I wanted to tell her I couldn’t take any more, but I had no command over my mouth or my grinding teeth. It was this shaking tension or a terrible scream. There was nothing else.
Over soon. Over soon.
Sentences withered in my mind. There were only those two words.
Over soon. Over soon.
“I wonder…”
Something lanced up my arm, searing and bright, making everything else dim in comparison.
Just breathe. Keep breathing.
Endure.
18
Kat
“There,” she said at last.
I blinked in that bright and terrible light and promptly threw s up. Bile and blood coated my tongue where I’d bitten my lip.
Somehow, I got it all in the bucket, and as breaths heaved through me, I realised my arm was free of the straps. Not a mark on my fingers, save for the purple stain.
But I could still see my skin pulled back, nerves and veins exposed. With a gasp, I flinched from the cruel trick my mind played on me. Some things were best forgotten.
Calm as ever, mask gone, Elthea handed me a glass of water. She cocked her head as I gulped it down and washed away the mingled bitter and coppery flavours. “Did that hurt?”
“Of course it bloody hurt.” I clenched and unclenched my trembling fist. No pain. Truly, no sign of what she’d done. If not for her question, it was like I’d imagined the whole thing.
She scribbled in her notebook. “Then why didn’t you cry out?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it when I found my spinning mind had no answer. “Because… Because…”
Obedient. Dutiful. Silent.
“You just pulled a face.” Her pen hovered over the page. “What are you thinking?”
“I was taught to keep quiet.”
“Hmm. By who?”
“My father.” I cradled the glass against my chest and shut my eyes against the room’s aching brightness. He’d told me to be quiet. And my mother had modelled it perfectly—the silent ghost in her own house.
“Why? Were you a noisy child?”
“No. Not at all.” Even in the time before Avice had come along, I hadn’t been a noisy child. I’d… behaved.
“So… why?”
Sipping my water delayed having to answer, but still didn’t give me one. “I don’t know. So I wouldn’t disturb others?”
“Do you have things to say that are disturbing?”
“Probably.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, head tilting again. “So you held in the sound of your pain for… my sake? And for the people in the halls outside?”
I shifted, not liking how her questions made me feel foolish or how raw my nerves were in the wake of her test. “I… I suppose so.”
Bastian’s warnings swam into my consciousness, but too late. I’d already given away so much.
“Hmm. Did it serve you to keep quiet?”
I had no answer.
“Or did your silence just serve others and their comfort?”
I gulped the rest of the water, trying to ignore the way her words crept over my skin like a horrible realisation. The bright lights stung my eyes and kept my stomach tight, like my body expected her to strap me down for more. “Are we finished here?”
“Ah, yes.” She sat back, tucking her notebook in her pocket. “I have the data I required. Unfortunately, it means my theory was incorrect. However, there will be more theories…” She patted the pocket. “Especially with what I was able to observe. Fascinating. I’ve never seen a case like yours.” She smiled, and this time it did reach her eyes.
That only made it worse.
My head spun as I rose from the bed and grabbed my coat, but I refused to let that slow me down. I needed to get out of here. Away from the bed, the bright lights, the tray full of bloody instruments, and, most of all, away from Elthea.
I caught sight of myself in the door’s mirrored glass. Pale and ashen—I looked like death. And when I put out my hand to open the door, I flinched at the sight of my fingers, seeing the nerves and bare bone overlaid on the purple skin.
It’s not real. They aren’t like that. She healed me.
Steadying myself on the wall, I nudged the door open with my elbow instead, but her parting words followed me: “I’ll send for you when I have a new test.”
What was she going to do next? Did she understand I wasn’t fae? What might be normal for them could kill me.
More bile licked my throat as I hurried across the pillared entrance hall. Head down, I tugged on my coat and gloves.
Outside, the overcast day didn’t pierce my eyes like the cold light of Elthea’s treatment room. Like every other part of me, my breaths shook, steaming. It had grown suddenly chilly, as though autumn had arrived overnight.
I needed to get back to Rose and tell her what Elthea had done. It couldn’t be normal—couldn’t be all right.
Except then she would tell Bastian, and Bastian… Well, he’d broken a man’s nose because he’d questioned me eating cake. He might kill Elthea. I couldn’t risk it. Not when she was my only hope of a cure.
I had to keep this a secret. And that meant I couldn’t return to Rose trembling and pale, this close to hyperventilating.
But my heart was still pounding and I couldn’t control my heaving chest, not as so many people watched me charge by.
I needed to get away. I needed somewhere safe.
Help, my mind cried. Help.
I held onto my breath and that let me hold on to a semblance of control, but both were only temporary.
Both would have to burst soon.
I aimed for a park, but as my eyes burned, I realised it was too far—I wouldn’t make it that long.
A quiet side street opened up. Its houses had basement floors with staircases leading down.
Quiet, dark, small, they beckoned me.
I stumbled down the nearest one and found a spot between the stone steps and the house, invisible from the road.
Wedging myself in, curled tight and small, it felt like the stone embraced me. I crossed my arms over my knees and sobbed in silence.
Only the gods knew how long I stayed there, but it was enough time to grow chilled and for tears to soak my coat sleeves. I still couldn’t look at my hands without being reminded of everything Elthea had done, but I could stand and dry my cheeks, and that was enough.
I kept my head bowed as I took a circuitous route to meet Rose, keeping my bearings using the tower with the bowyer’s shop in it.
I managed a smile when I walked into Ariadne’s atelier, though I thought it might break me.
Even worse, Rose was already on her feet. “I was just about to come looking for you. I was worried—you’ve been ages.”
“Oh, it just took longer than expected.” I waved her off, clinging to my fake smile. “Elthea has some treatments to try now, so we’re making progress, but it means my appointments might take longer.”
“Treatments?” A wide smile, not even remotely fake, spread over her face. “That’s great!”
“Isn’t it?”
And it was great. I could almost convince myself.
All part of my plan.
Find out who was behind unCavendish, get rid of the poison and my need for Bastian, then go home.
This was just another thing I had to endure in the meantime.