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It doesn’t matter, anyway. Even if he looked haughty, she’s tricked him into arrogance before.
She holds out her hand wordlessly, and it takes me too long to realize she wants me to take it. I cross the distance, dutifully placing my hand in hers. In a movement nearly too fast for my eyes to track, she drags a sharp, miniscule dagger across my palm.
She squeezes the wound over the vial, watching as the crimson tendrils spread like spilled ink through the clear liquid. Then she waits. Frozen.
Sixty seconds tick by while I focus on my shallow breaths, my weakening limbs, anything but the rapidly hardening look on Madame’s flawless features.
Her glowing violet eyes lift slowly to mine, and I don’t need to know what reaction she’s looking for in that vial to know she hasn’t gotten it.
The air seizes in my chest, my lungs refusing to take in another molecule of oxygen.
“Aika.” Though her nails dig into my wrist like talons, her tone is deceptively soft. Deadly. Like a poisoned blade sinking into my flesh.
“Yes, Mother?” I choke out.
“What color are the contents of that vial?”
“Red, Mother.” My voice is barely a whisper now.
Smugness radiates off Damian, but he has the sense to keep his mouth shut. Which is a shame, really, since I could use the distraction of him attracting her wrath.
“And do you know what color it would be if you were with child, as you should be, by now?” Madame asks.
I shake my head mutely, the heavy, erratic thuds of my heartbeat nearly drowning out her question.
“Green. It should have turned green.” She tugs me closer in her iron grip, close enough that I can feel the breath of each furious word against my face. “Tell me, daughter, if I take enough of your blood to test, do you think that the results would change?”
I will my heartbeat to steady, reminding myself of every lesson she’s ever taught me, of the ones I had already learned by the time she found me.
“It’s not for lack of trying, Mother,” I lie, then pepper in a truth. “We’ve been…very amorous. I’m certain the staff can attest to it.”
The staff where she has spies. Facts she can verify. She knows I would not be stupid enough to lie about that.
Except that I am, at least partially.
She loosens her grip enough to back up so she can study my face, her free hand resting on the pulse point at my neck. It would almost be a tender gesture, if I wasn’t so certain that she would use those same fingers to strangle me with very little provocation.
It’s hard to believe Remy’s theory about us being her weakness right now. Then again, I’m still alive, so perhaps there is something to it.
“And you’ve taken the tonic every time?” she questions.
Steady heartbeat. Eyes open. Even breaths.
“Yes,” I say fervently.
Damian scoffs under his breath, reminding me of his presence. Of his circumstances, and his punishment for what he did to Zaina. It gives me an idea, but I just as quickly dismiss it.
If I imply that Remy is sterile, she might just kill him, with the mood she’s been in.
“You’ve taken the tonic on each of youramorousoccasions, the tonic that has given barren women children in a single week’s use, and yet you remain very much childless?”
“Yes,” I say again.Short and simple.
She assesses my face as though weighing whether or not to believe me. Several stuttering heartbeats and two shallow breaths later, her eyes glint with a decision. I know before she speaks that her expression does not bode well for me.
“Then perhaps you need motivation to try harder. Damian, choose your tools.”
“It would be my pleasure,” he gloats.
