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The room went black.
Iwoke up bound toan iron throne, my wrists and ankles cuffed in manacles. The metal of the huge chair went all the way up, encompassing my head in its casing and holding it in place.
My neck was sore and aching. In my mouth, I could taste something bitter and acrid.
“Bloodwraith. It’s fatal to most people, you know.”
I looked across the room to see Fenyx standing at a table with his back to me.
There was a body on the table. It was my uncle’s.
I knew exactly what bloodwraith was. It had almost killed Draven once, and it explained why I currently felt like I was more dead than alive.
I moved my eyes around as much as I could manage, trying to make sense of where I was.
Some sort of dungeon. Windowless. Stone walls. Candelabras hung from the ceiling, but the candles had burned low, leaving the room mostly in shadow.
Huge, cylindrical, glass containers stood in rows along the edges of the room.
My skin crawled with horror as I took in their contents.
Within the macabre sarcophagi floated the lifeless forms of fae. Their once vibrant and ethereal beauty was now frozen and faded in death. The transparent containers held them in a ghastly limbo.
I tried to weigh whether this was worse than Rychel doing experiments on the monstrous fae children and decided it was. Fenyx was clearly keeping these bodies for some gruesome, self-centered purpose. He wasn't trying to restore fae children to life. I had no doubt he had murdered those fae himself.
Arthur’s Lord General turned away from the table, holding a vial of something dark and foul-looking. As he studied the contents, I snuck another look at the dark suit he wore. The breastplate bore rows of square gemstones, and as I stared at them, I knew they were no mere ornaments, but conduits of power.
Fenyx had somehow siphoned the very essence of the fae prisoners he had murdered in this vile laboratory. That was how he had been able to do what he had done to my uncle.
I looked at the Lord General’s face. I’d burned him on the right side. The flesh had melted. I had seen it with my own eyes.
But when I looked at his visage now, it had already begun to heal at a rapid rate. He seemed no more bothered by the burn than he would have a scratch on his arm.
“Does your brother know that your uncle was part fae?” Fenxyx asked conversationally, still examining the vial he held.
I looked past him at my uncle’s body on the table and said nothing.
Fenyx set down the vial carefully in a wooden holder, then turned back to look at me. “Bloodwraith has wonderful properties. While it’s immediately fatal to mortals, of course, it has quite different effects upon those with fae blood.”
“How fascinating,” I snarled. I rattled my chains. The throne in which I sat and the chains that bound me were of iron. But iron had never had this effect on me before—except when I had inadvertently ingested the pure shavings in my uncle’s potion.
Yet, with a sinking feeling, I realized something had changed.
I could not feel my magic. Could not sense my power.
Worse, I could not sense Draven. It was as if the bond between us had been severed completely.
He was not even a dark space in my mind. He was simply... not there at all.
I swallowed, trying not to let my panic show.
Fortunately for me, Fenyx enjoyed hearing the sound of his own voice. Mad men often did.
“Bloodwraith, it will not kill a fae. At least, not outright and not in small, measured doses,” Fenyx continued. “Instead, it has another effect. If administered at frequent intervals, it suppresses any unusual abilities the fae might possess, keeping them relatively subdued.”
He gestured. “Like so.”
There was a stinging sensation like a needle piercing through the flesh of my neck.
