“I’ve made a mistake for which I intend to be punished, my queen,” I say, and out of the corner of my eye I see Blaise bristle, though I keep my attention on our captor. “It won’t happen again.”
“No.” The queen caresses the edge of the iron key with her long, pale fingernails. The noise of the collision scrapes against my ears, “I daresay it won’t.”
Panic courses through me, and I lunge for the cell, but I’m much too late. Minutes too late, probably. When I slam my body against the door, it doesn’t budge. It’s made of goblin iron, forged to defend against the fae, which has made it useful all these years Gunter and I have been experimenting on the queen’s prisoners.
The queen slaps the flat edge of the key against her palm.
“You were so far gone, you didn’t sense me approaching. You didn’t even hear as the key clicked against the lock.”
Shame hollows out my chest at the implication of her words. If I was so far gone I’d left all other senses behind, then what would I have done to Blaise?
I thrust my arm through the gaps between the bars, but the queen expects it and is safely perched on the stairs before I can reach her, before I can wrench the key from her grasp.
“Come on,” I say, gritting my teeth. “We both know you won’t keep me locked in here. Not when the parasite Blaise is carrying means so much to you. You won’t allow me to hurt her.”
“Nox?” Blaise’s voice has lost that carefree quality, and her panic thrums in my ears. It’s a question that demands an explanation. But I can’t bear to face her, to face him, at the moment, so I don’t.
The queen sighs, and the disappointment that leaches across her face has me fantasizing about plucking the vertebrae in her spine one by one. “It’s true that the magic inside the girl is useful to me. But she is not the only human to carry this sort of magic. So though it will be a severe loss if her life is forfeited, it will not be the end. I will simply have to find another.”
Another.
As if there could possibly be another Blaise in all of Alondria.
As if she’s simply a test subject, not the girl who’s survived rape and abuse and having her child stolen right out from under her, and after all of it, maintained the ability to flash that beautiful smile and coax laughs from everyone else.
I’ve hated the queen for years now, so hate doesn’t feel like a strong enough word for what’s escalated in my chest.
I thirst for her blood. Not the taste, but to spill it freely upon the floor without tainting my mouth with its coppery sting.
I want her blood to flow, and I crave watching it seep into the earth.
“You won’t find another easily,” I say, desperate now for the queen to relent.
The queen picks at her long nails. “I’m willing to wager I won’t have to. You see, my child, I fear I’ve been too lax with you, allowed you too much time to dally. I feared that if I placed pressure on you, it would stifle your creativity. Wither that beautiful imagination of yours. But we’ve tried it one way and failed. I would be a fool to continue with the same methods and expect different results. So I’m modifying the rules. Besides, while you assured me upon the girl’s arrival that killing her would destroy the parasite, I’m beginning to doubt whether your source is accurate.”
I flinch at the reminder of the blatant lie I breathed to the queen when Blaise first arrived. When the queen suggested killing her, and I’d conjured up a string of reasons Blaise’s death would backfire against the queen.
Saliva pools in my mouth as my fingers dig into the metal bars of the dungeon wall, but the goblin iron doesn’t budge.
I’d always assumed the queen had this door forged with test subjects in mind.
Now I’m wondering if it was me she had in mind.
“What do you want?” I ask. “I’ll give you anything.”
The queen frowns, and there’s a moment I think she’s pondering granting my request. That there’s something I can give her she actually longs for.
But then the queen sighs, because even she must know I’ll never be her son, not even if I wanted to be. “I expect you to find a way to extract the magic from the girl. Let’s hope the time constraint will provide you with the spur of motivation you need. Ring the bell should you find anything,” she says, gesturing to a rope in the corner of the room that Gunter and I use to request food from the kitchens.
And with that, the queen stands, brushes the dust off the skirts of her nightgown, and ascends the steps.
Leaving me alone with my prey.
CHAPTER 28
NOX: AGE TWENTY
I’ve done it.
I’ve found a way out.
It’s taken me nine years, but I’d gladly sacrifice that time just to see my family once more.
Once the queen understands what I’ve discovered, she’ll grant me so much more than one last time. Because I’ve uncovered the solution to the gaping hole in the queen’s cold, dead heart. The price of my freedom is cheap compared to what I’m prepared to offer her.
The antidote swirls in the corked vial. It has the look of the steam that drifts off ice after it’s been soaked in boiling water, except there’s a purplish glint to it. I suppose that’s from the bat I ground up as a life sacrifice.
There are plenty of them down here in the dungeons, so it was either the horrifying winged creatures or the rats that scurry against the stone floor at all hours of the night.
I would have preferred to kill the rats, but I thought the bats more fitting.
They have wings to fly, yet they’re bound to the night, just as I am bound to this castle.
The shimmer in the antidote comes from the shards of mirror I ground to a fine dust and sprinkled into the mixture, combined with the liquid moonlight I procured from one of my and Gunter’s seedier contacts.
Gunter doesn’t know of course, about the liquid moonlight. My mentor might be a male of science, but he’s the superstitious sort, prone to believing the legends of old, which would have us believe the silky substance is Fates-cursed.
Perhaps it is, but plenty of antidotes are made with ingredients that if consumed in isolation are lethal.
