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My eyes snapped open, and cold grief spread through my chest. I still lay on the roots in the dungeon, flat down on my front. Once again, my back was ripped open. I don’t think I’d slept for longer than twenty minutes in…however long I’d been in here.
Every time I fell asleep, I saw Torin again, as if he were alive before me.
I don’t want to be without you any more than I have to.
I turned my head, looking up. Faint silver light pierced the canopy high above me.
This was a different cell than the one I’d been put in before, the one where Torin had carved through a wall. There was less light, and it was more cramped. My gaze trailed over the five bowls of food someone had deliveredto me. They were feeding me this time, but I hadn’t bothered to eat.
I had no appetite whatsoever, either because of the infection or because I’d killed the man I loved.Torin. The memory of it was like a thousand rocks pressing on my chest, crushing my ribs.
My normal life seemed a million years away. I could hardly remember what Faerie looked like, let alone the apartment I’d shared with Andrew.
The human world seemed a distant gray dream, vague and unreal. I faintly remembered a room with white walls, and a kitchen downstairs. A blue comforter. The bar I’d gone to with Shalini every week…
It felt like another planet altogether.
My memories of Faerie were a little more vibrant—the towering dark castle, the snowy valleys, and the mountains. But it hurt to think about it. Mostly, I thought of Torin.
The Seelie king and the four cramped walls around me were my universe right now.
Wincing, I reached behind my back. The skin felt hot and swollen. Infected again. I sat up, and my thoughts swam, my stomach tightening with nausea. Every inch of me felt sensitive to the touch, my body alternating between hot and cold.
I closed my eyes, delirious. My brain kept forcing me to relive those moments with the red leaves swirling around us and the vines that seemed alive snaking over the columns.
For a moment when we’d been fighting, I’d imagined the leaves and vines were responding to me, but I musthave imagined it. I was disoriented by pain and fever, losing touch with what was real and what wasn’t.
The sound of the lock shifting pulled my attention up, and the door groaned open. Morgant’s enormous frame filled the doorway. If I’d had the energy and the strength, I would have attacked him, except I wasn‘t sure I could stand. Warm light beamed into the room from the torches in the hallway. Morgant frowned at the food on the floor.
“Why aren’t you eating?”
I wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of answering, so I simply stared back at him.
“Are you trying to die in here?” he asked sharply. “Because in Mab’s kingdom, the Empress of the Dark Cromm has the privilege of choosing when her prisoners live and when they die. And she chooses how they die.”
I cocked my head, keeping my mouth shut.
He sniffed the air. “Something smells rotten.”
I gave him a grim smile. “Well, Morgant, that would be me. I do realize that thinking isn’t your greatest strength and you probably don’t have more than two brain cells to rub together, but when you lock someone in a tiny cell for several days at a time, they will start to reek. And you know what, Morgant? I really don’t give a fuck.”
“Why?“ he said sharply.
“Why what?” I shot back.
“Why don’t you care?”
I stared up at him, my fury rising. “You and your queen have done everything in your power to make itclear to me that I have no control. You control when I have food or water. You control if I live or die. And you forced me to kill a man I was falling in love with.”
“You do have control. You have magic you refuse to use. Did you know you can heal yourself?” He crouched down, staring at me like he was investigating an alien specimen. “Do you want revenge?”
At the question, the tiniest spark of brightness lit in my chest. Of course I wanted revenge. I wanted to murder him and his queen, but I wasn’t in any position to exact it. I bit my lip. “Is the queen your mom? Or are you her consort? Or both?”
His lip curled. “She is my mother.”
“I see you inherited the black wings and the twisted soul.”
“Weallhave black wings in the royal family,” he said sharply. “Some are just too stupid to use them, and you know nothing of my soul.”
