Текст книги "In the Veins of the Drowning"

Автор книги: Kalie Cassidy

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My legs shook as I rose.

I knew King Theodore to be twenty-seven—a year older than I was—and ever since he had taken the throne seven years ago, Nemea had not ceased in his obsessive complaining. The “boy-king,” as he still called him, was too haughty, too good, too loved, too honorable to be a ruler that Nemea could ever respect.

“I’ve brought the bride to meet you.” Nemea’s voice came sharp and cold. “This is Lady Imogen Nel, my ward. She and I were just speaking of kingly duty. She’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter while you take her for a turn around the dance floor.”

King Theodore’s scowl lingered on me for a heartbeat before he gave Nemea a beleaguered look. “Very well, Nemea. It’s kingly duty that she’s eager to discuss? If the dance is long enough, we can muse over just how thoroughly you lack it.”

I gaped at his lack of fear. He did not bother to tend to Nemea’s fragility the way the court did—the way I did. Before Nemea could even form a retort, King Theodore extended his hand and, mortified, I set mine within it. His calluses scratched, but his touch was warm, gentle. My mind rattled as I remembered our interaction on the lookout. I’d been emotional. I’d been disparaging and impolite. As King Theodore led me away, Nemea’s meaningful gaze sank into me like a blade. What he wanted me to do was clear. Charm. Mollify.

“I beg your forgiveness, Your Majesty,” I said, my voice small. “I didn’t know who you were. I would never have been so familiar—”

“Where is your fiancé, Lady Imogen?” he asked, ignoring my apology completely.

“I—” I swallowed, trying to strengthen my voice. “I’m not sure. Perhaps the captain is hiding away with cold feet, preparing to beg His Majesty to be released from our engagement.”

“Is the captain an idiot as well as a murderer?”

His words struck me, and I did not know if I should feel flattered or shamed. Silent and tense, we found our spot on the dance floor. His gaze pressed down on me, but I kept my eyes on the wall above him, on the disembodied Siren wing that hung upon it.

A lilting, plucky tune filled the air. The thought of dancing an unending reel with him forced a stilted smile to my face. I spoke above the music, trying anew for exuberance. “I’m honored by your presence, Your Majesty. I know you traveled a long way.” He set a hand to my waist, and the quick steps began.

“I couldn’t miss an opportunity to gape at Seraf’s horrors, now could I?” he said, watching me keenly. I bit into my tongue. “I know your handmaid, Agatha.” He nodded to her across the room, where she stood glowering at the sea of people, holding a goblet in her fist. “I was surprised to see her here of all places.”

His disdain for here was clear in the harsh way the word slipped through his teeth. “I didn’t realize you were acquainted.” It was hard to imagine Agatha having a life before she had come into mine. “And how do you know her?”

“She was my governess—for a time.”

“She was mine as well.” She must have been in Varya immediately before she’d come to Seraf. “And would she scold you for dipping below the bottom line with your quill, like she did me?”

“No,” he answered, with perfect austerity. “I never dipped below the line.”

“Oh.” I found myself missing the kindness, the warmth, that I’d seen in him earlier. “I see.”

The steps of the dance were quick and twisting. I slid under King Theodore’s arm, hopped and spun, and could barely breathe for the way my dress clamped as tightly as a fist around my ribs. I stepped back in front of him and set my hand in his, but his fingers wouldn’t curl over my palm to hold it. He stopped us midstep.

“Is there a problem, Your Majesty?” I asked, wincing at the stitch in my side.

“Yes.” He looked so severe, staring down at me with tight eyes. “You cannot breathe.”

“Please keep dancing.” I looked around, chest heaving, worried about causing a scene and riling Nemea’s temper. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“You’re panting like a dog.”

I could not parse whether the man was annoyed or concerned. “Please,” I begged, “I have no desire to disrupt the dancers. I’m well. Thank you.”

He stared at me for a heartbeat, gaze narrowing, and then he started our steps again, but at a half pace. He wove us through the other pairs, keeping us both in step with the music and out of step with the rest of the room. We were as close as my skirt would allow.

“What are you doing?” I whispered.

“I’m letting you catch your breath.”

“I said I was fine.” Panic edged my words. Out of the corner of my eye, Nemea watched us, angry color rising in his cheeks.

“Nemea made you wear this ridiculous dress?” His voice was deep and soft, sending a wave of prickling nerves over my skin.

I glanced down at my bodice. “It was a gift,” I said tersely. “He wanted tonight to be perfect and had it made specially for the occasion.”

“Remarkable.”

“What is?”

“Nemea is even cruel with his gifts.”

The music began to drone, one bar after the next. The laughter of the dancers grated at my ears, and King Theodore, annoyingly, kept our slow pace, leading me with ease through the reeling dancers all around us. I plastered an even, pleasant look on my face, eyes fixed over his shoulder.

He pulled back, just slightly, and cocked his head. “You look familiar.” There was a question strung through the words.

“Do I? Perhaps our talk earlier has you confused.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s something else.” He kept staring, just as he had on the parapet, meticulous and appraising.

“I assure you, you haven’t seen me before today. I was born here. I’ve never left Seraf. When I was orphaned, King Nemea benevolently took me in as his ward.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “And why would he do that?”

I kept my lips pinched, not eager to offer up the true answer: that my family had been wealthy, and it was my inheritance that kept King Nemea’s kingdom afloat. “You’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“I’d rather not speak to the man, so I’ll guess.” I’d caught my breath, but King Theodore kept us at a maddening crawl across the dance floor. “You are a sprig of mint in a fetid mouth. You are the balm that soothes the lash of his cruelty. Why else would he dress you up in half the archipelago’s available crystal if it was not to make it look like both his coffers and his heart were depthless? In Nemea’s mind, he cannot be seen as truly despicable if he’s looked after someone so lovely and charming as you.”

I didn’t hide my wince. He’d given me no compliment; rather, his words curled with scathing distaste. I managed a wide, sweet smile despite the way my stomach sank. “And you, Your Majesty, are clearly too shrewd to fall for his elaborate scheme.” I boldly met his gaze. “You seem far from charmed by me.”

When our eyes locked, he stopped dead and stared in astonishment. His jaw slackened. He let go of my hand, released my waist. “I do know you.”

“What?” I made a quick scan of the room. “Please, you’re making a scene.”

He shook his head, a small movement, but those keen eyes of his studied the lines of my face further—the arch of my brow and the swoop of my nose, and lower, to the bow of my lips and the sharp dip of my chin.

“What are you doing?” I raised my arms, waiting for him to take my hand again. King Nemea had come to stand at the edge of the floor, his head tipped back in suspicion. “Please, Your Majesty, you’re drawing attention.”

King Theodore took a step away from me. A young woman spun into his back, but even that did not break the way he stared. Finally, he strode toward his guards, leaving me standing in the middle of the dance floor as the music dwindled to an end.

Fingers dug into my arm, jerked me sideways. “What did you say to him?” King Nemea said gruffly into my ear.

“Nothing at all, Your Majesty.” My heart was a lump in my throat. “He said he knew me. I have no idea what he meant by it.”

“Come.” Nemea took my hand and pulled me toward the dais. His grip was too tight, his body stiff, his long strides plodding. He stepped onto the dais, and I barely cleared the riser after him. My hand crushed in his grip as he took his ruby-studded goblet and drank. “What more did he say?”

“He complimented my dress.” I fought to give him a warm look. I imbued my voice with as much gratitude as I could, but I did not dare take my hand from his. “He praised the feast. And I agreed. I can’t thank you enough, Your Majesty, for giving the captain and me such a celebration.”

His hold on my hand grew even tighter. The ring Captain Ianto had given me dug into my flesh. “You didn’t truly think all of this was for you, did you?”

I shook my head, trying to keep the pain from creasing my face. “No, of course not, Your Majesty. I only meant to express my gratitude. As you’ve said, I’ve been given far more than I deserve.”

He grunted at that, and my knuckles crunched with the force of his grip. But his voice—his voice was soft as a feather’s touch. “You were meant to defang him, Imogen. To placate him. The last thing I need is a war with that arrogant twit.”

Wet, sticky warmth filled the tight space between my fingers. “You’re hurting me,” I finally whispered.

But Nemea paid me no mind. His attention was now on Captain Evander Ianto, who stood before the dais looking formidable and hopelessly disarrayed. He held his black helmet to his hip. His sand-colored hair was windblown and sweat beaded over his tanned skin.

“There you are,” Nemea snapped. He finally released me, and I curled my fingers into a fist to hide the blood he’d drawn.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” Evander bowed. Exertion colored his cheeks. There were clumps of wet sand stuck to his boots. “I got delayed in Port Helris. The ships kept coming and my men needed help.”

Nemea gave him an approving nod. His captain was nothing if not a good soldier. “Take her.” He dismissed me with a quick wave of his hand.

My curtsy was deep, reverent. While bowed, I mastered the pain that might have rippled my face before stepping to the edge of the dais. Instead of helping me down, Evander tilted his head back and took me in. He did not look at me like Nemea did, to assess whether I was sufficient. Nor did he look at me in the unsettling way the king of Varya had—haunted, dissecting, and scowling. No, he looked at me with solemn, surprising adoration.

I basked in it. Stared back. I’d always found the captain handsome, with his amber eyes, and the creases ringing them like sun rays. I liked the smatter of light freckles that sat on the bridge of his nose, the exceedingly pleasing cut of his features. The corner of his mouth tipped up. “You look… beautiful.” He let his gaze slink down my body and dropped his voice to a whisper. “And very uncomfortable in that dress.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I cannot dance a reel in it.”

He smiled. “Then we’ll waltz.” He extended a hand to help me down, and when I stood before him, almost chest to chest, I froze. The scent of the sea clung to him. Salt spray coated his armor, his skin, and it wove itself straight into my nostrils. An intoxicating heat rolled through my body, like a wave ravenously lapping the shore.

“I’m not in my fancy clothes,” he said, apologetically. “Would you like me to change?”

My stomach swooped. “No.”

I set my stinging hand in the crook of his arm, and then he began to amble us around the outskirts of the room, watching the revelry with a smirk on his face. I’d known of the captain for years, though we’d rarely spoken. It had been only a fortnight since I’d been told of our engagement, but my tight muscles unspooled at his proximity. The knot that Agatha’s disapproval had left in my gut loosened, fluttered.

“Shall I guess how many pounds your dress weighs?” he asked.

I gave him a full smile.

He stopped us. “Again.”

“Again, what?”

“Smile like that again.”

Our gazes locked and an ache began in me. I wondered what his touch might feel like. I wondered if his skin tasted like salt. “You’re incorrigible tonight.”

He gave me a wicked look. “Every night.” His warm fingers wrapped around my hand, and I flinched. “What’s wrong?”

“Just a cut.”

He took it and turned it this way and that, inspecting the weeping wound on my middle finger. His brow knit. “How did this happen?”

“It’s nothing. His Majesty didn’t realize…” Evander knelt and stuck his hands beneath the hem of my skirt, where he fumbled with the petticoats. I glanced around the room with wide eyes. “Gods, stand up—”

“Wait.” He looked up at me with a crooked smile on his lips. A quick jerk, fabric ripped. He rose with a strip of white linen pinched between his fingers. “Give me your hand.” Gently, he wound the fabric around the cut. “Can you keep a secret?” he said, his graveled voice filling only the small space between us.

Startled by his question, I looked up into his desperate gaze. I felt as if I were made of secrets. “Yes, I can.”

“If he were not my king…” Evander tucked in the loose end of the linen, then kept my hand in his. “I’d run him through for hurting you.”

The sound of treachery spilling from the captain’s mouth like a profession of love made me still. It thrilled me. It terrified me. “That’s very chivalrous of you.”

Evander took a step closer and the briny scent of him engulfed me. It beat through me, making my chest fill with thrumming heat. The look he gave me was expectant, earnest.

A protector, even if it was only in spirit, was not something I’d hoped to find in the captain. I’d only let myself wish for a thread of kindness, for him to be preoccupied enough with his job to let me continue with my quiet life still intact. I rose up onto my toes and set a quick kiss to his cheek. “Your secret is safe with me.”

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With each cup, the bitterness of King Nemea’s wine turned sweeter.

Evander set another goblet into my hand. “A dance?” He smiled over the rim of his own. “It’s been years since I’ve tried, but I promise I won’t embarrass you the way the king of Varya did.”

I found King Theodore across the room with a self-righteous pinch on his face. “Fine,” I said to Evander, absently.

“You sound thrilled,” he teased.

“Just swear you’ll catch me if I swoon.”

He came closer, and the salt on him sent shocks shooting through me. “I swear on the beloved deity herself.”

We pushed ourselves onto the crowded floor, and when the music swelled, Evander’s hand fell drink-heavy on my hip. He gripped the folds of my skirt, the flesh beneath, and then he pressed us together as he guided me across the floor. He surrounded me, the heat of his body spilling through my own.

It was its own kind of intoxication. To be touched, to feel his pulse beneath my fingers when I grabbed his wrist for another dance. Then another.

More wine. More of that sea scent.

There were women—I’d seen them—who were lit from within, and when they became wives that light dampened. I did not know if it was their husbands that doused their flame, or if they themselves curled up around it, their very souls trying to protect it from extinguishing. Regardless, I had been prepared to watch myself dim. But Evander’s touch lit sparks inside me, and somehow, he coaxed the light within to burn brighter, to burn steadily.

The night, the music, the dwindling candles, all began to blur as we crept toward morning. My head hummed with drink. The dance floor still brimmed with bodies, and the music still beat through the air. Evander tightened his hold on my ribs and pulled me closer. He set his mouth to mine, his top lip slipped between my own, and the biting taste of salt filled my mouth. I gasped.

It felt like blood, hot and pulsing, flooded my back, deep around my spine. My body tensed. He slowed our dance. “What’s wrong? Are you tired?”

I could only nod.

With a soft tug, he led me toward the grand doors, and in my haze, I let him. His strong arm snaked around me, his warm breath fanning against my neck. I arched into him mindlessly, tilting my head back, when my gaze snagged on the wing—on the etching below it.

THE MONSTER IS ALWAYS SLAIN

The king of Varya’s words scurried through my mind, a bug inside my skull.

Is the captain an idiot as well as a murderer?

“You all right, love?” Evander’s voice was gentle at my ear.

“I don’t feel well.”

His mouth quirked. “Too much wine. You need bread. Come on.”

At the banquet table, he pressed a hunk of bread into my hand, and grabbed the other, leading me out of the throne room with quick steps. Navigating the dark stairs took more focus than I’d anticipated. The wine in my blood had grown potent. I fought to cling to Evander’s strong hands.

“This gown—” He swatted at the wide skirt, trying to keep me upright. “Bleeding Gods.”

“I do what His Majesty asks of me.” My words slurred together. “I wear the dress that steals my air. I marry the captain—” I cut myself off, suddenly aware. I looked up into Evander’s piercing eyes. “It’s what we do, isn’t it? Obey.”

He seemed to marvel at me for a long moment before he said, “It is.” He sounded plagued by it. “Every day.”

Evander tugged me the rest of the way up the stairs. At the top of the landing, he pressed me into the wall with a rough kiss. I jolted at the bite of cold stone against my neck. He spoke over my lips. “It starts to wear on you, doesn’t it? Always doing what you’re told. Having no say.”

That shocked me. I wanted to say yes, yes, yes, but I was distracted by how badly I craved a full breath. I was distracted by the salt on my tongue, and how desperately I wanted more. He kissed me again, pressing me harder into the stone wall.

“Soon, when we’re married,” he said, between nipping kisses, “you won’t have to answer to him.” He gestured to the oaken door behind him. “This is your room?”

I nodded and he lifted me, fumbled with my skirt to wrap my legs around him, and then we were inside. There was the metallic slide of the door bolt, the glow of the low burning fire.

The harsh, dancing shadows it cast about the room swayed my vision. They cut across Evander’s face, and a wildness grew in his eyes. I’d been with men before: pleasant, quick, passionate. This was different. Not the man—Evander’s fervor was just like the rest.

I was different.

I wanted him with a strange sort of need. Like my body might wither if I could not taste him, feel him, press my nails into his flesh. He kissed me, hard and possessive, but I didn’t mind. I dragged my mouth down the line of his stubbled jaw, to where his pulse sped in small, warm waves.

Salt from his sweat; salt from the sea. A moan filled my throat.

Too slowly, he untied the laces of my bodice and slipped it down my shoulders. When he finally loosened my stays, and I breathed the air in all the way down to the base of my lungs, my vision sparked. Unpleasant pressure built and scorched low in my chest and spine, down my arms. I pressed a hand to my aching head.

“Come here.” Evander’s dark voice made me jump.

A dark fog still shrouded me, but I took another complete breath and followed him to the bed. The firelight cut across his broad, muscled back, then across the lines of his chest as he turned to lie down. My body and mind had become two separate entities. Within the cage of my chest came a plucking sensation, like a string knotted to my ribs had been struck. I tried to shake the feeling as I set myself atop Evander. Slowly, I guided him inside me and pressed my chest to his. He held me, moved with me.

But even surrounded and filled by Evander, that sinister feeling grew. It was as if something lurked within me and thought to come alive, twitching, writhing, taking shape. Pressing my eyes shut, I tried to focus past it. I bit back the urge to hum. His fingers dug into my hips, and I squeezed my eyes harder. The rumbling sound of Evander’s pleasure hit my ears, his mouth covered mine, and all I tasted, all I wanted, was salt.

In a sudden flash of white, I crumbled.

This was not ecstasy. It was a tumbling, pleasureless loss of self. A fire in my chest radiated out toward my back. The skin above my shoulder blades burned and pulled before it tore open. Wings stretched free. A painful moan shredded my throat. More fire ran down my arms, dripping down each finger, until my nails extended into dark-tipped talons.

Evander froze beneath me. In suspended seconds, his face morphed from slack-jawed shock to disgust. Then his handsome features contorted again, the heat in his eyes cooling.

Hate.

In my confused drunkenness, I cocked my head. I couldn’t understand it—why it was not awe he beheld me with. Then comprehension lashed me like a whip.

He forced me off him. Threw me to the floor, where my head whipped back against the stone. I should have felt fear, should have felt pain. Instead, his sudden loathing, his willingness to harm me, prodded at the thing lurking inside. I couldn’t quite place where it lived, but like a bruised bone, I could feel it deep within. It gnashed and swelled, drawing forth thoughts of clawed hands and ribboned flesh and streaming blood.

Evander moved quickly, coming over me to wrap his hand around my throat. His skin was hot against mine. His weight pressed me down, crushing the base of my wings. Both of our pulses beat through his grip. His, fast. Mine, even-keeled. Unchanged.

In a single, easy motion I mirrored him. My long fingers wrapped around his neck. The black tips of my talons sank into his golden skin, bringing forth ruby-red beads of his blood. He hissed through his teeth and withdrew his hand from my neck.

I breathed in the hot metal scent. “You’re scared.” I’d never felt so powerful—so unlike myself. He shook his head, but I could see the whites of his eyes. I sank my fingers in deeper.

“Imogen, please.” His words were only air, but they struck me like a fist. Hearing my name—remembering who I was—shriveled the dark thing inside me.

I released him. My chest heaved with panicked breaths.

He sat back on his heels, rounded eyes darting over the whole of me. My naked body, the black wings beneath me, the dark talons at the tips of my fingers. “Fucking Gods.”

Like a scolded pup, I rolled away from him and crawled toward the hearth. I covered my breasts in shame as he collected his clothes and pulled them on. His movements were quick, controlled. The flex of his muscled body filled me with petrified awareness. Those were muscles born of hunting Sirens, of heaving flailing, fearful bodies as they fought their executions. Evander stopped at the door, fury and disappointment rumpling his face. His lips parted as if he might speak, but he only etched one last withering glare over me before he left.

And with that, the steady, bright light that had grown within me snuffed out.

I sat awake, eyes on the bolted door, a jewel-encrusted dagger gripped in my fist.

The firelight set its rubies glinting and lit the short, dull blade gold. As the sun finally crept through my window, I twisted it in my fingers, feeling suddenly foolish. King Nemea had gifted it to me on my seventeenth birthday. With its profuse jewels and blunted blade, it was more ornamental than deadly—like me, I thought.

Even so, clinging to it through the night had given me a sense of safety.

From the moment Evander had slammed my door, I’d wept. I’d prayed to the Great Gods and Goddesses as if they could hear me, mindlessly asking them for some fleeting peace that never came. I’d waited for the clomp of Evander’s boots on the stairs, for him to crash through my bolt and drag me to the courtyard for execution. It had been years since a public execution of a Siren—Nemea’s men killed them too quickly to bother hauling them up the mountain for a show.

But I was already here.

I’d be made into a spectacle: the king’s ward having her wings gouged from her back. Her throat cut deep, a pulsing curtain of red. When they were done, my body would be displayed on a stake to rot for days after. Perhaps my wings would hang on Nemea’s wall too, this trophy a perfect set.

A quick knock sounded at the door. I tightened my hold on my dagger. “Yes?”

“Open up, Im.” The heavy oak muffled Agatha’s voice.

“Shit.” With Agatha, I might as well be made of glass. She’d know something awful had happened the moment she laid eyes on me. “Just a minute.”

She gave another impatient rap.

“I’m coming.” Everything ached as I moved toward the door. The raw skin on my back pulled as I reached for the bolt. At the sight of my outstretched hand, I paused. Dark brown crescents of dried blood sat beneath each nail.

Evander’s blood.

Images of last night sliced through my mind. The feel of him, the salt on his flesh, the monstrous power I’d felt at the sight of those glimmering drops of red. I couldn’t parse which was worse—that I’d nearly killed him or that I’d let him live.

I’d always known what I was. When I was growing up, there had been a beckoning whisper in my mind and a pull on my body to descend and meet the sea. I’d never heeded it, fearing it would make a monster of me. For the legends of Sirens and blood were true. We were created to yearn for it. To call it—hot and rushing beneath a sailor’s skin—to us. To pull them fully beneath the spume.

Forcing a fist, I finally slid the bolt and opened the door. My voice scraped. “Morning.”

Agatha rushed straight for my dressing room, not sparing me a glance. I locked the door behind her. “The ritual starts soon,” she said. “Let’s get you dressed.”

I’d been so consumed with worry over Evander that I’d forgotten all about King Nemea’s blasphemous ritual. For nearly three decades now, he had refused to worship the Great Goddess Ligea—the queen of Sirens. He claimed Sirens were vicious and pitiless as the sea, that they took joy in destruction, and over time he’d stopped honoring the Great Gods altogether. He made blood offerings to his water deity, Eusia, instead.

I wasn’t even convinced Eusia was real, as the histories I’d read were bereft of her name. Yet Nemea was devout, gathering his court for an offering before making weighty decisions, before fishing seasons, before name days. And before weddings too, so the betrothed could ask for her blessings. I’d been forced to give my blood since I was small. Denying Nemea and his deity an offering meant death.

“The tailor brought the wedding gown,” I called to Agatha. “Nemea asked that I wear it for the ritual.”

My body dragged as I forced my way to the basin to scrub my fingertips. The brush’s stiff bristles were sharp against my nail beds, and a shiver fell down my sore backbone.

“Imogen, I thought we might talk,” Agatha called from the dressing room. “Last night, I was able to speak with King Theodore—” She came in, brow buckled with thought, a clean chemise and the wedding gown of black lace carefully slung across her arms. She froze when she finally looked at me. Those big eyes of hers flared with worry, with the fierce, sisterly look she always armored herself with when I was hurt. “Tell me what’s happened.”

Suddenly, I was a girl again. Thirteen, slipping into a salt bath that a new maid had drawn me, forgetting that she should have forgone the salt. A sharp pulsing had filled my chest at the feel of it. My body had begun to ache. Agatha had pulled me out the moment I’d called for her. She’d had that same look in her eye then as she did now. She’d wrapped me in a towel, hurriedly drying the brine from my skin. “I’m like you, Immy,” she’d whispered. “A Siren away from the sea. Salt water only makes the longing worse. Keep away from it.”

Agatha had kept me safe. I was not so alone with her as my confidant. And so, I’d shoved the ugly, rearing head that was my true self below the surface. And last night, blinded by my unabashed desire, I’d hauled her back up. I’d let her gulp the air.

“Imogen?” Agatha’s gaze darted over my disheveled body. My dark waves were knotted with hairpins, my chemise was wrinkled and hanging askew. A light smear of blood marred my hip. “Imogen.”

My throat clamped. I threw my arms around her neck, crushing the dress she held between us.

“Oh Gods,” Agatha wheezed. She returned my embrace, hands pressing over my spine—over the open wounds left from my wings. I gasped at the pain. When she pulled away, her hands were red with fresh blood. Sudden understanding widened her dark eyes. “How?” She spoke in a rush. “We have to leave right now. We need to get down the mountain—”

A languid knock sounded at my door. My head snapped toward the sound, hackles rising. “Imogen.” Evander’s taunting voice called through the wood.

Who is that? Agatha mouthed.

I gestured frantically for her to shut herself away.

“Open up, Imogen.” A loud thump. “Or I’ll open it myself.”

“Agatha,” I whispered, “go into my dressing room. Lock the door. Do not come out, no matter what you hear.”

She straightened her spine, defiant. “What—absolutely not!”

“Shhh. Do it. Please.” I hurried to the chair I’d spent the night in and retrieved my discarded dagger. “Now, Agatha. I could never forgive myself if you were hurt. Go. Do not come out.”

Finally, she rushed toward my dressing room.

Once the lock clicked, I raced to the chamber door. The bolt scraped. The hinges wailed as I opened it.

Evander stood, tall and imposing, wearing the black coat and trousers he was meant to have worn last night. His hand rested on the leather-wrapped hilt of the sword at his hip. Bright amber eyes slithered down my body. They creased with an unafraid smile when he saw my dagger. “You’re not ready yet.”

I took a step back, heart hammering. “What do you want?”

Evander pushed past me without answering, unbuckling his sword belt as he went. He laid it reverently upon the bed and perched himself at the foot. The man looked like a bad omen, all clad in black, stark against the light hues and harsh morning sun that filled my chamber.

“Close the door, Imogen.”

My breath caught at the soft, emotionless command. I threw the door shut, never taking my eyes from him.

“Lock it and come here.”

“I asked you what you wanted.”

“I’m not going to hurt you, Imogen. Lock it. And come here.” He bent to retrieve the gown and fresh chemise that Agatha had dropped. “Let me help you.”

I was a mouse, and this was the cat’s gentle play before it sank its teeth in. “I can dress myself.”