Bring Me Their Hearts(90)
“You can’t stop me,” I snarl.
“No. But this can.” She holds up a dagger, a strange groove in the blade and a little latch at the base of the handle. A white mercury dagger.
“You—how’d you get one of those?”
“I may have asked the witches to give me one before you came to Vetris—a contingency required for me to agree to their proposition. I was quite worried about having a Heartless sleeping next to me. The difference now is I’ll use it not out of fear, but for your own good.”
“I warn you—I’m very good with a sword,” I press.
Y’shennria’s brows arch delicately. “And I’ve been wielding a dagger since long before you were born. You will not leave this room. You will not act on your own. You will attend the Hunt as we planned.”
She closes the door behind me with a soft thunk, the volume of it somehow more enraging than if she’d slammed it violently. I pace on the rug, my fists clenched. I should’ve known better—Y’shennria is just as stubborn as I am. She can understand my pain but not my hunger. I can feel it worming its dark fingers deeper into my veins with every second. I ate livers earlier, but the relief lasted a bare few minutes. If I don’t leave now, I’ll be late to the meeting place, and too hungry to even talk to anyone without my teeth showing.
A glassy clink draws my attention—an iron rod clipping my window locks closed from the outside. Reginall. He does each one, daring an apologetic smile up at me when I glare down at him from the window. I can’t break the glass, or Y’shennria would hear it. Besides, even if I jumped, I’d break my legs, and with my forearm still unhealed I seriously doubt my legs would heal either.
I bend three iron hairpins trying to pick open my door lock with no success. I shout to Reginall to let me out, pleading, but he doesn’t answer back. The hunger dares me to break things, break them (brEaK tHe foolS hOldiNg uS aGainsT oUr wiLL), but I rein in my jagged-growing teeth. Finally, I collapse on the bed, anger and effort exhausting me equally, my eyes skimming the black diamond pattern in the ceiling I’ve grown so used to.
Y’shennria is by no means an idiot. If anything, I’m one for daring to flaunt my intentions right in front of her. Then again, I couldn’t have seen this little lockup coming, considering I didn’t know at the time that she…cares for me. It’s with a begrudging sort of gratitude that I realize this must be how all humans with parents and guardians feel: angry and yet finding it impossible to be truly angry with them. My memories of how it was with my parents are long gone, but this feels somehow familiar. Somehow…right.
“I’ll care about her, too,” I grumble. “Just as soon as I’m done being furious with her.”
My eyes catch on the far left corner of the ceiling. There, the dark diamond tile is off—just a little more pronounced. I didn’t notice it the first few days, but after a straight week of staring at a ceiling, one tends to spot differences. I don’t make a habit of retaining every piece of useless noble gossip I hear, but my mind wanders to one:
It was a dinner party, one Y’shennria threw for me before I went to court. Baroness d’Goliev smiled at me with all her aging yellowed teeth over her cold fig custard.
“You should’ve met Lord Y’shennria, Lady Zera. A more brilliant man at court there’ll never be again.” She’d sighed.
“Oh?” I was genuinely curious. “Was he a polymath?”
“In his younger days, he aspired to be one. But his family was quite insistent he marry a Firstblood and bring honor to their name. And he always had a weak spot for family.” The Baroness wipes a fleck of custard off her silk bosom. “But he never lost his spark. Why, as a young boy he’d bring all sorts of little contraptions to court—things that moved, things with secret doors, little boxes you couldn’t open without puzzle solutions. He later refined the puzzle-locks, and sold the patent to Archduke Gavik, if you can believe it! That was the only invention of his that he pursued. Oh, and this manor, of course.”
“This manor? Did he have a hand in building it?” I asked.
“Indeed! He invited me over during its construction, in fact. Showed me a wonderful little catwalk of his, in the upper levels. You had to get to it by this athletic hole in the ceiling—but it was so well hidden I never spotted it at all!”
The Baroness laughed, and I laughed with her.
But now, I’m not laughing. I stand beneath the strange tile. It’s high up, but if I move furniture to reach it too loudly Y’shennria will definitely hear. Surely she’d know if my room had a secret catwalk made by her husband. Still, I carefully pile my trunks on top of one another—as wobbly as it is, it gets me high enough to touch the tile. I press on it, and like a tightly wound spring it gives, the tile opening on a hinge and revealing a dark hole just barely big enough for someone my size to fit through.
“Gods bless you, you clearly very skinny genius,” I grunt, reaching for the hole. I pull myself up with difficulty, a dim corridor stretching ahead of me. I stay on my hands and knees, making my impacts with the wooden catwalk as gentle as possible. I must be passing over Y’shennria’s room right now.
The corridor ends just above what I think is the bathroom. The spring-loaded tile gives way under my hands, and I lower myself off the edge carefully, my boots still making a resounding thud. I freeze, waiting for the inevitable uproar, but nothing happens. My hand reaches for the doorknob, only to find it locked. It’s never locked! Count on Y’shennria to cover all her bases.