At first, I was confused by Bram’s trust in me, but I’ve learned in the years since he has a sick kind of possessiveness over me. It’sgenuinely never occurred to him that I could love anyone more than I love him. He wasn’t on the lookout for any betrayal larger than a fight over a girl because he’s always thought I believed in him as a leader, asmyleader. I should be grateful for Bram’s ego; it’s the only reason I left that prison cell alive.
I blink back to Lydia’s room and glance at the shimmering fire in her grate.
“Why did you think Ivy was dead?” she asks me gently.
“Bram told me she was, the day he freed me from prison. He showed me a severed finger, but Ivy doesn’t seem to be missing any, so I suppose it must have been a glamour.”
“Oh,” she says sadly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, watching the flames dance against the charred wood. “I didn’t see any use in shattering your heart too. I was trying to protect you, I guess.”
She walks toward me and tips my chin up with the handle of her paintbrush. “You could have told me. I want you to tell me everything. That’s what best friends do, Em.”
I reach over and wrap my pinkie finger around hers. She said it was something she used to do with Ivy when they were children, but it’s somehow become our thing. “Best friends, Lyd.”
She looks placated.
I leave Lydia’s warm fire and climb the dark stairs up to the next floor where my and Ivy’s bedrooms are located. It still feels so unreal that she’s in the castle. I hate it. I’m terrified for her and I was barely functioning as it was. I’m a wreck over her; I always have been.
In an awful way, it was easier when I thought she was dead, because at least I knew nothing further could harm her.
The hallway is shadowy and silent; no one stays up here but me, usually. But in a castle like this, there is no real security to be had.
I walk halfway down the hall, strip out of my paint-smeared shirt, and ball it up to use as a pillow. Then I lie down in front of Ivy’s door and sleep.
Chapter Eleven
My sleep is uncomfortably dreamless, as if my brain was snuffed out like a candle and relit as the sun rose.
It takes me a moment to remember where I am. I kick my feet like a grasshopper under the silk blankets of this unfamiliar bed and blink against the morning light streaming in from the ceiling-high windows. The whole room smells of dew-covered roses, the kind that grew in our garden back home in Belgrave Square.
The same girl with the sunset hair from last night is in my room, building up a fire in the grate. When she hears me stirring, she turns around.
“Good morning, miss!” she says cheerfully, and adds another stick to the crackling fire. The smoke here smells different, sharper, almost medicinal.
“Morning,” I mutter, my throat too dry to say much of anything. I push myself up on my pillows and run a finger through my unruly hair, finding a braid I don’t remember doing.
Eloree pushes a cup of tea into my hand, and its warmth leaches through the porcelain into my cold fingers.
I’m wary of eating or drinking anything in the Otherworld. I’veread enough stories of young maidens eating a single cherry at a revel and getting stuck or sick for ages, but I’m going to have to eat eventually and my stomach is gnawing at itself with hunger. I take a tentative sip and find it close enough to English tea, if a little floral.
“Up, I must dress you,” she chirps.
“For what?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer; instead, she gestures for me to raise my arms. I do so reluctantly, and she slips off my nightdress and puts me in a clean chemise.
Over that, she laces an old-fashioned tab-waisted corset. The dress is snow-white, the square neck and bell sleeves adorned with golden cord. She leaves my hair loose around my shoulders, save for two small braids that pull away from my face.
She opens the door and waves me through. “Come, come.”
“Where?” I ask again, but again, I receive no answer.
“Where is Lydia?” I raise my voice as fear begins to prickle at my arms.
“Her Majesty, Queen Lydia, and His Highness, Prince Emmett, are waiting.”
It’s jarring to hear my sister referred to asHer Majesty, but I suppose she is the queen of the Otherworld as much as I am the queen of England.
