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Her thumb cut into the flesh of the orange and she started a spiraling peel. Someone had tidied my nails while I slept, and I copied her motions. Took in the spray of sharp citrus in the air, the waft of the scent, the velvety pith against the skin of my thumb.
Suddenly, I understood. I'd been made to survive only on what brought me pain and thrilled another.
The bed and the clothes, the perfume and bath, and the food I was fed now was for no one's pleasure but my own. I lifted the orange to my face and sucked in a deep breath, squeezing it in my fist as I fought to bury the scream in my chest.
CHAPTER3
HOW LONG?
Aweek passed. I gained weight and found that sating physical hunger with the feasts set on small tables in my bedroom did offer some relief from the soul-deep gnawing that still plagued me.
Lillian came and went—Marius had a house in the city that they were staying in. I considered telling her that I didn't need her company, or for her to guard me, whatever her purpose was, but the truth was I liked her. I liked not being alone.
And I preferred her to the other, colder woman who left me meals, brought me clothes, and stared speculatively at me out of the corner of her pretty blue eyes.
Still, there were improbable hours where I was left alone, the bedroom door unlocked, the window open, as if I were still free. I wandered a gallery filled to the brim with landscapes and heroic figures and women swooning in the embraces of beasts or on velvet settees. I drank tea and nibbled on pastries in the orangery. I stood outside the door of the library and listened to the quiet conversations of the women who'd survived, whose crying I heard sometimes from my open window, who stopped to stare at me and then ducked their heads and skirted away.
I learned Grace House one room at a time, from the kitchens to the attics, spying and snooping, never prevented from opening a door.
And then one day, after Lillian had left, with an offer to wander the grounds the next day—Marius included—I heard his voice.
The minotaur.
"He's on the continent, hiding somewhere, reinforcing his houses there. Digging his claws out of England has just allowed him to tighten his grip elsewhere."
Birsha.
"I don't particularly care where he is or what he's doing, provided it isn't here," a tart, clipped voice answered—the blonde woman. "There are more women to find, Asterion."
"Conall and Byron are searching now," Asterion answered calmly.
I'd been inside this room before, the minotaur's office. What I'd found had been reassuring—letters discussing Birsha's whereabouts, efforts to create a network of allies opposing him, simple bills and business correspondence mixed in. Lillian was right—Iwasbeing protected here.
"Byron is meant to be guarding us. You're meant to be searching," the woman answered. "Not reading poetry in the hall at all hours of the night."
"Isabel—"
"This house is forthem."
"This house is my property." There was a low chuckle in the words.
I pressed myself to the wall, peering into the cracked door, but only saw the shelves laden with curious objects, a collection of treasures from an endless lifetime.
"I do know that," the woman, Isabel, answered, taking a breath and tempering her tone. "But when you opened Grace House to these women, you did say they would not be disturbed by your kind."
A chair creaked with effort, and the minotaur sighed. "I did, you're right. But she requires a different kind of care to recover.She'sdifferent."
"So you said." Sour again.
"Don't take that tone. Not when it comes to her. She survived no less than any of the others," Asterion said, voice lowing to a rumble like thunder.
They were speaking of me.
"I'm not saying otherwise, and I don't…" There was a rustle of fabric, pacing footsteps. "I don't argue that she should receive that care, but does it have to behere, disrupting the peace of all the others?"
Asterion snorted roughly. "Is my reading so bad?"
"You are here, and they know it," Isabel snapped. "You are standing outside of their bedrooms, and they can hear you. Hear your footsteps. See your shadow. It's not what you promised them. Byron, at least—"
