“I’m losing patience with you, Clarissa.”
Clarissa tightens, and I can smell the fear rolling off her.
But Clarissa is not a fawn to sprint at the first rustle of danger.
She’s an adder, and when she is backed into a corner, she has no qualms about using her fangs.
“What do you want from me, girl?” she asks, gesturing to the near-empty attic. “As you can see, I have no coin to offer you.”
“You know what I want,” I say, but she only flicks her brows upward in faux confusion. “Where is my child?”
Clarissa’s voice is sickeningly sweet, the edges of her lips as sharp as a razor’s edge. “Are you sure you want to know? Look at this life you’ve found for yourself. Prince Evander’s little vagabond, a runaway and plunderer and thief. Dishonorable as ever. Now why would you wish to burden yourself with a child?”
“Because this is not a child we’re talking about. It’s my child. My child you took from me, stole from me. My child you sold for a handful of pretty dresses, and—”
Sorrow takes hold of my throat, crushing my words until they sputter for air, gasp and die out.
She flits her hand. “I told you long ago that if I could have gotten any money for the child, I would have.”
“Fine. You did it to save your own name. To keep the town gossip from ruining your reputation. I’m sure you thought it would soil your strategy of taking on ill husbands, then inheriting their hard-earned wealth.”
She smirks. “Most of it wasn’t hard-earned. Give me some credit, my dear.”
My fists ball, and I long to lunge at her, to dig my teeth into her flesh for how she speaks of taking advantage of my father as if she simply hustled him at a game of cards.
As if she didn’t steal his last days with his only daughter.
As if she didn’t ruin the life of the child he loved so very dearly.
Tears sting at my eyes, but that’s what she wants, so I only snarl, “My patience grows thin. If I were you, I’d consider answering my question.”
My stepmother goes still for a moment, and she simply stares at me, and it’s as if a memory washes behind her greedy eyes. As if she’s seeing something I don’t.
And for a fraction of a moment, I know we’re both there. In this very same room, on a very different day so many years ago.
Where is my baby where is my baby where is my baby.
I close my eyes and dig my fingers into my palm. Something about the stinging sensation as my fingernails slice into my flesh steels me.
Where is my baby where is my baby where is my baby.
I picture it as it should have been. I picture the midwife swaddling the child and tucking the baby into my arms, but I can’t quite grasp at it. Like there’s something missing from the picture I’m trying to form, the stolen moment I’ll never get back.
“You were always such a foolish girl,” Clarissa says, and her voice grates against my memories, enough to force me to open my eyes. “Your father loved you, but he spoiled you. Gave you anything you wanted without making you work for it. If you shattered a vase from throwing a ball in the corridor, he had the servants sweep it up and he never mentioned it to you. If you served him undercooked eggs that had him vomiting all over the floor—”
“Stop.” It’s my voice I hear, though I don’t feel my lips move.
My throat burns, stings. It’s a common sensation now that I’ve turned, but this is not from bloodlust.
My eyes sting, but no tears fall.
“Please,” I beg, because I’m not sure what she wants, and I don’t know what else to give.
She shakes her head. “You got it from your mother, you know. Both sickly sorts of girls, hips and body too frail. There is a reason you were their only child together.”
I shake my head, trying to piece together her words, why she’s bringing up my mother when we’re supposed to be talking about my baby.
I don’t know why, but I take a step back.
Like my mind knows somehow that I’ll need him, Nox is at my side again, and I think he might be saying my name. His phantom eyes are stricken with concern, like he’s worried I’ll combust, like I’ve decided to walk straight out into the sunlight, but I don’t understand.
Clarissa is still talking, rambling on about my mother and other nonsense that has nothing to do…nothing to do…
I close my eyes to the memory, the memory I’ve always wished would supplant reality.
The one where the midwife swaddles my baby, and…
Something is still missing, and I find myself clenching my teeth, as if I can force that something missing to reveal itself, but I can hear nothing and…
I can hear nothing.
The baby isn’t screaming.
It never has.
Not in this memory. Not in the ones that are real. Not in the dreams.
My baby isn’t screaming, my baby isn’t screaming, why isn’t my baby screaming?
