He takes the uneven strand of my hair, the one we cropped for the experiment, in his hand and examines it as he brushes the ends with the pad of his thumb. “What’s the darkness from, Blaise?”

I cock my head to the side, confused.

His moon-pale eyes flash upward and lock onto mine. “The darkness inside of you. Who put it there?”

My throat bobs as I swallow, but I shake my head. “I told you; you’re out of questions.”

Nox frowns, but he doesn’t push. Instead he says, “I’d like to show you something.”

I can hardly manage the squeak of inquiry that proceeds from my throat.

“Wait up for me tonight,” he says. Then he winks and is gone.

CHAPTER 24

BLAISE: AGE TWELVE

Pain.

It comes in torrential waves, ripping my muscles apart, cleaving this child from my body.

It hurts it hurts it hurts.

I’ve never hated Derek more. Not when he accused me of bearing a child to another man. Not when he left me after promising to marry me. Not when he let me rot up in the attic for months.

This pain should be his, this creature inside me, his.

He should have to bear it, not me.

Because the pain is going to kill me.

Sweat rolls off my forehead, soaking my pillow, but no one thinks to wipe it with a cloth.

The only use my stepmother finds for the cloth is to shove it into my mouth to stifle my screams.

She’s sent the servants from the house, carried them away to perform pointless tasks, but there’s always the chance the neighbors will hear.

I’m sure she’s concocted a lie to feed them on the off chance.

If the pain doesn’t kill me, the rag will, and then my stepmother will be a murderer.

There’s a part of me that hopes I’ll die, just so she’ll bear the blame for it. So she’ll rot in jail, deprived of her fine gowns and sparkling brooches forever. Then again, she likely would find a way to cover up my death too, and then I would have died for no reason at all.

So I decide I will not die, even if Derek’s baby wishes it so.

But then the pain ebbs, and I watch as the midwife lifts the child into her arms, as she slices the cord.

My heart floats on wings of joy.

And then there is another jolt of pain, one that should not be happening, not when the baby is out in the world.

And then there is nothing.

“Where is my baby?”

The words spew from my lips before I fully reenter consciousness, before I feel the pillows stacked around me or the emptiness in my belly or the aching of my muscles.

“Safe. The child is safe and well cared for.” It’s Clarissa speaking. I know without opening my eyes.

I frown, my mind coming back to me in trickles of memory. “With the wet nurse?”

I’d wanted to feed my child, but as Clarissa’s story was going to be that the child was left on our doorstep in the middle of the night, she forbade such a thing.

My heart aches at the thought of my baby at another woman’s breast, but I tell myself the hurt will fade away once I can only feel the child’s warmth in my arms.

A baby.

My baby.

I’d felt it as soon as I’d laid eyes on the child. A certain instinct. An instant kinship.

A yearning to love and nourish and protect.

“Can I hold him…her?” I say, realizing I don’t know the sex of my own child.

Silence.

I open my eyes and stare at my stepmother. She’s dressed in fine yellow silks, her hair tucked into neat curls underneath a hat with a striped feather poking off the side.

She looks ridiculous. She looks like she’s been out, which is strange, because she’s been here with me, with the baby, the whole time.

Her mouth is pressed into a hard line.

“Where is my baby?”

The words are a whisper, a plea. A promise that I’ll be nothing but the best of girls if only she’ll tell me.

“You have to understand, child. Without your father, we are penniless. The money has run out, and at the moment, we eat—we live—by the generosity of our neighbors’ hands.”

I don’t understand. Why is she talking about money when I’m asking about my baby?

“Where is my baby?” My voice is hoarse, and I hardly recognize it.

“Neighbors would have talked. We could have crafted a story, but it would not be taken as coincidence that a baby showed up on our doorstep after no one had seen you for months.”

“Clarissa…” It’s the gentlest, kindest way I’ve said her voice since she married my father. It’s desperate and dishonest, but I’ll do anything, say anything to keep her from making this decision, from saying what I think she’s about to say. To take it back. To tell me it was all to frighten me into good behavior.

“The child would have been mocked, ridiculed its entire life. There would have been no prospects for it. No prospects for you. And your shame would have fallen upon my daughters’ shoulders. I had to do what was best for my children. As a mother, surely you understand that, Blaise.”