But she has something over me even Evander cannot fix.

I don’t envy the way my stepmother forces my stepsisters to primp and preen and throw themselves at men who will never desire them.

I envy the truth in their words as they comfort one another.

What is Sir Fudgerumple thinking, refusing a beauty like you, Elegance? The man has a wart for a nose, stars above!

It’s probably for the best, Chrys. I know Mother can only see his fortune, but I’ve heard he keeps his mistresses tied up in his cellar. Can you imagine the noise? No, you’re better off without him.

My sisters might be horrendous when it comes to character, but they’re byproducts of my stepmother’s cruelty. It doesn’t originate with them. Besides, they have each other.

And they have the kernels of truth they take comfort in—the endless reasons the scoundrels their mother tries to marry them off to would have been a bad match, anyway.

I have no such comfort when it comes to Evander.

At least he’ll be with Ellie. At least he’ll be happy.

The guards tell me they’re to be married tonight.

I’m happy for them. I really am, even if happiness feels more like nausea in this scenario, like having my heart cut into tiny ribbons with the blunt edge of a blade.

At least I hadn’t irreparably ruined any hope of them being together the night Evander let me go.

Let it go.

That’s about the best I can do.

About as positive as I can manage. Given the situation I find myself in, I figure I’m not doing all that badly.

My chest aches, not from the chill of my prison cell, of the frigid air that burns my nostrils and lungs. Apparently, the guards will only bend so far to Evander’s will. A fire would benefit not just me, but my prison mates.

I have to admit; I don’t mind them suffering.

The first day I arrived, the male in the cell next to me had gone on and on about my breasts.

I’d woken the next morning to his cell empty.

My new neighbor is better, but only because I prefer verbal abuse to some perv undressing me with his eyes. But she’s a mercenary who’s known for slaughtering the families of her targets, so I don’t know that we’re on track to becoming the best of friends.

The thought settles like week-old dung in my head.

Best of friends.

I remember saying something like that to Ellie, the day we’d gorged ourselves on pastries in the kitchen.

I’d been joking. Well, my tone had been joking. But anyone who knew me, which wasn’t many, would know the crude humor, the jokes, were a barrier, a shield to protect me from my own sincerity.

I’d meant it that day—the part about how easy it had been to become Ellie’s friend, to feel close to the woman who didn’t turn her nose up at the way I stuffed my mouth full of sweets or find my preferred hobbies unladylike.

Ellie had been my sparring partner, and I’d adored her for it.

She thinks I hate her, that I spent all our stolen moments plotting her demise, but she’s wrong.

I’m not even mad at her for it.

The evidence against me is too high a pile to even bother trying to scale. I usually have the energy for that sort of thing, for climbing, but there’s not much use when it comes to Ellie.

She’s made up her mind about me. And once Ellie’s convinced of something, once she’s determined a course of action, she’s not easily dissuaded.

I’d be lying if I claimed that wasn’t something I admired about her.

And it’s not as if she’s wrong to think what she does. I put her life in danger, allowed my fear of rejection to influence me into thinking I could find a way to keep her safe all on my own.

I can’t feel it within me; I’ve about determined that. For a while, I thought I could sense it wriggling in the corners of my mind, groping for control of my body, but now that I’m condemned to this quiet cell in this quiet dungeon in this quiet world, I know I cannot feel it.

If I could, I would’ve by now.

There’s nothing else to distract me, no noise to mask its slithering.

I’ve tried speaking to it. Either it can’t hear, or it doesn’t care to answer.

Either way, the end product is the same. Me whispering to myself in my mind, morphing into me whispering to myself aloud, until my guards shift with discomfort, imagining I’m going mad, that I’m talking to myself.

Fates, I hope not.

I’ve never seen it, of course, the thing that dwells within my mind, that takes over my body and warps it and disfigures it, then smashes it all back together until I’m a bundle of knots and aches.

I hope it’s different from me, distinct. The gossip that makes its way across the Sahli desert and through the forests of Avelea all the way to Dwellen reports that a sentient being inhabits the Queen of Naenden. That this being is the one who tells the stories that kept her alive all those nights.

Now, how much of that is informed by the merchant faeries’ hatred of humans and wishing to accredit her success to something else, I’m not sure.

I shouldn’t allow it to make me hope.

But what am I, if not someone who hopes for improbable things?

Isn’t that what got me into this mess to begin with?

A draft crawls into my cell. That usually means someone has opened the door at the top of the staircase that leads to the dungeon.

Even my guard shifts in discomfort.

Footsteps, too loud and frequent and overlapping to belong to one set of feet, clamber down the steps.

I sit up in bed for the first time all day.

So do the other prisoners.

It’s pitiful, I know, but it’s about the only entertainment we get. If it were up to me, the others and I would play games, word games that don’t require pieces or boards. But my fellow prisoners are rarely up for listening to a suggestion that didn’t originate between their own two ears.