Caspian’s eyes took in the cracked water gourd lying at the base of the wall before returning to me with a look of utter contempt. I could imagine what he was seeing—muddy clothing, bruised jaw, red eyes, cracked lips.
“He’ll be along in a few minutes to pick up where we left off yesterday,” the Fae said. His lips twisted as though addressing me directly left a bad taste in his mouth. “I came ahead to explain what awaits you if you continue to resist Reefe’s attempts to scrive your magical core.”
I stared at him, willing myself not to break eye contact. “You can’t do magic, can you?” I asked in a hoarse voice. “Not the shiny, exciting kind, anyway. That wasn’t even your portal just now, was it?”
If not for the faint tightening at the edge of his jaw, I’d have thought he was ignoring my words completely.
“Today,” he continued, “we will not waste more time beating around the bush. The source of your foul energy is clear enough. I will find out what lies beneath the demon taint, if I have to tear pieces of you out by the roots one-by-one to do so.”
“But it won’t be you doing the tearing, now will it?” I shot back. “You have to bring in someone else to help with that part. What’s the deal? Did you spend too much time playing human on Earth, or something? Though that didn’t seem to stop Albigard from being a magical badass—”
Caspian stepped forward until he was looming over me. Idly, I wished for enough strength to swing a foot up and kick him in the nuts. Did Fae have testicles? I hoped I’d have a chance to find out before I died.
“Once your broken body has given up the last of its secrets, you will be taken away and euthanized like the misbegotten beast you are. I shall take great satisfaction in watching the surprise on your face as your decapitated head hits the ground and rolls away.”
I peered up at him, my weakness making me strangely numb to fear. “What did I ever do to piss on your cornflakes, Caspian? I mean... seriously.”
Caspian drew breath—to answer, or maybe to spit on me. I wasn’t sure. Before he could do either, though, the portal opened again and Fae Two stepped through, closing it behind him with a wave. I took some slight satisfaction in the fact that he looked like shit, at least for a Fae—way less unruffled and iridescent than his boss, for instance. Instead, he looked flustered and like he was in need of a good night’s sleep.
Caspian subsided, stepping away to address his underling instead. “Don’t bother binding it to the wall today,” he said. “I think the filth on the floor will do just fine for such a creature.”
Did the second Fae look a bit troubled at that, or was I just imagining things? It didn’t matter. A moment later, a wave of magic hit me, gluing me to the damp, chilly mud as effectively as I’d been pinned to the wall yesterday.
“I really, really hate this, you know,” I told the floating ball of light hovering above the ugly tableau the three of us made.
Next came the warding coils, and then, the pain. Caspian hadn’t been lying—Fae Two—or Reefe, or whatever he was called—went straight for the place in my pelvis that still ached from the previous day’s torture. The feeling yanked fresh screams from my throat, just as it had before. But even after the pitiful amount of rainwater I’d managed to lick up, I was still most of a day further along in the process of dying of thirst.
And I have to say, trying to scream while being physically unable to do more than wheeze and choke might just be the most horrible feeling a human being is capable of experiencing. Because while Caspian and his cronies considered me nothing more than a monstrous mistake, in my head, I was still just a human girl who’d been dragged headfirst into something far, far beyond her depth.
“We can keep this up all day if necessary, demonkin,” Caspian growled.
Fuck you, I mouthed silently... right before I passed out again.
* * *
I awoke alone. The sky above me was light rather than dark this time, though I couldn’t have said whether it was later on the same day or the following day. My vision was blurry, and trying to clear it somehow seemed like far too much work to be worthwhile.
For several minutes, I thought they must have left me magically bound to the floor, because my arms and legs didn’t respond when I thought about moving them. Then, I realized I really was just that battered and weak. With a concentrated effort, I lifted my head to look around the cell.
Empty. They hadn’t even left me bread and water this time.
Yeah, Zorah... wow. Way to go. You really showed them, didn’t you?
The snide inner voice was irrelevant, though. I couldn’t have moved from my position and sat up to eat or drink it anyway. The deeply buried human instinct that tells you when you’re about to die was chiming too late, too late, too late in a repetitive internal refrain.
I was done. I couldn’t fight anymore—not that fighting had gained me anything useful to this point. Idly, I wondered if Reefe had managed to succeed this time at whatever he was trying to do to me.
Then a portal opened, and a raspy groan emerged from my lips, unbidden.
No. I didn’t want to do this anymore.
Please, no more.
FOURTEEN
I FLINCHED BACKWARD WHEN a figure stepped out of the portal. When I blinked against the awful sandpapery feel of my eyelids, my vision eventually cleared enough to see that it wasn’t Caspian or his underling, and I relaxed marginally. I was still sprawled on the floor next to the rough wood of the wall,
