“I don’t like when you call it that.”
“Okay, your magic?”
She cringes. “Sure, magic. I can only go where Father writes for me to go, but I candowhatever I want. Unless he commands me to do something specific.”
“So ... you wouldn’t be able to jump out of your window right now, even if you wanted to?”
Nelle stands and tries to push herself through the window, into the inviting summer night, but she physically can’t. Her bones clench, herhands freeze on the windowsill. Her legs immobilize. Even her lungs contract. It’s embarrassing, she realizes now that she is doing it in front of someone else, to strain like this without moving a muscle.
She withdraws back to her stool. “I can only go where he lets me go.”
“And he writes for you every day?”
“With my blood,” she says. “It really is ink. I have to fill up vials so he can write my daily commands. Even things like going to the kitchen and the toilet.”
“Surely he can at least give you access to the whole house?”
“If he can, he never has.”
James pauses. “So Quillisyour real father? Are you safe here?”
Nelle’s mental walls snap up, reliving every bruise and burn Father has left on her. The pinprick scar from the stove has nearly faded, but she can still feel the ghost of its burn, the smell of sizzling flesh stuck in her nose.
This is what you want,she reminds herself. Someone’s outstretched hand.
“He’s not my father.” Her words are dipped in hatred.
Even the crickets seem to halt their chirping.
“Then . . . who is he?”
A tremor escapes her lips. He is only a few walls away. If he hears her, if he finds James, if he—
Another cooling breath in and out. The heat recedes from her face.
“My captor,” she answers as a drawer closes from the other side of the house. She steadies herself against the window. “You should go, it’s getting late.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Nelle nods, still focused on that noise. “Tomorrow.”
She starts to shut the window when she remembers her gift for James. The key to her plan.
“Wait!” she hisses. He stops, and his hopeful blue eyes melt her insides. The curtains rustle as she sweeps away from the window, shuffling papers in her vanity. She returns with the necklace andunravels the silver chain into James’s palm. After all she unloaded onto him, it is only fair that he gets to carry around the darkest part of her.
The chain spools around its vial, the size of a fingernail. Filled with black ink.Herink.
When enough time has passed, when he really trusts her, then she will tell him what the ink is for. Then she will ask him to help her escape. She hates to hand him the reins of her life, but what other choice does she have?
“What’s this?” he asks, holding it up to the bedroom light.
“For you to wear.” She wonders how warm it is inside his tight grip. “So you can carry around a piece of me.”
And so that maybe, one day, I can get out of here.
James switches off his bedside lamp, Nelle’s necklace resting heavy over his heart. He holds the pendant until the glass warms.
Buzz.His phone lights up. He hopes, for a second, that it is a message from Nelle. But she doesn’t have a phone. Or, at least, she said she doesn’t. Curiosity wins and he flips it over to check the notification.
