me again, Killian’s arrow hitting its intended target. No one knew how to get to me like my oldest brother.
“I might have been the one to find Imogen, but all three of us played judge, jury, and executioner. Either we were all right, or we were all wrong.”
Fatigue crossed his features, reminding me of why we were here in the first place. “I know,” he said with a sigh, “and none of that matters now. All that matters is finding out the truth.”
And saving you, I added silently.
Imogen
After my warm reunion with the princes, I was dragged back through the halls of NP to my cell. The guard, one of a dozen who rotated through my wing, was quick to deposit me and lock me back up. He didn’t make eye contact and he didn’t utter a word to me, for which I was grateful.
During my entry-processing into the prison, I’d seen how cruel the guards could be. It was ironic they decided to put this collar around my throat, because that experience had already made me promise myself I’d keep my mouth shut.
My room was bare and exposed, but as far as I could tell, it was different than other prisoners’ rooms in one important way. It was soundproof. Rather than bars, my door was made of thick metal. A small slot in the center of the door slid open when I was given a meal, and there was a plexiglass window far above my head. The guards could look in, but the only way I could see out was if I dragged my bed to it. And since the thing was bolted to the ground, that was impossible.
It was also enchanted.
I’d spent my life around magic. I lived and breathed it, and it had a scent. The good kind, the kind that permeated home in Tuatha, was lavender or freshly turned earth. It smelled like dew in the mornings and the leaves that fell off the ancient oak trees in the fall.
But the bad kind—magic meant to compel or force the natural into unnatural forms—that had a scent, too. And it filled my space, turning my stomach as quickly as the first time I’d come here.
I studied my room. In the time I was gone, someone had searched it. The mattress hung off the side of the frame, and my sheets were mussed. I’d been reading a book, something I’d read a thousand times and which offered me a little bit of comfort, but it was missing from its spot on my pillow.
My breath caught in my throat just before I could release it in a sigh, and I climbed onto my bed. Any voice would turn the collar on, and I’d learned the hard way sighs of self-pity got me zapped as surely as full-out screams.
And to scream was exactly what I wanted. No, needed. I had spent much of the past year formulating exactly what I’d say to the princes if I ever saw them again. I used to have notebooks to write down my thoughts. It had been good for me, getting out all the hurt and pain that built and built in my chest
But, then, the prison psychiatrist had seen them during one of her “well-checks,” and I heard her tell the guard my notebooks acted as my voice.
It wasn’t an hour later that guards arrived to take them.
So, now, there was no outlet for me. This wasn’t a place where I would be rehabbed and given a second chance. Nightmare Penitentiary was pure punishment. The more I hurt, the better job the warden was doing.
If I was giving out grades, I’d give him an A-plus for today. He’d managed to not only hurt me, but also humiliate me.
Covering my mouth with my hand so I could feel my lips, I mouthed the word, jerk.
“Why, Gen? How could you kill him?” I could hear Flynn’s voice in my head. I lifted my hands to my ears, covering them as if I could stop my mind from replaying that night. It didn’t work. The words went around and around on a loop. “Why? How could you?”
Like I had a choice.
Being a banshee wasn’t something I chose. I didn’t spend a thousand years thinking to myself, you know what would be really fun? Announcing death. Is there a place I can sign up for that?
Did they really think I wanted to awake, unable to speak, my eyes gritty and swollen from tears, and later discover I’d