Her demeanor freezes over in response. “Tell me what I’m missing,” she snaps.

“I don’t know,” I say, trying to keep my breath controlled. Calm. Even as I want to heave her across the table for using Blaise’s body like this.

I chance a glance at the runes on the floor, bouncing my gaze across them, searching for something, anything, to clue me in on what I missed when I conducted the ritual. But all the runes are in place, every trace of blood in order.

I realize then that I performed the ritual perfectly, and that is what frightens me most.

“You have to tell me,” Cinderella says, flicking at her long fingernails now.

“I told you. I don’t know.”

“Tell me now what makes you want her and not me,” Cinderella snaps, and I take my time returning my attention to her.

“I could tell you what makes her better than you,” I start, and there’s nothing I wish more than that I could move, that I could advance on her, tower over her in this moment. “I could tell you Blaise can tell a joke that I’m still laughing at hours later. I could tell you Blaise carries herself like she’s the sole owner of whatever room she currently occupies, and that she couldn’t care less that this is the case. I could tell you Blaise scours through books to get the answers to her questions, even though she has to work twice as hard as anyone else to decipher the words. I could tell you Blaise has a heart that dwarfs that of anyone I’ve ever met, that she loves fiercely—and a bit chaotically, perhaps—but when she loves, she holds nothing back.

“So yes, I suppose I could tell you why I like Blaise better than you. But surely you understand that Blaise isn’t the only girl in the world who can get a laugh with ease, who works harder than her peers, who loves unconditionally. Yet I still prefer her above all others. I can’t describe why or how; I just do. Blaise has something. Something I’m afraid you simply…lack.”

Cinderella hisses and launches from her perch on the dais. Her doe eyes have warped into those of a cornered snake, her perfect lips curled into a snarl. “I could make you do anything I wished,” she says, running her hands underneath my shirt, tracing a path of ice and needles across my torso.

I tense, and something like drunken power flickers in her eyes. “I could have you any way I wished. I could make you like it, too.”

Dread knocks against the paralytic magic of her words, banging against my bones, the walls of my limbs, begging me to move, to do something.

“How about on this dais,” she says, her whisper a serpentine slither across my ears. “If it’s Blaise you prefer, I could make arrangements to use her body instead.”

Something like a shard of glass punctures my ribcage at the thought. Images assault my mind of a twelve-year-old Blaise being dragged into a pantry by a man who knew exactly what he was doing, who knew she didn’t have a clue.

“No. No, please,” I ask, and I realize now that in my attempt to stall, I’ve incited her fury. Fury she’ll take out on not only me, but Blaise. “Whatever you want, I’ll—”

A cruel smile spreads across her face as we exchange a look of understanding.

Because I’ll do whatever she wants, regardless.

Panic takes hold of me, constricting my chest and pounding against my ribs as she bites her lip and plays with the hem of my shirt, as if she’s considering taking it off.

No, no, no.

For the first time in my life, I pray to the Fates that the queen will arrive.

She doesn’t.

“Blaise…Blaise…” Fates, I hope she can’t hear me, hope she won’t have to experience this. “Blaise, I’m so sorry…”

Cinderella lets out a dry little laugh. “Oh, she can’t hear you. In fact, she’ll never hear you again. You made sure of that.”

Something stills in the surrounding air, and everything in the room goes quiet, even the draft.

It’s something I first experienced immediately after I Turned, the ability to lock onto one sound, one source, and block out all the rest.

It’s the sound of Blaise’s pulse beating excitedly against the parasite’s flesh.

It’s the scent of her blood. Blaise’s blood, not the parasite’s.

The question slips from my mouth. “What did you do?”

She grins, as if she’s been holding herself back for the perfect opportunity to divulge this information. “Oh, it’s not what I did. It’s what you did. You see, the night of our first little rendezvous, I told you I needed you to do something for me. The first time you attempted it, you failed drastically, probably because you thought you could get away with not using Blaise’s blood”—Blaise, convulsing, foam gushing from her lips—“but this time, you seem to have finally gotten it right. I shouldn’t be surprised that you forgot what you were doing; I’m the one who told you to forget, after all. But, my dear Nox, you don’t have to be afraid. I can let you see her again if you wish. I can make you believe I’m her, if that’s what you crave. If that would make this a more pleasurable experience for you.”

Bile stings at the back of my tongue and crawls up my throat. “What did you do?”

It doesn’t matter that the world goes quiet, that my predator instincts choose to disregard her voice as she answers. That they deem her as nothing compared to the details I now seek within the room.

Runes—a sickle and a bundle of bound flax. Severing then binding. A knot in a fraying thread. Binding and severing.

A full moon, used for binding the parasite.

Flaxseed, born from the soil of the Rip itself.

Blood, the most potent binding agent of all.

It explains why I completed the ritual perfectly, and yet Blaise is not here. Blaise is not free.

Because I wasn’t freeing Blaise at all.

I was trapping her. Severing the shackles that bound the parasite to the moon, binding the parasite to Blaise’s body, so that it might take control of her as it wished.

I took the reins from Blaise’s curled fingertips and handed them straight to the parasite.

“No.” It’s a whisper, a plea, but I’ve no idea who it’s directed toward.

But then my hands, my arms, are moving of their own accord, and I wonder if when I drowned out the sound of the parasite’s voice, I missed her giving me a command. If I missed her telling me to take her into my arms and kiss her. Because that’s where my hands are currently headed, to cup the back of her head and sweep her up.

I feel as though I’ll lose the contents of my stomach.

But something’s wrong. Confusion warps Cinderella’s porcelain face, and she says something about not telling me I could move, but I’m not really—not of my own volition at least.

It’s as if Cinderella is controlling me, but she clearly is not.

My palms brush against the warm skin of her neck, my thumbs caressing the underside of her chin.

Cinderella shudders in pleasure, but then her eyes go wide and lock onto mine.

There’s terror in them.

We both realize what is happening.

We’re both too late.

Because it’s Blaise’s blood I scent as Cinderella’s heart races in panic, Blaise’s blood that runs through Cinderella’s veins, that leaves the taste of jasmine and vanilla on my memory.