“Rational?” she choked out. “You just murdered a woman before me. You have three other wives you’ve kept hidden this entire time—thisis not rational. This is selfishness greater than I’ve ever seen.”
“And yet, your father bid you to me.” His face was calm, his voice smooth. But the words landed like a knife to her heart.
“My father didn’t know what you—”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” the Count cut in. “Your father didn’t care about you. Your father only cared about his nextdrop of liquor. His next good hand of poker.” He took a step toward her. “Even on his dying bed, he didn’t tell you the truth. Because he knew you weren’t capable of handling it. He knew you were weak. And here you are, proving him correct beyond the grave.”
She knew he was only trying to hurt her, but deep down, she couldn’t help but wonder if there was some truth to it. How long had she felt something was wrong? How long had she tried to ignore these feelings, not strong enough to face her reality? And now that she knew the truth, she couldn’t keep her tears from falling.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, sniffling. “Perhaps I am weak. But I have not lied to you, and that’s all you’ve done from the first moment I met you.” She stepped nearer to him, anger boiling in her chest. “You are a coward.”
She didn’t see his hand raise, only felt the sting of the slap against her cheek, then the feel of his fingers digging into her shoulders, bruising her skin as he pushed her toward the bed. Through the shadows, he loomed over her, looking like the monster she now knew him to be.
“You will remain in here until you’ve worked past your hysteria,” he said. With that, he walked through the door and slammed it shut. Mina heard the twist of a key turning in the lock.
She ran to the door, grasping the handle desperately, but it did not budge.
“You can’t lock me in here!” she called, pounding on the door.
Down the hallway, she heard him respond, “I already have.”
Mina swallowed the nausea climbing up her throat. What did he plan to do with her now that this pretense had crumbled? What had he wanted to begin with? Why had he brought her here? She took a deep breath, trying to ease her building panic at being trapped here now that she knew the truth of who the Count was. She thought back to the raider, to his offer to help her. Tears fell anew at the memory. She could have been free. She could have gone with him and none of this would have happened—and Sofia would still be alive.
Perhaps it was Mina’s fault that the Count had thought so little of her, that he had believed he’d left her with no choice but to be a prisoner, to accept all that she’d seen. But she’d spent far too long ignoring the unease within her. She needed to escape.
She looked around the room, desperate for another choice, another way.
Mina walked over to the nearby chest of drawers, looking for a hairpin. After finding one, she returned to the door, kneeling down and pushing it into the lock, just as she’d tried to do in the north wing. But after several minutes, she realized she would not be successful. She dropped the pin, frustration building in her throat. She wanted to scream. She wanted to tear apart this room, tear apart the image she’d allowed herself to believe for so long.
Mina stood, her eyes searching every surface, waiting for an idea to come to her, some alternate way to reach freedom. And then her gaze landed upon the windows overlooking the courtyard. She swallowed, walking up to the window and unlatching it. A gust of frigid air burst in, and as she leaned through the opening, she saw the long drop to the courtyard. Her room was on the third floor. If she could get down to the courtyard, she could find some way out of the castle. Either through the gate or . . . there had to be some other way—that raider had gotten in.
A wolf’s howl cut through the night, and a chill ran down her spine. She thought of the calèche that had been used to take her and Jonathan here—if she could just get to that, then she would be safe, moving too quickly for the wolves to attack. Or so she hoped.
She turned to the bed, pulling the sheets free and twisting them into a rope, then tied one end to the bedpost. She wrapped it many times, tying again and again, then looped sporadic knots down the fabric, praying this would be enough traction to keep her from dropping to the ground below. Then she walked to the window and climbed onto the narrow ledge.
She turned, her upper body still on the window, her heart racing as she felt the cold of the wind against her skirts.
“God help me,” she whispered. Then she grasped onto the sheet, holding on desperately, and let go of the window ledge.
There was a loud groan from inside the room, and she dropped several feet, her scream cutting through the night before a heavythudsounded from the window above. She swung in the breeze, her eyes shut and her hands gripping onto the sheets with all her might while her feet dug into the fabric below.
It took a moment before she realized that the sound had been the bed dragging across the floor, stopping only when it hit the wall. She tried to force air into her lungs as fear tightened her chest.
Beyond the castle walls, the wolves began to howl once again, a reminder of what awaited her outside that front gate.
For a moment, Mina couldn’t get herself to move any farther. And then, she thought of the Count, of the life that awaited her here.
With shaking hands, she forced herself to let one go and reach farther down the sheet, looking for another knot. She found it and grasped on, frozen between the two, one arm high above and one arm below, terrified to release the one above. She swallowed down her nausea and eased her grip on the knot.
The sheet slid through her hand, burning her skin until she hit the knot below. She waited there for a moment, the ice-cold wind pushing her hair into her face. And for a moment, she considered what might happen if she just let go.
Maybe it was time to stop fighting. Then the pain would go away. The fear would cease to be.
But then she thought of Lucy. The sister of her heart. She imagined Lucy’s face as she received the telegram detailing Mina’s death, the way it would shatter her, upending her life. Mina knew that Aunt Emily cared for her, as did Jonathan, but Lucy loved her like a sister. And she couldn’t leave Lucy behind.
Tears spilled down her face as she carried on down the rope, inch by inch. Every muscle in her body ached with tension, until finally she looked down. She had no way of knowing how far the drop was, but the shadows below sent a pang of fear through her.
Then came an odd sound from up above.
