant darkness, I had no idea how long I’ve been in that cell. I tried keeping track of the number of times I fell asleep, but eventually I lost count, my mind fuzzy and confused from hunger and weakness. Sometimes, before I fell asleep, my body burned with fever, my skin cold to the touch, and I lay on the floor shaking, trying to feel Roan’s presence. The fever broke, but the isolation remained. I couldn’t feel him.
As time drifted on, people began visiting me. It started with Scarlett. For a while, the conversation was fun and light, and we talked about that time she’d accidentally sexted her professor, but the mood quickly shifted. She started lecturing me about my decision to stay in London—of course it wasn’t going to turn out well! What had I been thinking?
Before I knew what was happening, I found myself yelling at her, tears spilling down my cheeks. Then, she’d disappeared into the darkness again, like a wraith.
Then Gabriel showed up, his neck bleeding, eyes wide. I begged for his forgiveness, but he said nothing. The visit from my parents unsettled me the most. They merely stared at me as I cried, silently judging me. Roan showed up, wounded, shackled, bleeding, his eyes burning gold, antlers gleaming on his head. I talked for both of us, rambling on about the flame in my chest, how I needed to feel it alight again, how I needed to smell his skin, to feel his heart beating beneath my palm. I told him we belonged together, that I wanted to entwine my body with his, like the roots of two adjacent willow trees. He didn’t respond.
When all my visitors had left me in the shadows, I had nothing left but the fountain pen. Slowly, I dug into the stone wall, scraping it with the pen. I’d found a small hole in the sludgy grouting, and managed to widen it by twisting the pen in it, and then scratching it over and over and over, my fingers raw and sore between the cinder blocks. After a while, I made a small dent into the grouting, half an inch deep, wide enough to stick my finger into. In a few months, I’d dig a deep enough tunnel for my finger to escape through.
I laughed at that idea hysterically, tears pouring down my cheeks, then laughed some more. When Scarlett showed up for a visit, I told her my hilarious joke about the escape of my finger, and we both laughed.
Food was scarce, but I found a good way to improve my situation.
Whenever I got a piece of bread, I’d put some of it on the floor and wait, motionless. Sometimes, Gabriel would start to speak, to offer me something better to eat, but I always shushed him. It was important to be as still as a rock. When the rat showed up, I’d grab it and smash it against the wall. Then, I had a little m
eat to add to my diet. Sometimes, I used rat bones to dig my tunnels, but they broke too easily. The fountain pen was better for that.
My dreams tormented me. Not because they were nightmares, but because I dreamed I was free again, that Gabriel was still alive, and we were walking in the sun-dappled gardens of Temple Church, sipping lattes. Or I’d dream that I was lying in Roan’s arms beneath a willow tree, enveloped in his golden glow. When I woke again, the horror of reality assaulted me anew, and I’d remember where I was. I’d sob for hours, until Gabriel or Scarlett came to cheer me up. When Roan showed up, he never cheered me up. He’d just bleed on the floor.
Scrape scrape scrape. The pen scraped at the wall, my finger going in almost to the knuckle. When my fingers finally escaped, they would go find Abellio and poke him repeatedly. That would be my revenge. I laughed. Scarlett laughed.
Then the tears poured down my cheeks again, and I couldn’t remember why.
One of my visitors used the door, which was strange, because usually only the guards used the door. I hid the pen, like I always did when the door opened. There were rules in the cell. If the door opened, you hid the pen. Bread brought rats, and to catch them you had to be quiet. You peed in the hole in the corner, because otherwise it got messy. Life here was simple.
The figure knelt in the darkness, and I had the impression of a broad outline.
“Hello.” My voice sounded dry and hoarse, but I wanted to be friendly. I liked the company.
“Hello, Cassandra.” The sharpness in his voice made my mouth go dry. Sharp like my fountain pen. It sounded slightly muffled, too, and it took me a moment to realize he was probably covering his nose because of the smell in here. I couldn’t smell a thing anymore, but the guards always mentioned it.
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