“And yet… I swear to you, Penelope, I can feel it break. I can feel itshatter—this wretched, undead heart—when you look at me like I am a thing worthy of your shame. A creature. A blight.A monster. If that is how you love me… then no matter how fiercely I crave that cruel, impossible love, I do not deserve it.”
“Elias…”
But what could she say? What words could she string together from the canyon that existed between them in that moment?
What right did she have to his heart when she has done the exact thing as all humans did to him. To his people. To Eleanor and Osiris.
Elias watched her.
Then, stiff in the shoulders and trembling at the mouth, he slipped a hand into the breast of his coat. From within, he drew a small stack of weathered envelopes, bound together with fraying twine.
“The letters. I no longer wish to continue this arrangement. She wrote to you every day. They are yours now.”
Placing the letters in her hands, just as quickly as his touch ruined her with the realization of just how much she craved it, he was gone.
And as she stood there in the streets, accompanied only by her own shallow, broken breaths. Her tears silently fell onto the parchment, dampening it with traces of what she had done.
Her father’s hands were iron as he dragged her back inside, slamming the door behind them with a finality that stole her breath. The lock clicked.
“One day,” he said, his voice tight with conviction, throwing her into her bedroom as he held a single bronze skeleton key, “you will realize that I am doing this for you. You will forgive me eventually.”
Penelope’s heart pounded, equal parts fury and panic as he closed her door, locking her away. She rushed to the door and pressed her hands against it, fingers clawing at the wood.
No—no.No, no, no, no, no.
She was locked away again.
Trapped again.
Penelope clawed at her throat as her ragged breaths strangled her, falling to her knees as her sobs became trapped in her throat.
She was caught, confined, and helpless again.
“I’ll be good,” she whispered.
“I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I’ll be good!”
Penelope gasped for air as her heart seized in her chest. Her nails dug into neck sending grounding, sharp pricks through her.
“Father!” She screamed, “I’ll be good, please let me out!”
19
PENELOPE
Her father’s footsteps echoed in the hallway before the door creaked open. Panic, dread, and something heavier drove her to her knees the moment he entered. She pressed her palms to the floor, bowed her head and waited.
“What is his name?”
Penelope’s head shot up because no—that was not her father.
Henry stood before her, his musket strapped to his side as he stared down at her with complete reproach.
“Henry—”
“What is his name? Do not make me ask again. Do you even understand what you have done? You were to be wed to me,” Henry spat. “And yet… you have allowed yourself to be defiled by avampire. By that monster. I did not want to believe the rumors when I heard them—that some abomination had been slipping into your chambers. But I had to be certain before I took you as my wife. And I thank God I thought to give your father an amulet, else he might have lived blind to the truth of what his daughter was. The embarrassment she was reaping upon his name.”
Her knees sank deeper into the floorboards as her tears fell freely, leaving wet streaks between her hands.
