“Yes. Ah. Ah, follow me. Come, come.” She pulled her shawl tight and hurried through a gap, headed toward the amphitheater, then ducked behind it. Along the back side were three doors side by side. She hesitated, then picked the middle one, flinging it open. “It’s a... a dressing room for the performers. I don’t know what’s in there. I don’t... I don’t know what you need...”
Jesstin kicked the door shut behind him. Elloven’s head lolled against his chest. She was pure dead weight, arms and feet dangling, her body sliding. “Elloven, please. Open your eyes,” he whispered as he laid her on a cushioned settee covered in discarded attire. She finally stirred, slithering on the fabric. Her flashy, tight gold uniform, which had covered her arms and legs when she’d started, had seemingly... burst somehow, split up both sides like someone had taken shears to it. It clung together by only the thinnest remnants of fabric.
He conducted a frenzied search of the dressing room for something he could put over her. The racks were just costume after costume, but on a bench, he found a thick, formless dress, the kind Rhiain wore under her formal gowns. He held it up in bewilderment, unsure if it would fit or how to even determine such a thing.
“Aren’t you going to check her for injuries first?” It sounded like Gennady, but he wasn’t there.
That was the first thing he should have done. It was why he’d brought her, alone, to the room to begin with, so there’d be space to breathe and think and assess and?—
Voices gathered outside the door. He heard the woman who’d helped him say, “He took her there, asked for a room. I don’t know...”
Jesstin raced to the door and threw the bolt right as Taven pushed a scream through his teeth on the other side.
“Open the bloody door, Skylark! I know you have her in there!”
Jesstin punched the wood once in warning. Elloven’s eyes fluttered with her slow return to consciousness, shivers tearing through her.
“I can help her, you stupid boy!”
“Like everyone else out there is helping her?” Jesstin found a pitcher of water on a nearby vanity and brought it back to Elloven. He propped her up and used the blanket on the back of the bench to keep her warm until she could dress herself. But as he did, he caught something he wished he hadn’t. A mark on the outside of her thigh, the sign of Curia Duskmaw as it had been described over supper. It looked almost like a star, bursting with an array of colors, but there was a dark blot burned over it. A brand.
The letter Q. Quinlanden.
Searing hot rage took hold.
“You’re reacting an awful lot like a lover would.”
That time it was Gennady. “Did you know about this?”
“You don’t think I wanted him dead?”
“I just want to get her out of here and be done with it all.” Jesstin covered her angry scar with the blanket. “With both of you.”
Gennady disappeared.
“I can help her, Skylark! Like I helped you in that carriage, if you let me in!”
Taven’s toothless demands continued. Jesstin wasn’t listening. He was too distracted by the brand of ownership the Quinlanden whelp had stamped upon Elloven’s thigh to erase her identity.
His only use for Taven had expired when he’d gotten to her first.
Her flesh was rosy and splotchy in places, and he could see bruises already forming, but there were no visible open wounds. He turned her head, which appeared free of trauma. Her pulse and breathing were both erratic but strong.
Divine intervention was the only explanation he could muster.
With a pointed glance away, he reached under the blanket for the remnants of the gold fabric and hurled the scraps across the room.
“Are you listening to me in there? I had nothing to do with this!”
Jesstin squeezed his eyes closed. “You brought her here, Considine.”
The door softly thundered when Taven shifted his weight against it. “I had no idea they were going to do that. I would never have allowed it.”
Jesstin had to sit for a moment. His ribs felt cracked in half. Fear had suppressed his pain until then, but it came on like a storm. “You comfort her with one hand...” He gripped his sides. “Pin her with the other.”
“What a foul thing to say about the person who loves her most in the world.”
“Her humiliation is a victory for you. Now you can comfort her, and later, you’ll remind her how badly things can go without your protection. Not quite a reprimand, just a clear-enough warning that she’ll suffer without your guidance.” Jesstin smoothed Elloven’s hair from her damp face. Guardians, he was still so mad at her, but all he wanted to do was fold her into his heart, where he could keep her safe. “I know what subjugation looks like, Considine. It’s in my blood. It’s in the man who sired me and the man who raised me, and I suspect it’s in me too, but I won’t stand by while others practice it. So, fuck off to your other conspirators. I’ll take care of Elloven.”
