“And you?”
My thoughts traveled back to the time I’d spent with Lady Penelope and the backhanded compliments she’d wielded like a sword.“Nobody makes my bedpan shine quite like you do, Serafina. It’s as though you were born for this.”
Rather than give him more information to taunt me with, I simply said, “My talents didn’t go unappreciated.”
After traveling through a series of narrow hallways unscathed, I guided Thorne into the servants’ quarters and to my room. At the entrance, I turned to him, blocking his path. “Waithere.” The last thing I wanted was for him to witness the squalor I lived in.
“And what if one of them is waiting?”
“Wendigos don’t close doors behind them, and this one remains sealed.” Before he could object, I cracked the door open and slipped inside. At the stale scent that wafted up my nostrils, I scrunched my nose. After days of disuse, the space smelled even mustier than usual. As I scanned the room, my breath caught. On my pillow was a folded scrap of parchment. Speck!
I grabbed the note and unfolded it.
Shouldyou survive and find this,
and I pray that you do,
I’ll meet you at Ironwood.
Rose.
I clutchedit to my chest. If Rose had managed to escape to Ironwood, maybe—just maybe—Speck was there too.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I carefully tucked the paper into my satchel and knelt beside my cot. From under the frame, I extracted a small wooden box. Inside was my personal collection of herbs, along with a few precious coins. Money I’d scraped together by selling tinctures, saving every coin for the day Speck and I would finally leave this wretched place. The moment I found him, that was exactly what we would do, dragon be damned.
I secured the entire box in my satchel, making sure it was safely nestled inside.
Raspy breathing hit my ears, and I froze, prepared to scream—until a weakmewrang out.
“Sebastian?” Once more, I lowered to my knees, peeringunder my bed. Tucked within the shadow near the wall was an ebony ball of fur.
My heart seized. “Sebastian!” I lay on my stomach, reaching beneath the frame to slide the motionless cat across the floor and into my arms.
“Oh, you poor thing.” I stroked his silky ears, his lanky body chilly against my fingers. “What happened?”
My favorite stray entered my life during a particularly difficult time. I’d just been abandoned by the only family I could remember, becoming an enslaved servant of Gravestone Manor. Alone and bereft, I’d sat on this same cot when Sebastian had sauntered in with a demandingmeow. The stubborn feline had paced a path between me and the door until I finally had the courage to follow. That was the day I’d met Yaga. Without Yaga’s guidance through my formative years, I don’t know how I would have survived.
And yet that same bright soul now lay gasping his last breath in my arms. Throughout my life, everyone and everything I dared to care about ended up leaving me in one manner or another.
Pain and frustration whirled like a vortex, twisting my insides. It sucked at the part of me that held my head up. Cracked the façade of bravery that kept me treading water.
It was all too much.
The wendigo’s attack. Mortis stabbing me. Becoming the dragon’s pet. Not knowing if the others were dead… Or worse.
Speck.
And now—Sebastian, dying in my lap.
My world was rubble, and the last thread I had left was slipping through my fingers.
I pressed my hands to his silky side, eyes burning as I whispered, “Don’t go, Sebastian. Not you too. Stay with me. Please…stay.” The chant barely held together, a broken plea spoken into his fur as my palms absorbed the chill of his body.
I sat there for untold minutes, stroking his coat. Warmth rose up from my center, a golden light appearing behind my eyelids. I paid no attention, lost in my moment of self-pity, until the ailing cat jerked against me. Against my leg, his twitching tail thumped, his rasping purr music in my ears.
“Sebastian?” I glanced down to find him peering up at me. Gracefully, he rose to his feet and arched his sleek back, stretching, then shoving his head beneath my hand.
“You’re okay?” He shoved harder in answer, and I belted out a laugh, my heart lurching from that inky darkness. “You’re okay!”
