Amaris assessed her hand wrapped in a thick bandage. Wiggling her fingers would probably be excruciating, but she gave it a try. She tensed her muscles to prepare for the pain, but they moved with only a small ache and minor stiffness. She balled her hand into a fist, then pressed against herknuckles, bending her wrist back and forth.
“Holy shit,” she muttered to herself.
“How are you faring?” Sephardi asked, leaning closer to examine Amaris’s hand as she turned it in circles.
Amaris unraveled the linen to reveal her disgusting-looking hand. All the swelling was gone, but scabs ran along her fingers and spread across her knuckles. She turned her hand over and clenched and extended her fingers again. Pressing into the cushions of the cot caused little pain as she swung her legs over the side. She hadn’t a clue where she was or even the time, judging by the dreary light coming from the single window.
“How long was I out?”
“Three days.”
That’s all it’s been?
Amaris took in the room. Several misshapen and differently sized candles scattered a cluttered worktable, and the walls were lined with shelves of dusty books and a ton of jars of who knew what.
She left the sweltering heat of the cot perched near a crackling fire, wiping a trail of sweat from her forehead. Stacks of books and pieces of paper scattered the worktable. They must have had miracle medicine to heal her hand in only three days. A small book was propped open. It contained various wonders of anatomy, herbal recipes, and some haunting material regarding the grinding of bones into fine powders.
“Are you here to…watch me?” She may have still been groggy from the three days of straight sleep, but one piece of her memory was clear. She was a prisoner.
“It’s only a precaution.”
She returned to the book and skimmed a formula labeledlizard’s breath. At least she didn’t have Theodoric or Alan breathing down her neck. She prodded at the inside of her cheek, taking in the rest of the room. It wasn’t much. The worktable took up most of the space, along with the single bed. One corner housed stacks of dusty trunks and crates, making the room feel even smaller.
“Where are we?”
“The mystique tower.”
Amaris headed for the single window, and sure enough, it was a tower, with an exceptional view of the bay. The ocean spread far into the horizon, spilling off the edge of the earth—or whatever this place was called.
“What now?” Amaris raised her arms and gestured to the room around them. “Am I going to be locked up here in this tower?”
How ironic.She’d never cared much for fairytales. Her mother had read her bedtime stories as a child, but it was an absurd idea to call down from a window, begging for a man to come and rescue you.
“There isn’t a lock on the door.”
Sephardi was right, only a spiral iron handle. That meant, every night, she’d be locked up in that bedroom, while each morning she’d be carted off like a prisoner to the tower.
“What if there aren’t any patients to help?”
“I hope you enjoy reading.” Sephardi grinned, grabbed a book from a pile on the floor, and waved it.
Amaris groaned, plopping back onto the cot. She would call it a bed, but with how thin the mattress was, it reminded her more of the cot in the back of her ambulance. Did her friends and coworkers miss her or even know she was gone? She hoped Derek had the entire police department out looking for her. She slammed her head back. The tower stretched into a single point at the top. She bet it would be drafty in the wintertime.
Wait, winter?Amaris needed to be home before then. Maybe her disappearance would frighten Derek enough that the fighting would finally come to an end. They’d have a peaceful night where he made her cinnamon rolls in the morning, not out of sorrow, but because he wanted to. Her stomach growled for the gooey drip of icing and the bite of the spice.
“Are you hungry?”
Amaris lifted her head. Sephardi was at the door. She followed her,not bothering to question any bit of her kindness. The spiral stairs were poorly illuminated with torches on each landing. She slid her hand along the wall.Had they ever heard of a railing?Amaris felt each step with her foot to keep from following the increase of her heart rate and speeding off the edge to tumble forward. Only a week ago, the greatest oddity in her life was how a zit had continued to pop up every other week. Now, she had to worry about watching her back to make sure Alan wasn’t there with his threats or Bennet with his knife across her throat.
Emerging into a grand library, her jaw fell open. Bookcases towered high above her head and spanned far beyond, looking miniature in the distance. Each shelf she passed, her fingers trailed against the soft and rigid bindings, the leather scent freshly wafting her nose. Her fingers stopped on a single book pulled from the perfect row. She stroked her hand over the cover. It flopped open, and she pinched the edges, fanning her face with the pages. She adored the musty smell accompanying old and withered leather-bound books.
Sephardi continued as she stopped and read a random page. Amaris blushed at the provocative scene and slammed it shut, placing the book back on the shelf. Viv loved romance novels, but Amaris could never seem to get through reading a sex scene without laughing or growing beet red in the face.
“Can I help you?”
Amaris jumped as the meek voice came from the silence. A woman stepped from the dark and into the sparkling light of the nearest candle. Her violet eyes drew Amaris’s attention, stars gazing through her skull. Platinum blonde hair fell in large waves and grazed her hips. Her skin was fair and partially hidden beneath a simple white dress and beige apron.
“No,” Amaris stammered, hoping the woman had no clue what she’d been reading. “I’m on my way to get some food.”
