I want to yell, “Never,” but one look at Tish’s half-burned body and the words die in my throat.
“Yes, that’s exactly what she’s going to do,” my father replies for me.
“Jacques Tellier. It’s been a while. Are you still playing the devoted lapdog to my sister’s whims?”
“I do not answer to Tatiana.”
“Oh, it seems someone has finally found their cojones.” Madeleine cackles, and her specter friends join her.
“You mock me when I’m here to free you?”
“Oh, is that so? Are you offering your daughter as a blood sacrifice, then?”
“Sophie will undo the spell she cast with the High Witch.”
“That alone will not be enough,” Madeleine snaps, coming closer to the gate to display her grotesque appearance. “Only a blood sacrifice will do.”
“My blood alone wouldn’t free you. If it were that simple, he would have done it already,” I say.
“There’s only one blood that can set me free.”
Nightingale blood.
My father grabs me by the hair again, pulling hard. “What is she talking about?”
“I have no idea,” I grit out.
“She lies. She knows the blood I need, the blood I crave. I’ve tasted it before. Nightingale blood.”
He releases my hair, shoving me forward so hard that I fall face-first on the ground since my hands are still bound behind my back. I manage to turn my head so my cheek takes the brunt of the fall, but it’s just as jarring and painful.
“That’s impossible. The Nightingales left our world centuries ago, before you were trapped here.”
I get onto my knees in time to see Madeleine shake her head. “You’re still the same pitiful and dense male you were before. No wonder my sister only had one use for you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Lucca’s girlfriend, the one Boone was obsessed with, is a Nightingale princess, the heir of Queen Maewe.”
Shit. How does she know that?
“You mean to tell me the key to your prison was just mere feet from your cell?” My father’s voice rises in pitch.
“Yes, isn’t life ironic?”
Father turns to me. “Where is she now?”
“I don’t know.”
He slaps my face so hard it makes my ears ring. “Don’t lie to me!”
“You touch her again, and I’ll make sure your hands are the first things I cut off,” Vaughn announces, making my heart soar.
He came for me.
“Oh good. Your boyfriend is here. One more of your loved ones to torture,” my father sneers, then turns to his mercenaries. “Get him.”
Madeleine reaches her hand through the bars. “Yes, bring him to me. I want to drink him dry.”
