They shove my bare hand into a man’s glove and clamp my wrists in irons.
I can feel my heart in my ears, pumping a warning that I can’t heed because it’s too late. This is how it ends, isn’t it? In the dark, always in the dark.
“Sit her there,” Justice Méndez says, his voice crisp and cold. “Put the other over there.” The guard shoves me into a chair and ties each of my legs around the wooden posts. I rest my chained hands on my lap. My head covering smells like mold and rot. I wonder if someone died while wearing it.
“Shut your mouth,” a man’s voice shouts. There’s a slick wet sound, and Margo lets out a muffled shriek. I’ve watched Margo undergo worse and never cry out. But now there’s a whimper that hits me right in my heart. I shake my head, spitting the rag out.
“Let her go,” I say, trying not to choke on the smell. “I’m the one who fooled you.”
“I’ll get to you, Renata.” Méndez’s voice is right in front of me. Even with my head covered I can smell his cool breath. “But for now, I’ll give you the honor of choosing which one of your rebel friends gets to die first.”
The sack is lifted off my head. Sweat blurs my vision, and my hair falls over my eyes. My unit comes into focus.
Sayida and Esteban are tied to the wall beside Margo. That’s when I realize it wasn’t Margo’s whimper that I heard. It was Sayida’s. Esteban seethes, his mouth biting hard around the cloth gagging his mouth. I let out a cry when I see his injuries. One of his eyes is swollen shut. Blood is crusted on his chin. His dark brown eye looks from me to Justice Méndez, and I see the moment his anger becomes hate.
“It was very clever of you,” Méndez says, his stare settling on me. “Injuring yourself to save the king. When you returned, I so wanted to believe you were my Ren, come back to me. I let you wander around the palace to see if you’d expose the spy. But even Illan’s informant didn’t trust you enough to reveal themselves. You were alone as ever.”
He walks up to me and each step rattles my insides. I turn my face to the side and bite down to keep myself from screaming.
“I am disappointed, Ren. We will work it out later. Right now, what I want to know is how you got your little friends into the palace.” He grabs my chin, digs his fingers into my jaw.
I spit at him, and he lets go with a slap.
“You could have done great things, Renata. I was a fool to have believed you could return to me whole. You’re a broken shell of the girl you once were. You’ll never have a home with those who claim to be your people. They’ll never trust you.”
“You put me in a cage,” I manage to say.
“And what did the Whispers do? You told me of their cruelty. We verified it with our Ventári. It seems to me you’ve only been moving from one prison to the next. At least here you know where you stand. With power. With loyalty.”
Castian’s voice breaks through my thoughts. The Whispers taught you to fight well. He has no place here right now.
“Do not pretend to care for me,” I throw back at him.
His salt-gray eyes water, but he blinks it away. His lips pull back to accentuate every word he speaks. “I protected you when you lived here. You wanted for nothing. Do you remember how you screamed when they took you away from me? Do you remember how you cried out?”
My memories push against the Gray, color against the void, and I feel a well of tears prickle in my eyes.
A tiny girl lost in the woods was lifted onto a woman’s shoulders and taken away. Please don’t take me! Please! Papá!
I was that little girl. “I remember.”
His features soften. Fingers caress the side of my face. Gray eyes harden like icebergs.
“And yet you chose them. You have cut me deeply, Renata.” His calmness evaporates, and I jump from the loud bang as he flips over a small wooden table in rage. “You betrayed me! After everything I’ve done for you. I gave you a home twice over.”
I writhe against my bonds, but the manacles are tight. “You gave a home to a weapon. That’s all I ever was to—”
“And