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I longed to open the window to see what I could hear, or if there was an army marching towards the castle or someone gossiping about my man. Not knowing what was going on was almost as bad as being imprisoned. I was so cut off from everyone it was almost like I didn’t exist.

It felt like days had gone by with nothing happening at all. I ate a little bit of the food he’d provided, and I tried to nap but was unsuccessful. My painting supplies remained untouched although the portrait of Lukas that I’d been working on stared me in the face. I wanted to rip it to shreds but I couldn’t do it. What if I forgot what he looked like one day?

“Oh my God. I was going to ask you where you’ve been but...” Selena walked in, armed to the teeth and her mouth hanging open.

“Never thought I’d go to jail,” I deadpanned.

She came up to the bars and tentatively reached for the crystal. She pulled her hand back quickly. “It's like it’s electrified.” She glanced at me. “Did you threaten to follow him?”

“No! I’m not that dumb.”

But I’d thought about it. I knew I couldn’t do a thing. I knew that for sure after what Annalise did to me before Zaynan intervened. It was very possible that if I heard Lukas got hurt, I would have gone after him—but I wouldn’t do that by myself.

Selena walked back and forth across the room, examining my cage, crouching down and then rising up on her toes while she thoroughly perused my situation. “I can’t help you,” she announced. “But maybe Elijah can.”

I rushed back to the bars. “Oh, please? Could you ask him?”

She gave me a curt nod and ran out of the room, swords clanging against each other.

My heart skipped a beat. Would Lukas hurt either of them if he found out what they did? He would be completely in the wrong if he did anything to them. The confidence that he wouldn’t try was absent. Lukas certainly wasn’t known for his leniency.

All he had to do was ask me to please stay in the castle. That was it. As simple as that.

Elijah trailed behind Selena as she re-entered the room. He took one glance at me and started laughing. She rolled her eyes.

“When he said he was going to renovate, I didn’t stop to consider what that entailed.” He shook his head and stepped closer, admiration for Lukas’s handiwork written across his face.

I glared at him. “This was planned?” White-hot fury wrapped itself around my spine.

He rubbed his chin while his gaze tracked up and down. “Not by me.”

Selena moved to his side. “Can you open this? There’s no doorway anywhere.”

Elijah came right up to the bars and curled his fingers around the crystal. The magic didn’t seem to affect him at all. “I’m responsible for you. I gave him my word I would take care of you.”

“I can’t stay in this god damned cage. I promise you I’m not going to grab a knife and go running for the hills. I know I can’t do anything for him out there.”

Selena elbowed him in the kidney, and he twisted around to glare at her. “C’mon, we can’t leave her in there!” She said. “What if something happens and they attack us? She’ll be killed if the roof caves in and then you’ll be killed if Lukas survives to kill you.”

He took a couple steps backward and scanned my fancy cell, deep in thought. “I’ll be back,” he stated.

We watched him walk away. “Do you think he’ll help?” I asked.

She took another glance over her shoulder before facing me again. “I don’t know. I hope so.” She shrugged her shoulders. “He does whatever he wants. He’s always right, though.”

She looked a bit bitter about her last statement. “Probably his age. He probably thinks he knows everything,” I offered. “I just hope he gets me out of here.”

While we waited, Selena went to one of the windows and peered out, her head swiveling as she glanced around. For a lack of anything better to do, I reorganized my paintbrushes and pencils, lining them up by their color shades. When I had them all in order from lightest to darkest, I took a deep breath. I was going to lose my mind being stuck in this cage.

Selena walked back over, deep in thought. “If he doesn’t get you out of there, I’ll try. Can’t promise you anything since my non-magical ass is probably useless for something like this.”

Tentatively, she reached for the bars, shivering when she touched them. “Lukas must’ve done something so it was okay for Elijah to touch it. There’s some real serious spells on this shit.”

“Yeah, he has a whole buffet of different kinds of blood in him right now.”

Her eyes brightened. “Oh yeah, that’s true. He just needs some Fae blood and some siren or mermaid blood and he’ll be undefeatable.”

“Oh lord, I hope not. Mermaid blood sounds awful, from what you’ve told me.” I wasn’t sure how it all worked, but if he was going to feed me his blood, I really didn’t want blood from something that worked like a garbage disposal.