“Don’t think of any funny business. I’ll know,” Mathilde says lightly.
I close the door behind me and lean my back against it. The copper bathtub is full of steaming water.
As quickly as my fatigued body allows, I strip naked and dive in. The first contact with the water burns, but I welcome it.
The soothing sensation of water enveloping my body makes me want to cry. It’s such a comfort. But even though I stay in the water until it grows cold, the rigid frost that’s settled in my bones doesn’t go away.
I drag myself out of the water and wrap a soft towel around me. It smells of plum blossoms. As I approach the vanity, the reflection of a stranger catches my eye.
A breath hitches in my throat.
It is a stranger looking back at me in the mirror, wearing my skin. Skin on bones. Nothing but sharp edges, and scars. With a trembling hand, I reach for my cheek where a vertical scar rests.
I didn’t even realize Reizei sliced my face.
No noble or Ezkai will want to pay a premium to feel scarred flesh under their fingertips. His words echo in my mind.
He was thorough ensuring that if I ever escaped him alive, I would never get to return to my craft. Reizei takes, and takes. Until there’s truly nothing left.
I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror, so I turn my back to the stranger and return to the bedroom.
When I open the wardrobe, I find a couple of my suits hanging inside. I pause, frowning. Cut from sturdy cotton, three-piece suits. Just the way I like them.
Am I his personal doll now?
I pull out the black one and get dressed. Once I’m ready, Mathilde rises and goes to open the door. A familiar woman, one of my earlier handlers, the one who gave me the glass shard, enters.
At the sight of her, my muscles tense. I will the panic gripping my chest to go away. Barely.
“Maya will escort you,” Mathilde tells me.
I nod and follow my handler out the door. For a while, we walk in silence as she leads the way through a huge mansion.
“You,” I say, voice hoarse.
The woman glances at me.
“Thank you.”
She says nothing. But I know she understands.
We approach a tall double door.
Unexpectedly, she turns to me. Her voice drops to a whisper. “Just so you know, when I gave you that shard, I hoped it would free you.”
My brow furrows.
Before I can ask her what she means by that, the servants open the double door to reveal an intimate dining room with a fireplace. The dark wood table is set for dinner.
At the head of the table sits Reizei, clad in Ezkai leathers.
“Vera D’Argent, welcome to my estate,” he says without rising.
The woman closes the door behind me.
It’s only Reizei and me.
When I don’t move, he gestures for a seat on his right. “Come on now. Have a seat. You’re my guest of honor.”
