Page 108 of Devoured

I conjure thoughts of broken platters and splattered gravy until she almost manages a grin. Then I say, “Are you new here? I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”

“Yes. I’m—” She ends the sentence abruptly, as if swallowing some vital piece of information. “Arielle,” she says quickly. “I am Arielle.”

“All right, Arielle.” My cheeks begin to hurt from all this fucking smiling. “I’m Evelyn.”

“I—I know.” I raise a brow at that, and she flushes pink. “I mean, I’ve heard people… talk about you.”

Bunnies. Spring meadows. Antionette lying on her back in the sun.

“I don’t have the greatest reputation.” I twitch my fingers under her nose. “But you can trust me to help you back on your feet.”

She stares at my palm for one breath. Two. Then she sighs and accepts the offer. Her hand presses warm against mine, sticky with bittersweet wine, and she groans when she stands. “They are going to kill me for this.”

“Oh?” I ask demurely. Please, stars above, let me sound demure.

“It’s not the first time I’ve been clumsy. But this… It’s a mess.” She glances at the massacre at her feet. Wine runs like blood over the tile, onto the edge of an obsidian rug. I stifle memories of the winter solstice. “We’re supposed to keep every cup filled tonight.” Her voice shudders, and the smell of salt-drenched fear wafts toward me. She wipes her hands quickly on her skirt. “The queen wants to entertain her ambassadors, and now I’ve gone and ruined it.” Her lips twist, but it isn’t quite a frown. It’s more as if she’s thinking, processing the best ways to clean the mess.

“I am,” she says easily. Her eyes widen then, and she chokes on her breath. “I mean—I’m… um… I’m going to grab some more wine, and then… I’ll clean all of this.”

Bunnies. Spring meadows. Antionette splaying open a book between us, reciting mortal poetry under a gentle sun as I play with her hair.

“Let me help,” I say. “Otherwise, we’ll all feel the Wolf Queen’s wrath.”

She shakes her head as if no one has ever offered to help her before. “Are you sure?”

“Of course.” I tuck a lock of hair behind my ear, tilting my head as I wait for her answer.

Bunnies. Spring meadows. Antionette laughing when I shut the book and lean in to kiss her—

“Okay,” Arielle rushes to say. “That… would be great. Thank you.”

“I can fetch more wine while you clean this up?”

“Yes. Yes.” Arielle reaches out, as if to hug me, but I slide back a step before she can try. She presses her hands together instead. “Thank you, Evelyn.”

I smile until she walks away, and then—only once she’s firmly out of sight—my expression decays. Every thought I was repressing rushes back through my mind in a gasping, gulping breath. Antionette dying. The ring on my finger that feels hollow without her. The spring meadows she’ll never see again. I grit my teeth and whirl around.

Prowling into the kitchens, I shove my way through the rest of the werewolves, around the servers and their stupid platters, and find the cellar of wine hidden beneath a trapdoor. Six dozen bottles of wine sit on a wooden counter, uncorked and ready for supper. I pluck a flask of poison from my pocket. Each bottle will only need a drop.

One drop. Six dozen bottles. And a court of rabid werewolves. I smile to myself before glancing over my shoulder.

No one is watching me. No one ever watches me anymore. Sure, they continue to gossip and whisper about the fallen princess and her ravaged bloodline, but they don’t look at me anymore. Since Cora and Sin promised me to Guatemala, I’ve become a ghost in this castle. I haunt its halls. I remind others of death and misery. But beyond that—beyond the horrors of Cora’s reign—I don’t exist to them.

And Cora thinks she has dealt with me.

So I don’t bother concealing myself when I pour the poison into the wine. I don’t hide the way I swirl the bottles round and round until the clear droplets dissolve completely. Then I pour several bottles between two large decanters, pivot on my heel, and meet Arielle in the hall. She waits on her knees, cleaning the wine with an already-drenched rag.

I pretend to laugh when I see her.

“Stop, stop,” I say. “You’ll never clean it that way.”

I kneel beside her, set the decanters on the floor, and lightly brush her hand. The touch sends shivers down my spine. I don’t touch many people anymore—because Nettie and Eric and my parents, the people I truly loved in this world, died—I slam down on the thought. Try to crush it like a bug the instant I think it. But Arielle glances at me, her brows pinching, and says, “It’s okay to be sad, Evelyn.”

Swallowing hard, I stare back at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

She winces. “Right. I… I just…”

“The wine,” I say dryly, gesturing to the decanters. “Why don’t you let me clean the floor? Since you seem so incapable.”