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It takes all my strength to move my hand slowly up to my neck, where I feel a syringe protruding from my skin. When I yank it out, there are remnants of a red substance still stuck to the inside of the glass.
He’s drugged me.
A sweet taste coats my tongue while the effects of thehul giltake over. I doubt it’s enough to kill me, but it’s enough to keep me sedated and pliable.
The syringe falls from my fingers, the glass breaking with a high-pitched clash as it hits the floor. My star drops next, and I am left weaponless and prone, completely unable to fight back.
Damian eases back on the bench and pulls a tonic from under his seat. He knocks it back in one gulp. Immediately, his skin knits back together, the trail of blood ceasing to pour from his ribcage.
Seven Hells.
It’s Madame’s healing tonic. Because she knew. SheknewI would fight back, and she prepared him.
Any lingering hope that he was acting without her knowledge shrivels up and dies.
Panic curdles the few contents of my stomach, sending bile creeping up my esophagus. Or maybe that’s the drugs.
I knew it couldn’t be done. I knew we couldn’t outsmart or outrun her. I knew it, and yet I allowed myself to hope.
My head lolls against the headrest of the bench when the carriage comes to a stop. My control over my limbs is waning by the second.
There’s no fighting Damian off as he throws me over his shoulder and hauls me toward a waiting ship. Part of me doesn’t even want to fight him, the drug-addled part that doesn’t know any better.
His feet pound against the wooden beams of the pier, and he calls to someone on the ship to open the hatch.
Ships.
Pier.
Docks.
It means something, I’m sure of it.
It means there might be a way…
I’m not sure how, but I force my hand up to the pocket of my cloak—my movements so slow they don’t even concern Damian. Finally, I fish out a coin. It takes all of my strength to hold onto it, then to remember why I’m holding it.
I’m so tired.
A name comes to mind, faint and distant, and I wonder why I’m thinking of her.
My lips curl into a smile, and I drop the coin. It rolls along the pier before spinning in a wild circle at the end of the wooden beams, glinting in the sunlight like a beacon. I’m mesmerized by its beauty.
So shiny and perfect and clean.
Maybe this is why she loves them so much.
There is a small splash when it falls into the water, and I laugh. Or maybe I’m already dreaming. I imagine it sinking into the murky depths as my vision goes black and unconsciousness finally claims me.
Then there is nothing but darkness.
CHAPTERSIXTY
REMY
I’m not half as surprised as I should be when Madame arrives without Aika.
From the minute the carriage took off with my wife and that demented bastard, I have had to fight the urge to go after her. To ask Zaina to go. To blow our entire plan.
