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I guessed this was Cypress.

“I’d say it’s nice to finally meet you, Rook, but I’d prefer to have never met anyone here.”

He snorted a sympathetic chuckle and nodded, letting his stance fall into comfort. “You’ll find that a common sentiment, Cricket. We’ll take care of you as much as we can. Remember what I said, though. Don’t trust any of us beyond the Market. We are all just trying to—”

“Survive. I know. I’m familiar with that feeling.” I gave him a lopsided apologetic smirk.

“I believe you.” He took a deep breath. “You’ve got a choice before you, Cricket. Do you want to see what Rictus has done, or do you want to stay in the dark? No one will judge you for whatever choice you make. We’ve all had to process what you’re going through. Some of us, multiple times, like Cypress.”

I watched the empathy wash over the faces around me and nodded. “I’ll see. I never did like the dark.”

“It’ll be your best friend here,” whispered one woman, her voice tipped with lunacy.

Chapter 5

It felt like hours ticked by while I stood in front of the crude plate mirror that was afforded to the daora to prepare themselves to be viewed on the block, staring at the stranger before me. I struggled to come to terms with her, to know who she was, to figure out if I even liked her let alone could cohabitate with her.

She was a creamy Tahitian pearl. Her hair draped in an unnaturally thick cascade of pale gold down to the back of her knees. Her skin was buttery silk. A golden sunburst plate mask hid her brows, but I suspected they matched the hair, as the eyelashes that rimmed the too-large ocean-spray eyes were the same color. She had the same build as the other women in the tent, thick hips, heavy breasts, with only the slightest bit of a roundness to her stomach. Not a single freckle, tattoo, or scar marked her new skin flushed with vigor and youth. As I turned to examine my back, I noticed that the light from the torch played across my new skin and hair in a creamy pale gold sheen.

I looked obscene. A field of living snow swaddled in a bloody sheer gown. By even human standards, though I’d be considered striking and otherworldly, I was still beautiful.

And I hated it. I hated her. I hated every molecule of this changed form. I wanted to see the Sóna I knew and had at least grown a healthy tolerance for.

Pearly gold gathered at the rim of my pale lashes and spilled over to fill the edge of the metal mask. I couldn’t even cry like a human anymore. I couldn’t bleed. I couldn’t cry. My heart was an empty balloon. Everything that had filled me up and created me had been hollowed out to make room for someone else. Except they hadn’t been satisfied with trying the wholly human route of brainwashing me—oh, no, much worse. They let me languish with the knowledge of what I should look like, what I should sound like, what I should bleed and cry like. It was a cruelty I could never have imagined possible.

I let my hand fall away from my face and stared at myself in the mirror. This is who I was now.

My hand fell to my thigh, and I began tracing the two and one into my skin with my nail.

This was Cricket. This was whatever they had named me. But this would not be Sóna Mac Raith. This would never be Sóna Mac Raith.

My finger kept tracing, harder and harder, nearly carving the numbers into the top of my bare thigh.

I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin, staring down the intruder in my reflection.

“You can shape this however you wish, but this will never be me,” I told the stranger in the mirror, pulling years of armor and strength back to me from the ether.

I was Sóna Mac Raith. I would not allow this to break me. I can never be broken. It was time to pull myself together and survive.

The auction was a strange affair. I expected to be carted up on stage, stripped bare, and to have some fast-talking man call out numbers. But the only part I had imagined correctly was that I was pulled up on a stage, and a swarm of soft pale lights danced around and around me, lighting me from all angles. Under different circumstances, it would have even been beautiful.

Beyond the edge of the stage, I could see people at small tables, some in pairs and some alone, save for the glowing green ball of light perched on the edge of some sort of glass vessel. It was silent all around us, just the wind dancing lazily with the fire of the torches. Occasionally, one of them would lean toward the glowing ball and tap it twice. It would flash yellow and then return to green.

I stood there, awkwardly watching a score of eyes staring at me. I scanned the small crowd, waiting for whatever to start.

He was there, of course, his eyes never leaving me. I felt the weight of his gaze before I found him in the crowd. The heat and density of it settled over me and sank deep into me. There was something about the way he watched me, like if a gun were pressed to his head, he wouldn’t even notice. His gaze never flicked away, never looked up or down, but stayed locked on mine the entire time. When he tapped on his glowing ball, he didn’t look away.

I wanted to squirm under his scrutiny, a butterfly with wings spread wide pinned to the stage of its demise. I couldn’t, though. All I could do was stare right back, daring him to do or say anything.

This standoff, this battle of wills to see who would look away first, dragged on in the silence of the Market for eternities before it was finally broken by his satisfied and triumphant smirk and then by the exasperated growl of the woman I had met earlier, Lady Ever Bright. I broke my eye contact to watch her storm out of the seating area with a flustered Harebell behind her.

Rictus came to gather me off the stage, a ghastly wide smile on his beastly face.

“You did well, little sun,” he purred, stroking my hair, tipping my chin up to stare down in my eyes. “Ask your price.”

I had thought of this while I was staring at my new self in the mirror. I’d turned the problem over in my mind’s eye and found the answer to my riddle.

“You’ll give me anything back?”