Strangely cold and aching, as if I have been hit with a fist wrapped in ice more times than I could bear to count.
Stein didn’t sink the blade all the way in; I only know because a man in a plague mask—I refuse to think his name—treated the wound while I was fully awake, lying on my back in the dungeon I have just stepped out of.
Glue, antiseptic. “You need antibiotics, a full course, and stitches, too, but…” The black beak lifted in the air, visible fromthe candles he lit to poorly stuff me back together, his gloved fingers along my wound as blood curved around my ribs, dripping to the floor. “You will soon be dead as is. What is the point?”
My father laughed from the corner as he examined the splotch of crimson on his shoulder, where he touched the blade to his shirt, as if to remember his son in a stain.
The glue is not enough. The doctor knew. I can feel it, too.
It is as if my internal organs are pressing against my frozen skin, and now, as I try to murder my nightmare, my teeth clench together and an awful, terrifying dizziness seeps through my brain.
My eyes flutter closed.
No.
Do not become weak now.
I inhale through my nose as Stein twitches in my grasp, his body pressed to mine, his spine against my wound. My hoodie is discarded somewhere behind me, my shirt, too, from the doctor’s added humiliation of keeping them just out of reach. I could have found them after he left—he had to unshackle me, tocarefor me, after all—but it did not seem worth the effort in the darkness.
I am in pants, socks, my damp, high-top sneakers, nothing else, and in a sickening way, I amgratefulfor Stein’s useless corpus form shielding me fromher.
I don’t know if she found the switch along the far wall to open my cell door, or if Stein wanted this confrontation to play out in front of his puppets, but she cannot see me like this, no matter the cost.
“If you do not move, I will pull this trigger.” Constance’s calm voice forces my gaze open.
Karia is standing with her back to the entranceway of the sitting room. The fire is out, but the pale yellow glow flooding the dungeon has its source there.
She is still inmyshirt, the collar up to her jaw, the fabric loose and hanging on her frame.
Her chin is lifted as she stares at me, a brow raised, but just like with the guard from our first escape at the other version of this place, she doesn’t stop me, and she doesn’t speak.
Beyond her, Von and Isadora both form a human wall, preventing Constance—with his gun aimed at Von’s temple, only a few feet between them—and Arthur, at Constance’s back, from entering the cement and dark-walled rooms of terror. I assume Rex is on guard elsewhere, maybe even sent to murder Karia himself.
I grit my teeth and force myself tofocus.
I note Von has a gun by his side.
He tilts his head, the red of his hair bright from the light flooding before him. “You do that,” he says quietly to Constance, amusement in his words.
Isadora glances over her shoulder, her dark eyes shifting from Karia, to me.
We hold one another’s gazes for a moment.
I think of all the times I saw her with Karia, growing up.
She was never outright cruel to me—neither was Von—but unlike Karia, they didn’t try to bridge the divide. I cannot blame them; I am forever ostracized. But seeing her now, standing beside Von, preventing two of my tormentors from stepping closer for reasons I assume all fall back to Karia Waveria Ven, it fills me with a strange feeling.
Warm, heady,heavy.
Or perhaps that’s simply my previous blood loss and current predicament.
Because a moment later I hear Karia say my name and take a step forward, at the same time something seems to give way in the chain I am using to choke Stein. His body shifts, I watch his arm arc back as Karia crosses the space between us, then something comes too close to my face and a sharpness drags along my cheekbone.
I startle but I don’t release the chain. Still, my grip must become slack. Stein twists from my hold, turning to face me, then ducking under the necklace, his blue gaze holding a world of hell inside, brows pulled together, his complexion tinged with cyan, a red line around his throat, but he is still steady on his feet.
I am left holding the necklace in my bare fingers, the release of the metal stinging along my skin, as tightly and as earnestly as I tried to murder him. The pain across my cheek no longer registers.
What does is Karia.
