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I sink down on the cot, dropping my head into my hands. All I had to do was pretend like I was willing to give Veron another chance and I could’ve been out of here. When I was in his castle, I was sure I could find a way to escape the prison. Now that I’m trapped in my cell around the clock, I’m beginning to doubt that that’s even possible.
I just watched my chance at getting out of here walk right through the door. And I still can’t bring myself to even think about changing my mind when it comes to Veron.
Ugh.
Two weeks. I’ve been in Faerie for two weeks. It seems like forever, and it seems like no time at all. I just want to go home. To talk to Jim again, even if it’s to say goodbye. To see my family. To breathe in the asphalt and the smoke of the city while painting out on my balcony.
But I can’t. And maybe I was naive to hold onto my hope for this long, but now I don’t even have that.
Using my thumb, I twist the promise ring on my finger. It’s a habit I picked up shortly after Jim gave it to me when we were young, dumb, and in love. We were eighteen, trying to figure out where we were going in the world, and this silver band was a promise that, no matter, we’d go together.
Sure, we might’ve grown apart. Our relationship… it’s pretty much been over for a while now. Still, this ring has been a sign that I wouldn’t give up. When the female dwarf, Mitzie, tried to compel me to give it to her, I couldn’t. It’s a promise Jim made to me once upon a time. Now? It’s a promise that, somehow, I’ll make my way back to him.
He might not be the man I fell in love with all those years ago. But he’s still someone I care about. It shouldn’t matter what I have to do to find my way back to him.
But when it comes to Veron… I just can’t.
I shudder out a breath, careful not to give into my overwhelming disappointment. It only makes it worse when I realize that my grief has an audience.
“You didn’t fall for that, did you?”
Slowly, I lift my head.
“What are you talking about?”
“Precious Helix,” he scoffs. “You don’t honestly believe that he was setting those prisoners free. That he was saving them only to leave us behind.”
I… I did. Until he said that, I totally did.
“Of course I did.” I grow defensive. “I… he can’t lie.”
“No, but he’s very clever, the captain. Did he actually promise the creatures freedom?”
I think about it. “Uh. No. He just said that he’s taking them with him when he leaves.”
Rys tips his head.
That still sounds like freedom to me. Then again, I’m not fae.
“Okay.” I climb up, moving toward Rys’s cell so that I don’t have to raise my voice. “If he’s not freeing them, what is he doing?”
“There are only two ways to leave Siúcra once you’ve been imprisoned inside its walls. One is if you’ve proven yourself worthy of her mercy. The other? As a corpse. The golden chain? It’s a mark of death. Helix isn’t freeing those prisoners. He’s executing them.”
A shiver runs up my spine.
Executed? Shit. And I almost begged to be included with them.
The shiver turns into a disturbed tremble. “Why? Why would he kill them?”
“Helix was a soldier in the Fae Queen’s court. Since he’s kept his head when she lost hers, I’d wager that he immediately switched his loyalty back to the Summer King. Oberon would want to get rid of any of her sympathizers. There wouldn’t be many in here—who can adore a false queen who imprisoned them—but there were enough for a raid and a chain.”
“How do you know all of this?”
Despite how eager he was to talk seconds ago, my last question shuts him up entirely.
That makes me even more curious—curious and wary, too.
I think of the way the guards—especially Dusk—deride Rys, especially calling him a traitor. How often he’s taken from his cell. How, when the prison went crazy, he risked burning the crap out of his arm to snag one of the guards—who actually answered his demand.
