But that meant chewing through the bedsheets and the mattress beneath. It was going to take time, and it wouldn’t be fun. I wavered, glancing around the room again, as if another solution would jump out at me. Everything was still. Not even a single sound from whatever was beyond that door. Swallowing a sigh, I hurried to finish the swiftly-cooling food. A few minutes later, I set the plate aside, slid down, and got to work.
It was easier to do in theory. The sheets were more high quality than I’d anticipated, and just a few minutes into my task, the skin around my mouth felt raw. Every time I faltered, I pictured Fende coming toward me again, that bright branding iron in his enormous fist.
I had no way of keeping track of time, but it couldn’t have been more than a half hour later when the room went fuzzy around the edges. I knew in an instant this was more than exhaustion or hunger.
The food, I thought distantly. There had been something in the food. I flopped onto my back, the chains rattling, and barely noticed the twinge of pain. You’re a fool, Fortuna Sworn.
I told myself to fight through it, keep going, but there was no fighting whatever surged through my veins. I watched the ceiling break into fragments, no, crystals, and for a few seconds, or hours, the entire room glittered. As the brilliance faded, my gaze fell onto that wallpaper again. It looks so strange, I thought, extending a finger toward that spindly design as if I could touch it.
I finally realized that I was looking at spiders. It was the shadows that made it obvious, the way the moonlight slanted over the beady eyes and tangling legs, highlighting the truth of the images.
A sound came from far away, and the instant my mind registered what I’d heard, it felt like someone had tossed a rope just as I was being swept out to sea—that had been Laurie’s voice. He was calling to me, pulling me back. Somehow, he’d figured out where I was. From the beginning, it had been Laurie who came through when I needed someone most.
Hope was a drug all its own. Feeling more clear-headed, I turned my head on the pillow. When I saw who really sat in the chair beside me, though, all of that iridescence faded to nothing, a star winking out in the sky.
It was Belanor I’d heard, not Laurie. He sat in his usual pose, with his legs crossed and one wrist draped over the armrest. For once, the prince wasn’t drinking tea. Instead, he turned a wine glass by its stem, the thin piece of glass held between his tapered fingers. Someone had brought in a lamp, and it glowed beside him. Save for the moonbeams coming through the windows, it was the only other light in the room.
“I have a theory, Miss Sworn. Would you care to hear it?” Belanor asked by way of greeting.
My first instinct was to snarl the vilest insult I could think of… but I wanted answers more. I knew that, despite the way I kept losing focus and the walls quivered like I was underwater. Had I consumed a sedative of some kind? No, I would’ve succumbed to it already. But it was definitely a mind-altering drug. Edges were blurred and every sound too loud. The air going in and out of my lungs, the chains, the soft huffs of the dog in the corner.
Suddenly I remembered that Belanor had asked me a question. It took me another moment to remember what it was. I have a theory, Miss Sworn. Would you care to hear it?
“Love to,” I slurred.
Pausing dramatically, Belanor took a delicate sip from his wine glass. “I don’t believe your abilities are truly gone.”
He waited for my reaction. I stared at him, struggling to keep hold of what he’d said. The words slithered in and out of my mind. I was distracted by the burnt side of Belanor’s face and how it shone in the lamplight. His bright hair was slicked back again, though the gel was losing its hold and those slight waves were more pronounced. When I managed to tear my eyes away and meet the faerie’s gaze, I saw that he was smiling.
“What did you…” I faltered as my gums started to tingle. “What did you do to me?”
“Once again, you’re asking the wrong questions, Fortuna Sworn. It’s not a matter of what I did to you, but rather what I gave you.”
My body felt strange, like I was going to be sick while I was high. My hands were heavy, too. Why were my hands so heavy? I buried them into the bedclothes and clutched the silken material in a white-knuckled grip, hoping that would anchor me. “Fine, what did you give me?” I snapped.
He raised his glass in a salute. “Liberation, Lady Sworn. I gave you liberation.”
“Why… why are you doing this?”
Belanor swallowed the sip he’d taken. Impatience flashed in his eyes. “I already told you. I’m going to fix you, by whatever means necessary. If that means breaking your mind a little, so be it.”
This last part reminded me of Iris’s parting comment. I look forward to watching you break.
A face loomed in my memory. Daratrine, a faerie at the Unseelie Court. You’re only a victim if you let them break you, I had told her.
Talk. That’s all it was. During my time with Belanor, I’d already been branded and drugged. I was also infinitely more fragile than I used to be, both mentally and physically. As much as I loathed her, Iris was right—I wasn’t the queen she’d heard about. Not even close.
Belanor wasn’t saying anything, but suddenly it felt like if I didn’t get off this bed, find a way out of these chains, I would explode. Literally explode, my blood and skin splattering the walls and ceiling. I started yanking at them with all the strength left in me, not even flinching when pain shot through my wrists. I kicked my legs, too, making sounds that were more animal than human. With every movement, the brand cried out with me.
Leaning over me with preternatural speed, Belanor shoved a key into one of the steel cuffs around my wrists. Once that one popped open, he did the same to the other. I wasted no time dragging myself to the floor and away from him, but more questions burned in my drug-addled brain. What was he doing? Why was he freeing me?
When Belanor resettled in his chair, realization tasted like ash in my mouth. I was such a minuscule threat that he wasn’t even worried that I would hurt him.
I tried to melt into the wall, cringing when my gaze fell on those spiders. My thumb brushed one of the eyes, and I imagined the paper creature’s leg twitching. I jerked my hand away. “What do you see?” Belanor asked. His tone was mildly curious.
Sounds drifted from beyond the door. I moaned, giving my nausea a voice, but Belanor misinterpreted it as a question.
“They’re making preparations for my coronation. It will be held in a weeks’ time, and every faerie of the Seelie Court will be in attendance. I want it to be the biggest event of the decade. Would you like to know what my first act as king will be?” Belanor gave me another smile, this one smaller but more vicious, somehow. His face had taken on that sharper, nonhuman look again. “Extermination. I will lead my warriors down into that hovel the Unseelie scum are so proud of, and I will leave it as a pile of ash.”
Coronation? I felt my eyebrows knit together. Belanor was going to be the next Seelie King?
Then that final word sunk in. Extermination. His meaning was all-too clear, even with my mind as slow as it was. Against my will, I pictured them dead—the faeries at the Unseelie Court who had managed to change how I felt about their kind. Lyari. Nym. Omar. Paynore. Even Viessa, who terrified me, but I secretly admired all the same. The image of their bloodless, unmoving faces only made the nausea worse.