Ferron’s tone turned sharp, righteous. “Because the world hates you! You are the daughter of sin! I spared you the shame your mother earned. I spared you the eyes of men who would defile you. I protected your soul!”
Rage boiled inside Claire’s chest, so fierce she nearly shook.
“You see corruption everywhere except within. You protected your sick self!” she spat. “You hid her away so no one would see what you’d done! So no one would see the monster you are.”
Ferron’s face contorted, his calmness breaking.
“You don’t understand,” he hissed. “Her mother was temptation. Mirela grew to look just like her! It was temptation made flesh. I needed to do something. I was kind enough to shield her from myself! Every day she tolls those bells, every day I hold on to my needs! What else could I do? I am only a man. She is the child of a wretched whore, born to seduce and destroy men’s souls.”
“She was a child!” Claire snarled.
His voice trembled with false piety. “Locking her away was mercy for her and for me. It was the only way to keep my faith pure.”
Mirela’s face was pale with horror. “You call that faith?” she cried. “You call keeping me here to keep your sick thoughts at bay merciful?”
Ferron turned back to her, eyes gleaming with feverish light. “You should be grateful. I could have left you to die, and yet I loved you despite your deformity, despite what you are. I gave you purpose. I gave you God.”
He turned then to Claire, and the look in his eyes made her blood run cold.
“But you,” he murmured, “you’re worse. You’ve undone everything. You’ve poisoned her mind, her soul. I should have gotten rid of her long ago then temptation wouldn’t have found its way back to my door.”
Claire’s heart pounded so hard she could barely hear her own voice. “Mirela doesn’t deserve this. She deserves to be loved and cared for.”
He sneered. “Loved?” His laugh was soft and hollow. “You think that I didn’t love her? I did and she was meant to loveme.That was her duty, her redemption. I waited, I prayed, I endured her wickedness out of faith and devotion. And this—“ he gestured between them ”—this is how she repays me.”
He turned to the sketches of Claire and grabbed, and a handful in his fist. “Obsessing over you!?” He facedMirela, his teeth bared like a raging animal. “I should’ve let you be consumed by the fire… I should’ve thrown you in a well.”
He straightened, his calm returning, every trace of the heat of rage gone from his face. “It’s over now. Both of you will remain here. Locked in the tower. No one will hear your screams. No one will come for you.”
Ferron moved, his hostile presence pushing both women away from the door, circling around them until he stood between them and the only way out to the freedom they desired.
Mirela could only step back, shaking her head, tears streaking her cheeks. Claire moved in front of her instinctively, heart hammering, fury pulsing beneath her skin. She had never seen evil before, but now she understood what it looked like.
And it was smiling at her
Chapter fourteen
Mirela
Thesoundofthedoor closing was small. That was what terrified her most.
It wasn’t a slam or a shout, just a dull final scrape of iron sliding into place. It was as if the tower itself had decided this was where they would remain. Mirela’s breath stuttered in her chest, her hands lifting instinctively, uselessly, as if she could undo it simply by wanting to.
Ferron still stood between them and the door. His form, somehow taller than Mirela remembered, hisgaze darker.
He moved calmly, his presence filling the room. The same way he moved when he was about to react to something Mirela had done or said.
It was suffocating.
He glanced around her chamber as if it belonged to him, as if every charcoal sketch and half-burnt candle were proof of some private indulgence he had long tolerated.
Claire shifted beside her.
Mirela felt the tension radiating from Claire’s body, the instinct to protect. And yet, she was unable to move, hoping to will everything away.
Claire stepped forward, placing herself closer to Ferron, and the sight of that action sent a spike of cold fear through Mirela’s veins. She wanted to reach out, to pull her back, to beg her not to stand so near him, but her body refused to move. Years of obedience held her frozen, her muscles locked in memory. If she didn’t talk, if she didn’t move, then his anger would dissipate faster.
“Let us pass,” Claire said, her voice firm despite the tremor Mirela could hear beneath it.
