"They're just clothes."
"Nothing is 'just' anything here." He was watching her again with that unsettling intensity. "Drop them."
She let the torn fabric fall, but her fingers caught on something tangled in the sleeve. It was a cheap bracelet of neon pony beads, pink and green and blue.
"That too," Eliam said.
Her hand stayed closed around the plastic beads. It wasn't worth anything. Wouldn't help her here. But it was the last piece of her life, of her family, of Allegra.
"Thaine."
The huntsman took a step towards her. Tears burned in the corners of her eyes but she opened her fingers, letting the bracelet fall with a soft clatter against the floor.
"Good girl," he murmured, and she hated how the praise made something in her chest flutter. "Sleep well, little thief. Tomorrow, you begin learning what it truly means to belong to the Forest King."
Then Thaine was leading her away, and she didn't look back. Couldn't. Because some treacherous part of her wanted to.
And that terrified her more than all his threats combined.
The corridors seemed to breathe around them. Thaine led her through passages where stone walls gave way to living wood and back again—ancient oaks growing through marble floors, their roots and branches woven into the architecture itself. Halls stretched longer than the castle's outer walls should contain, stairs of carved granite spiraled up but somehow led down. Stone archways opened onto corridors where tree trunks served as pillars, their bark seamlessly merging with worked stone.
"Enjoying the new clothes?" Thaine asked without looking back. "His lordship has particular tastes."
She didn't answer. Couldn't really, not with the way her throat felt tight and raw from unshed tears.
"Ah, the silent treatment. How original." He paused at a branching corridor, head tilted as if listening. "This way. Unless you'd prefer the scenic route through the bone garden?"
"The what?"
"Ah, she speaks." His grin was sharp in the shifting shadows. "The bone garden. Where root systems feed on those who disappointed him. Beautiful in spring when the calcium-white flowers bloom."
Her stomach turned. "You're lying."
"Am I?" He started walking again. "You'll learn, little rabbit. Everything here feeds on something else. The only question is whether you're predator or prey."
They passed doorways that opened onto impossible scenes: a ballroom filled with dancing shadows, a study where books flew between shelves, a pool of water that reflected stars from an alien sky. Each glimpse made her head spin with the wrongness of it all.
"Here." Thaine stopped at a door that looked identical to the others. Woven branches and flowering vines. She was afraid to see what lay on the other side. What sort of strange room would she find herself subjected to? "Your cage, pretty bird."
"I'm not a bird."
"No? Then why did he clip your wings?" He pushed the door open with theatrical flourish. "Sleep tight. Don't try to leave. The halls get hungry after midnight."
She stepped inside and the door swung shut, leaving her in sudden silence.
To her relief, the room was beautiful. She hated that it was beautiful.
The walls curved, smooth bark and carved stone interrupted by windows that showed the night forest beyond. A bed dominated one side of the large space, its massive frame was carved from dark wood and dressed in fabric that shifted between black and deep green. Flowers bloomed along the headboard, their faces closed in sleep.
Everything else followed that same organic aesthetic. A vanity grown from the wall itself, its mirror made of still water somehow captured in a frame of twisting roots. A massive wardrobe of the same dark wood stood against one wall, its doors carved with intricate forest scenes.
Near the windows, two wingback chairs flanked a small table beside an ornate hearth where a fire already crackled. A writing desk occupied another corner, its surface smooth and waiting. Through an adjoining door, she glimpsed what must be a bathing room, steam already rising from within.
She moved to the window, hoping for a view that might orient her. But the forest beyond was endless, ancient trees stretching into darkness. No stars visible through the canopy. No moon. Just the faint phosphorescence that emanated from the vegetation itself.
The mark pulsed, and she pressed her hand against it through the dress. It was spreading again, she could feel new thorns prickling beneath the skin, working their way up her forearm. By morning, it might reach her elbow. By week's end…
She shuddered, turning from the window.
