Page 198 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Did not know who the voice belonged to.

I just knew that I was cold. Cold and… there was a smell. Sour, where it coated my skin. Bare skin. Was I always like this? Clothes. I wore clothes before?

I pulled harder. My scalp burned, but the pain made me breathe. The pain was real.

“You are Alvara Goldman-Porter, the second in command of Grayshell. Sixth ascension in the third coven, calling of Aren Amadeus, the sculptor of legends. Mate to August Porter, The Great Commander. Friend of the weak. Angel of Death to the cruel men like me, Ally. You were the blade I prayed would finally come for me.”

Something in his words—the shadow’s words—ached deep in my chest.

“Why?” I breathed, though none of his claims made sense.

I was nothing. No one. A disappointment. A forgotten name on a list of disposable tools waiting to be destroyed.

“Why did I pray you’d come for me, or why am I reminding you?”

“Reminding me?”

“I was sent here to help you, Ally. Remember?”

“That’s not my name.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Elizabeth. My name is Elizabeth.”

“Look at me!” the shadow bellowed, slamming both palms against the bars until they rang through the cell.

I did. Not that I could see much. Tall—the man in the other cage was tall, though not so large as the men from the dreams. And his voice… some buried part of me pictured bright blue eyes and cornflower blue… everything. Everything in that place had been blue or silver. I had not liked it there, though it was undoubtedly better than here.

I could discern almost nothing of his face beyond the fact that he watched me. Moonlight occasionally caught a narrow strip of pale skin.

“Look at me, Ally. I was sent here to help you. Kade Balaskas—you know him.”

“Kade?” I breathed.

“Yes, Ally. Kade. He’s helping your mate, and they are desperate to find you.”

Wrong. Kade would not look for me. He did not need to. He was…

“Look at me, Alvara.” I had not realized my eyes had fallen back to the floor. “Your mate sent a message, remember? He vowed he is coming for you. He says he loves you, little nova. Stay strong. Do you remember me telling you that?”

The shadow waved something. Tentatively—drawn by that name, by those nonsensical words—I crawled over the rough floor, my knees aching with every scrape. With a pained sigh, the shadow knelt and continued holding something through the bars.

Eyes fixed on his chest, searching for a flinch, a change in direction, an asp preparing to strike, I slowly reached for him. Soft. Whatever the shadow held through the bars was soft. When he gave it a gentle shake, I accepted it and lifted it into the strip of moonlight. A shirt.

My eyes dropped to my bare skin. I canted my head.

Wrong, somehow. Being exposed was wrong.

“Come on, little nova.”

I did not like that name on his tongue. It was wrong, too.

“He’d be horrified to see you like this. They all would be. Put it on.”

I did as I was told. I always did as I was told, did I not? That was what was required if I wanted to go outside. I liked outside. If I were good, perhaps he would take me again—to wash beneath the moonlight.

The fabric swallowed me like a tent. The sensation felt deeply unsettling.