Page 13

Someone has laid out fresh toiletries on the vanity nearby with near military precision. Bottles of shampoo and conditioner are aligned perfectly, a folded robe pressed without a single wrinkle sits on the bench, a hair brush placed parallel to a neatly rolled towel. Even the toothbrush is still in its packaging, resting atop a small linen cloth.

The room smells faintly of jasmine and something crisp—expensive cleaner, maybe—but beneath that, there’s a whisper ofcedar smoke. His scent. The man whose presence seems to bleed through the walls no matter how far away he is.

I wrap my arms around myself.

The windows stretch from floor to ceiling, draped with sheer curtains that glow with the last traces of dusk. When I pull one back, I see the courtyard below. There are stone paths winding through patches of winter-bitten garden and the skeletal branches of dormant trees scratching the grey sky.

Farther beyond that, I see the perimeter wall. Twenty feet high, topped with coils of dark metal that don’t look decorative.

Beyond that are only forest and snow.

I sigh softly.

“There’s a call button if you need anything,” one of the guards says behind me. “Someone will be up with dinner in a few hours.”

Before they leave, I manage one question. “Can I see my father before he leaves?”

They both hesitate, exchange glances that are clearly uncomfortable.

“If you’re called down. You’re to stay in your room otherwise.”

My stomach twists.

If I knew that would be the last time I’d see Papa for a while, I would’ve tried to hug him.

The door shuts behind them with a soft click.

I stand alone in the cavernous room surrounded by silk drapes and gold accents. A place designed for comfort but which radiates captivity instead. The silence presses around me like velvet, soft yet suffocating.

I walk across the room and sink onto the edge of the bed. The mattress dips beneath my weight, too plush to bring me any kind of comfort, as if this place is trying to lull me into complacency.

My hands curl around the silk comforter.

I should cry or… scream.

Actually, I should run downstairs and call for Papa and demand answers before he leaves, demand that he take me home and not leave me in a place like this despite the pretty picture it’s trying desperately to paint.

But instead, I sit still.

I know no matter what I do, the outcome won’t change.

I’ve been brought here for a reason.

I just don’t know why yet.

3

ALINA

I’ve spent the hours since being locked inside this room pacing the perimeter and surveying it (twenty-three steps from the window to the door, nineteen from the bed to the fireplace, nearly thirty from the bed to the bathroom) until I’m nearly dizzy.

I count because it gives me something to do, something to hold onto that isn’t panic or fear that I’ve somehow been brought into the lion’s den unwillingly with the knowledge that my father left me here like a sacrifice on an altar I never agreed to kneel upon.

The carpet is thick, swallowing the sound of my bare feet as I walk, but it can’t swallow the rage that has begun to bloom inside me from how unfair all of this feels. It coils in my stomach first, hot and useless, until my entire body feels like it’s practically on fire.

Actually, unfair doesn’t even begin to cover it. Unfair is what you’d call getting grounded over a late curfew or a bad grade. This is something else entirely.

This is betrayal dressed up as “protection”.