I ignored him and went to the kitchen, peckish and bored. Opening the cupboards, I stretched up on tiptoes, rummaging through the shelves to find a packet of sesame crackers sprinkled with salt to snack on. The crunch of crackers filled the quiet of the room. Penn went back to reading while I leaned a hip against the countertop, munching away, and Sage sat down beside me, pressing his large body against my leg, his wisps of misty fur cool against my skin.
Two crackers later, Penn closed her book and left it on her lap. Her gaze swept toward Graysen, who was shifting around in his sleep. He adjusted his position to his back and then rolled over to face us both. The area was darker on his side of the room, and shadows carved grim lines on his face.
Penn’s expression held a thoughtful note when she brought her gaze to mine. It seemed as if she wanted to say something but was weighing up how to express it.
My brows pinched together as I crunched down, and the taste of sesame burst over my tongue, the salt and desiccation of thecracker drying up the moisture in my mouth as I stared right back at her, wondering what she wished to speak to me about.
Penn glanced down at her thighs and smoothed a palm across the black material of her skirt. “I never knew Tabitha Crowther. I came here under…” Her brows rose, and she shook her head as if she were trying to understand it herself. “Well, under rather strange circumstances.”
I tensed.
Why the hells was she talking about Tabitha Crowther?
I didn’t want to hear about her.
She was the reason I was here.
But that wasn’t true. I was here because of my parents.
Penn’s gaze lifted. “She lives and breathes within the walls of this home and in the staff too. She’s loved by those who served her… Miss her still.”
“Staff?” I queried, raising a brow, but a small memory reminded me that Graysen had used the same term. “You mean servants?”
She unconsciously tapped the book with her fingertips, the sound whisper-soft in the room’s quietness. “Graysen’s mother is the one who made the changes in House Crowther, among them being the term. Staff sounds so much more inclusive, doesn’t it?” She cocked her head to the side, staring intently at me, I suppose wondering how much I knew about the Crowthers’ mother. “Did you know Tabitha was once a servant?”
No, I hadn’t known that. Very little of Tabitha Crowther had ever been discussed in my home. It all made sense now, far too late, as to why.
“Tabitha served your mother’s House, the Deniauds. That’s how they met and became friends. I’ve been told that Tabitha didn’t think much of the term servant.” Penn smoothed a hand down the arm of the other, her fingers fiddling with the button on the sleeve cuff. “It’s strange for someone like me to enter thisworld of yours, of Houses and Horned Gods, and live with the Crowthers and have someone absent be so prominent. Tabitha’s left behind a gaping wound, yet so much love as well. Her memory infuses everything in this home of theirs. I’ve never met her, but her spirit resonates everywhere.”
I stiffened. I didn’t want to hear about Tabitha Crowther.
How it was either her or me.
How only one of us could live.
The choice her son had to make.
And he’d chosen her.
I slammed the packet of crackers onto the stone countertop and stalked toward the other woman. “And you think that makes what they’re doing okay? Using me to gain an invitation to the Witches Ball? Where I’ll stand on an auction block, be bid on, and sold to a Horned God?” I lifted my arms and gestured about my body. “The Butcher hacking me into pieces and shoving every single body part into vials for their vile spells and curses?”
Penn’s eyes flared with shock, exactly as I intended as those words fell from my mouth.
My imagination took me to a place I’d never been. How it would feel to stand upon the auction block, high above those attending so that all of them could cast an assessing eye over my figure. I’d hear their bids, a cacophony of shouts, of how much, what they’d put up to outbid one another. And thenafterward…whoever had won me would hand me over to the Butcher. Would he kill me beforehand? Would he give me something to numb the pain? Or would he tie me down to stop me from struggling as he pulled out my qualities? Before hacking my chest open, cracking my ribs wide, and then gutting me. Would I be aware of every fumble of his hands digging inside as he harvested my organs, and the scalpel-sharp blade as he cut the remains of me into paper-thin slices? Would I be screaming in paralyzingagony as I watched my body slowly disassemble before my very eyes?
Terror rolled like a bank of thick fog through my entire being. My bottom lip trembled as tears pooled in my lashes.
And I spoke my truth. It came out wobbly and pathetic-sounding. “I don’t want to die.”
Penn bowed her head, the lamplight gilding strands of her dark brown hair. She bunched her fingers tight and curled them around the ends of her white sleeve cuffs.
Loosening a long, deep breath, she raised her head, eyes shining brightly. “I have faith in them.” Her gaze held something I couldn’t quite grasp. A secret she was willing to share but not yet ready to divulge. As if she were biding her time until I sifted through a mess of keys on a table and found the right one before she’d confirm what I’d already discovered on my own.
I surged forward, pleading. “Help me get free…please.”
A small smile played on Penn’s mouth, as if she was expecting me to ask and had been waiting patiently for me to do so. “Sorry. I can’t do that.”
Sighing, I wiped away the wetness dampening my lashes with the back of my wrist. I gestured to Graysen, hoping to appeal to her. “He’s locked me up here, and I can’t even leave.”
