My muscles are knotted from how I’ve slept lopsided on the stone floor, my neck craned as I rested my head against the talon-shaped foot of my bed.

A guard barks an admonition to hurry just as I open the door. He startles when he sees me.

They always do.

I remember a time when I used to fear them.

Now it’s they who fear me.

I look like death on a good day; I can’t imagine what I look like now, though I catch glimpses of my gaunt appearance in the guard’s face.

“Is she stable?” I ask, not bothering with the ruse that the guards know nothing of my and Gunter’s experiments. The guards rarely come for me, and the clock resting against my wall claims dinner isn’t for another hour. It’s no coincidence.

The guards blink and exchange a wary glance. “We’re not at liberty to discuss the state of the girl.”

“Tell you what,” I say, resting my palm against the doorpost. I do it to steady myself, because I feel I might sway with nausea any moment now, but the guards retreat a hair, so I suppose it comes across as intimidating. I’ll have to keep that in mind. “You tell me what you know, and I’ll refrain from venturing into town after dark and stumbling across your wives by happenstance.”

The threat is flat as it leaves my tongue, but the words are sharp enough to make up for my unconvincing delivery. The guards shudder and the one on the left murmurs, “The physician reported to the queen an hour ago and claimed the girl is sleeping, but stable.”

The relief that floods my bones isn’t complete. It doesn’t wash me of my regret or give me any right to set foot in Blaise’s presence again. But she’s alive, and that’s enough for me at the moment.

I pat the guard to the left on the shoulder and allow them to lead me to the queen.

“I’m disappointed in you, Farin.”

The words are meant to wound, and for the first time in years, the queen’s efforts are successful.

It’s not that I care what the queen thinks of me, but I’m disappointed in myself, and to hear my self-loathing echoed by another has me gripping my chalice until my fingertips threaten to bleed.

I say nothing, nor do I spare a glance at the queen.

That’s probably a mistake, but I can’t look at her right now.

Not when all I can think about is Blaise, froth bubbling from her mouth as her eyes shoot back in her head.

I think I might be ill.

The nausea isn’t improved when a servant sets a plate of frog eyes in front of me.

“I cannot begin to count the infractions you committed today, Farin.”

Blaise’s body crumpling, sweat soaking her forehead, and white, white, white…

“You will look at me when I speak to you, child. I’m your mother and am deserving of at least that much respect.”

The words grate against my skin, and suddenly I’m a youth again, craving nothing more but to lash out, to hurt her like she’s hurt me.

But I’m no longer a child, and my freedom is not the only one at stake, so I do as she says.

Tonight she’s dressed in training gear, black leathers that hug her form and leave her looking deadly. She called for dinner with me early, so she must not have had time to change after her training session.

There’s a coldness in her gaze that runs deeper than I’m used to.

The queen isn’t disappointed; she’s livid, and in her eyes is a thirst for blood only someone like me could truly recognize.

Fear prickles the hair on the back of my neck, not for me, but for…

“I cannot count the rules you disregarded today. And now a poor girl suffers unnecessarily.”

“Because you’re clearly so concerned with Blaise’s wellbeing.”

It’s the wrong thing to say; I know it as soon as it slips from my lips. There are a thousand reasons not to say it—the way it reveals how I feel about Blaise, the way it riles the queen and could circle around to her reworking our deal.

I’m too exhausted, too drained to conduct myself safely in the queen’s presence right now.

“Perhaps you have a point, child. Perhaps the girl’s death, unfortunate as it may be, would serve a greater purpose. I imagine the parasite could not hold onto its host if she were dead.”

The poorly masked threat has me clenching my fists beneath the table. “We’ve no evidence the parasite wouldn’t die with her if that were to happen,” I remind her.

She stares me down, and for a moment, I think she’s unconvinced.

But then the queen swallows, gritting her teeth. “Why did you do it, Farin? Why did you disregard the rules? Why did you administer a potion for which you’d created no antidote? Why did you attempt to extract the parasite without the assistance of Gunter, without informing me first that you believed you’d found a solution?”

She asks these questions as if they haven’t assaulted my mind every second since the moment I woke from my stupor. As if I haven’t been retracing each moment leading up to handing Blaise that vial, wondering why the warning trumpets didn’t sound in the back of my head, why it didn’t occur to me the danger I was putting Blaise in.

“I don’t know,” I say because it’s the truth.

“That answer is not to my satisfaction,” the queen says.

It isn’t to mine either, but there’s no use in saying as much.

It’s not like me to throw myself into experiments with unknown variables without first taking the proper safety measures. Without starting small and working my way up.

I made that mistake once, and now I’m a slave to the thirst that parches my throat, to the boy inside me who pounds against the inside of my head, begging to be fed the scraps of others’ misery.

So, no. I don’t know why I fed Blaise, the first person to bring light to my sun-forsaken life, a potion I wasn’t sure was safe.

Perhaps I was just so eager to please her that all inhibitions fled my mind. Perhaps I’m still that boy in the snow, aching for approval, more than eager to perform for a bit of praise, a scrap of attention.

But no. With Blaise, I really had wished to free her.

“My dear child,” the queen says, reaching across the table for my hand, though there’s no warmth in her tone. When her cold fingers caress mine, I’m fairly sure I blanch. “You know it’s my responsibility as your mother to make sure you’re disciplined.”

Discipline. The word would mean nothing to me if it were just my own skin I was worried about. But it’s not, and if she reworks our deal, I’ll never forgive myself.

She beckons me to follow her, and I leave my dinner on the table untouched.

We reach a pair of oak doors, inscribed with patterns of stars speckling the night sky. They dance to the queen’s touch, opening the lock with a click.