of a tsunami now, his fingers grasping painfully tight.
“What are you doing skulking outside my study?”
My mouth opens and closes. I can’t seem to work any sound from my throat. “I—I—”
“Don’t give me that wide-eyed act. I know you were out here listening.”
He tugs me toward him, his grip pressing into my muscles exactly where Aerik’s man used to clamp down as he readied to cut my wrist. The breath shudders out of me.
“Well?” Whitt demands, but I’ve lost my words completely. He glowers down at me. “If you’re going to sneak around here like a crook, maybe it’s time Sylas locked you up in that bedroom permanently.”
A sharper surge of panic blares through me. To be shut off from the rest of the keep—to lose so much of the little freedom I’ve regained— What other punishments will they inflict on me? Maybe they’ll think I don’t deserve any better than a cage after all.
I gulp for air, trying to recover my voice, but my chest has constricted too tightly. A flood of cold washes through my body. My heart batters against my sternum. I’m suffocating like in that dream.
Help, I want to say. Help, I’m drowning. But I can’t force my vocal chords to form the words—and I’m not sure Whitt would care anyway.
15
Whitt
The dust-destined girl twitches in my grasp like a rabbit in a snare. As shudders wrack her body, her wide eyes stare at me, so hazed with terror I’m not sure she’s even seeing me. Her breath wheezes in her throat.
My fingers tighten around her arm, holding her from collapsing now. Is she having an attack of some physical ailment? Or are these dramatics just a way to get herself out of trouble now that I’ve discovered her lurking outside the room that holds my most closely guarded secrets?
It doesn’t really matter which it is. If Sylas finds us like this, it’s me he’ll lay into for frightening her, even though she’s the one who violated my privacy in my own blasted home. As if I’m not even owed one room to conduct my work as I see fit—meddling with my affairs—wretched female looking to gain any advantage—
I tamp down on my fury as well as I can. Heart take me, I don’t have the patience for dealing with this, but I’d better find it before our glorious leader rains down twice as much on me.
And I’ll work on finding it somewhere he isn’t likely to stumble on us, thank you very much.
I tug the girl to the next door down: my bedroom. Better she see that space, as much of a mess as it no doubt is—I honestly don’t know; I have better things to do than pay attention to the state of my bedcovers—than my office. Most important items in the office are tucked away or unintelligible to her human understanding, and Ralyn is long gone through the secret passage that allows direct transit between the room and outside, but I’d rather not take any chances. I hadn’t expected to find this mite lurking nearby in the first place.
My bedchamber turns out to be in an even worse state than I would have predicted. Discarded shirts and slacks litter the floor, and the blankets slump over the side of the bed in a rumpled waterfall of fabric. One of my pillows has made it all the way to the other end of the room, and sitting on that pillow is a crumb-scattered plate I really should get around to taking back to the kitchen at some point. A couple of goblets rest nearby, one of them tipped on its side in a thin, sticky puddle of evaporated wine.
Perhaps it’s been a tad too long since my periodic, manic tidy sessions.
At least the space doesn’t outright smell, other than a fair tang of fermented fruit that some might consider almost pleasant. Not that my unintended guest appears to be in any state to draw judgments. She’s still gasping, one hand pressed to her chest over her heart, the arm in my grasp shaking. Her heart is racing loud enough that I can hear its beat without even leaning close.
She really is terrified. If this is an act, it’s a better one than I’ve seen any evidence she’s capable of. I’d started to think she was made of stronger stuff than this. A couple of snappy remarks were enough to send her into a total meltdown…?
My mind trips back over the words I said, and understanding