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“I need you to understand,” says the queen, “how I would have felt if my guards hadn’t made it to you in time.”
I can barely hear her, because now I’m weeping, chanting the same phrase over and over as if it’s an incantation. “Zora, please wake up. Please wake up.”
She doesn’t.
CHAPTER22
NOX
When the queen’s guards finally come for me, I’ve hardly the sense to pull my robes on.
I can’t remember when they came off. Sometime during my hallucinations, I suppose.
An impatient knock on my door pulls me out of a fitful slumber I don’t remember consenting to. I don’t even remember crawling back to my rooms.
My muscles are knotted from how I’ve slept lopsided on the stone floor, my neck craned as I rested my head against the talon-shaped foot of my bed.
A guard barks an admonition to hurry just as I open the door. He startles when he sees me.
They always do.
I remember a time when I used to fear them.
Now it’s they who fear me.
I look like death on a good day; I can’t imagine what I look like now, though I catch glimpses of my gaunt appearance in the guard’s face.
“Is she stable?” I ask, not bothering with the ruse that the guards know nothing of my and Gunter’s experiments. The guards rarely come for me, and the clock resting against my wall claims dinner isn’t for another hour. It’s no coincidence.
The guards blink and exchange a wary glance. “We’re not at liberty to discuss the state of the girl.”
“Tell you what,” I say, resting my palm against the doorpost. I do it to steady myself, because I feel I might sway with nausea any moment now, but the guards retreat a hair, so I suppose it comes across as intimidating. I’ll have to keep that in mind. “You tell me what you know, and I’ll refrain from venturing into town after dark and stumbling across your wives by happenstance.”
The threat is flat as it leaves my tongue, but the words are sharp enough to make up for my unconvincing delivery. The guards shudder and the one on the left murmurs, “The physician reported to the queen an hour ago and claimed the girl is sleeping, but stable.”
The relief that floods my bones isn’t complete. It doesn’t wash me of my regret or give me any right to set foot in Blaise’s presence again. But she’s alive, and that’s enough for me at the moment.
I pat the guard to the left on the shoulder and allow them to lead me to the queen.
“I’m disappointed in you, Farin.”
The words are meant to wound, and for the first time in years, the queen’s efforts are successful.
It’s not that I care what the queen thinks of me, but I’m disappointed in myself, and to hear my self-loathing echoed by another has me gripping my chalice until my fingertips threaten to bleed.
I say nothing, nor do I spare a glance at the queen.
That’s probably a mistake, but I can’t look at her right now.
Not when all I can think about is Blaise, froth bubbling from her mouth as her eyes shoot back in her head.
I think I might be ill.
The nausea isn’t improved when a servant sets a plate of frog eyes in front of me.
“I cannot begin to count the infractions you committed today, Farin.”
Blaise’s body crumpling, sweat soaking her forehead, and white, white, white…
