in front of me, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
A spike of dread jolted through me. I tried to twist myself upright, but a foot drove into my solar plexus, knocking the air out of my lungs. My magic was gone, suppressed by the shackles.
“About time you’re awake,” said Cly, keeping her foot planted on my stomach as I hissed for breath. The ruby glittered around her neck. “I was ready to do it the hard way.”
Beyond the open window, the barest sliver of sunlight glowed white on the sill. How was it midday already? I forced my sluggish, syrupy thoughts to the previous night.
The dinner.
The fight.
The strange, desperate note in Aegis’s voice afterward.
A sharp pinprick of pain. “Aegis drugged me,” I rasped.
“He told me everything,” Cly sneered. “You were getting uppity out there, weren’t you? You spent so long pretending to be someone who matters that you forgot your place. He warned me about you. He told me you might turn and bite your masters like the rabid mongrel bitch you are.”
Aegis stared at the ground. After so many betrayals from him, I’d thought that I’d grow numb to them, that one more couldn’t hurt so much. I was wrong. It hurt anyway. My heart had its own muscle memory, and nothing could teach it that my childhood friend was now my most faithful enemy.
Cly leaned in, putting painful weight on my stomach, forcing me to turn my attention back toward her. She gloated down at me, satisfaction twisting the face that looked so much like mine. “You thought you were queen of the hill. So cool! So strong! But here’s the thing,” she hissed. “I don’t need you anymore.”
“You’ve beaten up the Nightfelds for me. You’ve made the rabble respect House Redbriar again. You even took my midterms for me! Only the fun parts are left from here on—although I might take you out again for finals week. And until then, you’re going back in the kennel.”
I forced a laugh, even though it hurt, even though the bottom was dropping out of my world. I’d risen too high, and there was so far to fall. “How long do you think you can coast? You survived one day of school at the beginning of the year. How long until something else comes up and knocks you on your ass?”
But Cly’s sneer only grew more vicious. “God, you’re still so full of yourself. But that’s okay. I talked with Mother, and we decided on a little present for you. Extra special overnight delivery.” She stepped off of me, went to take out a small rosewood box, and set it on top of me.
Hungry anticipation glittered in her eyes. “Open it.”
I was falling. “I can’t reach it with both hands shackled,” I said.
Cly turned to Aegis. “Unchain one of her hands.”
I slowly massaged my freed hand with the other. Sensation returned in pins and prickles.
I was falling, but it wasn’t the fall that killed you.
I took the box. I thumbed open the latch.
The inside was cushioned in white silk, stained brown at one end from my mother’s severed finger.
Cly’s shriek of laughter rang in my ears.
“Oh, I know I’ll have to use you for something or other again,” she said. “But next time, you’ll jump when I tell you to. You’ll keep your fucking mouth shut. Because you’ll remember just what we can do to you.”
Chapter 22
They left me shackled to the sofa, alone in the room with the small rosewood box. Every time I looked at it, I wanted to rip someone apart with my bare hands. Maybe myself.
I lay there, sick and hurting, as I heard their footsteps retreat down the hallway.
I stared at the window. It was late October now, two months since I’d arrived. The trees were growing faded and bare, abandoned by their birds. Meanwhile, I was still a prisoner, wearing the same chains I’d worn two months ago.
Despair crept into my bones, cold as the wind. Would I be any worse off than I was now if I’d done nothing these two months? If I’d simply allowed myself to be caged and exploited as a living battery? Would my captors have hurt Mom then?
My head buzzed. My throat burned. I hadn’t eaten or drunk anything for the better part of a day, which was better than the alternative, given Cly and Aegis hadn’t even thought to leave me a bucket. Cly had been too eager to go find the Nightfelds and smooth things over with