This is for me.
For her.
For a second, all of Quo disappears. There’s just the heat of her and the pounding of my heart. It’s like, for the first time in my life, I know where I belong.
It’s with her.
It will always be her.
Then the cage door bangs open. François is beside us in a second, as he locks eyes on me the dark toxins flood my system again. My body starts to collapse.
“How touching,” he says, his voice a low hiss. “For a moment, the wolf has regained his appetite.”
Wolf?
The word rings through my head like a bell of clarity, but before I have time to register anything more, I’m down on my knees, unable to stand. The pressure in the air is enough to push me away, my muscles are locked under that same dark weight he used in the yard.
I’m frozen.
And he’s clamping his hand onto Rory’s arm.
I try to speak but even my vocal cords are paralyzed.
“Come along,chéri,let’s take a walk,” François’s gaze is fixed on her. “The scenery in here is boring.”
He propels her through the cage door. Aurora looks back at me, her eyes full of a silent plea, but I can’t do a thing.
The door slams shut.
The lock clicks.
I’m left staring at the empty space where the light used to be, more poison in my veins and the taste ofherstill on my tongue.
28. LONDON
The darkness in solitary isn’t black. Not really. It’s a smorgasbord of pantomime purples and gloomy grays. The color is thick enough to swallow my tongue if I don’t keep singing.
There’s a new song in my head, one which has sprung up from a part of my noggin I’ve not heard from before.
The wolf is in the larder,
The snake is in the hall,
The kitten’s in the briar patch, waiting for the fall.
The owl is in the belfry,
The sparrow’s in the mud,
The king is in the iron room,
Dreaming of the flood.
As the song plays on repeat, I realize the pipes are shivering.
Pressing my ear against the cold, weeping stone of the wall, I focus. Most people hear nothing but the drip-drip-drip of the prison’s leaky heart, but I hear the threads that connect, well, everything.
One has the best sound of all.
