You Belong Here

The worst part was that I wanted Silas.

I hadn't wanted Silas in two years.

Not when winter came and the roof leaked onto my bed. Not when I went hungry for three days because Mrs. Pritchard had decided she could do her own washing after all. Not even when I woke from dreams of his hands and had to light every candle in my room before I could convince myself I was an adult and not sixteen anymore.

But I wanted him now.

The cell was cold.

Not ordinary cold. Not winter cold. The stones themselves seemed to breathe it. Damp pressed against my bare skin. My toes had gone numb some time ago. Water gathered somewhere in the darkness and fell in slow, maddening drops.

My wrists hurt.

The manacles were too high for my feet to rest properly against the floor. If I stretched onto my toes, I could take some of the weight from my shoulders. Then my calves began to shake and I sagged again until iron bit bone.

I had tried shouting.

That had been hours ago.

Probably. There were no windows.

I swallowed.

"Silas."

His name came out before I could stop it. Barely more than breath.

I shut my eyes.

Stupid.

He wasn't coming.

Even if he knew where I was, he wouldn't come. I had made quite certain of that when I ran away from him.

Still. I could picture the house. The fire would be lit in the study at this hour. Silas always kept it too warm. He said cold fingers made clumsy magic. There would be something simmering in the little copper pot above the coals and books stacked three deep across his desk because shelves, apparently, were for men with less important things to read.

I could almost smell it.

Smoke. Ink. Rosemary.

Home.

My throat tightened.

It hadn't been home--I knew that now.

I knew lots of things now.

I knew a girl shouldn't learn which floorboards creaked so she could tell what sort of mood a man was in by the way he crossed them.

I knew being taught to read didn't mean you owed the teacher anything he asked for afterward.

I knew look what you made me do wasn't an apology.

I knew Silas could have healed every mark he ever left on me, he simply hadn't.

Enough to mend, he would murmur afterward, when the anger had drained out of him and his hands were gentle again, palm would glowing warm against whatever he'd done, Never enough to forget.

I hadn't forgotten. There were pale little reminders scattered everywhere. My back, my thighs... one beneath my left breast. I wondered whether the guards had noticed that one when they stripped me.

Heat crawled over my face despite the cold.

I pulled uselessly at the chains. The iron answered with a dull clink.

Silas would know what to do.

The thought arrived so naturally that for one horrible moment I believed it.

Silas would barge through the door, furious. Furious. I had been careless. Worse than careless. I had worked an enchantment where anyone might find it.

After everything he'd taught me.

I could almost hear him. What have I told you about being clever, Dora?

That cleverness was worth nothing without discipline. There would be consequences. There were always consequences. But afterward--afterward he would fix it.

He always fixed it.

My eyes burned.

"I didn't know what else to do," I whispered.

The widow's boy had been dying. That was the whole of it. He had been six years old and burning with fever, each breath catching wetly in his little chest while his mother sat beside him pretending she wasn't crying.

So I had made the salve.

One tiny working.

One.

I hadn't even charged her.

And now I was naked in an Inquisitorial cell with my arms chained over my head.

A laugh escaped me. It didn't sound much like one. "Oh, Silas." I let my forehead fall against my arm. "I've made such a terrible mistake."

A lock turned in the darkness. I blinked against the light spilling in beneath the opening door as somewhere beyond it, a man said, "Have you?"

###

I had expected someone old.

I don't know why.

Perhaps because Inquisitors belonged in the same category as bishops and magistrates in my mind. Men with grey beards and sour mouths who enjoyed telling other people what they weren't allowed to do.

The man who stepped into my cell couldn't have been much past thirty.

That seemed unfair. So did the rest of him.

He was beautiful.

Not handsome. Handsome was broad shoulders and a nice smile and Thomas Bell from the bakery slipping an extra bun into my basket when his father wasn't looking.

This man was beautiful.

His hair was gold. It fell nearly to his shoulders in soft, immaculate waves, catching the corridor light as he ducked beneath the low stone arch.

Every child knew an Inquisitor's black cloaks. This one wore his rather better than the stories had prepared me for. Silver embroidery traced the high collar and disappeared beneath the fall of his hair. More silver gleamed at his cuffs. His boots were polished despite the filth of the corridor, and a dark green stone sat at his throat in a setting so delicate I couldn't imagine what it must have cost.

Magic stirred around it--I felt that before I properly saw it--my breath catching and the stone answering with a pulse of green beneath its black glass.

His eyes flicked to mine.

My pulse jumped against my throat. I looked away.

The door shut behind him. The cell became darker for it.

For several seconds, he said nothing. I could hear paper shifting. I risked looking again.

He had a thin file open in one gloved hand. "Isadora Briar." His gaze moved over the page. "Eighteen. And a..." he paused. "Laundress?"

I wet my lips. "Yes."

One golden brow lifted. I didn't know what I'd done wrong.

"I am Inquisitor Aurelius Voss." His attention returned to the file. "You are charged with unlicensed manufacture of an enchanted curative. Possession of three restricted herbs. Possession of an unregistered grimoire." He turned the page. "One count of unlawful magical practice..."

My stomach twisted.

When he looked at me again, his expression had changed. "Quite the criminal." His mouth curved. It changed his whole face.

My stomach tightened. Silas had a lovely smile too.

The Inquisitor closed the file. His gaze dropped.

I stopped breathing. There was nowhere to hide; I tried anyway. My knees pressed together. I turned as much as the chains allowed, heat rushing from my throat to my cheeks as his eyes passed over me.

He looked at my wrists first.

Then my shoulders.

My ribs.

My stomach.

Lower.

Then away.

No smile, no lingering appraisal. Nothing I knew what to do with.

His eyes returned to my ribs. Something in his expression changed. I knew what he'd seen. My back was worse. "Who did that?"

I swallowed. "Did what?"

His gaze dropped deliberately to the thin white scar beneath my breast.

My heart began to pound. "I'm clumsy."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

He stepped closer. I leaned away as far as the chains allowed. He was close enough now that I could smell something clean and expensive beneath the damp of the cell. Cedar, perhaps. Something faintly floral.

His hand lifted toward the scar.

I flinched so hard the chains snapped taut above me.

He stopped. For a moment, neither of us moved. His eyes went from the scar to my face, and I had the horrible feeling that I'd answered a question he hadn't needed to ask.

His hand fell. He turned toward the door. "Take her down."

The hatch slid open. "Inquisitor?"

"Unless suspension by the wrists has recently become essential to the investigation of medicinal salves."

"No, my lord."

"Then take her down."

The door opened. Keys rattled behind me.

My feet found the floor first. Then the lock opened above my left hand.

Pain tore through my shoulder as my arm dropped.

I gasped and my knees buckled.

The Inquisitor caught me.

His arm closed around my waist.

Pain. A hand holding me. No room to move.

My body knew what came next even if I didn't.

I twisted in his grip, half falling, my free hand striking whatever I could reach. My nails caught skin.

He swore, and suddenly the guard had my wrist. "Enough!"

I froze. Three bright lines ran from the Inquisitor's cheek to his jaw. Blood welled along one of them.

I stared.

Silas would have broken my hand. The certainty of it hollowed me out. My knees weakened. The guard's fingers tightened around my wrist, and my breath came shallow and quick. "Please."

The Inquisitor touched his cheek. His glove came away red.

"Please, I didn't mean--"

"Let her go."

I looked up.

He sounded almost bored.

The guard hesitated. "My lord, she--"

"I am aware."

His fingers disappeared from my wrist. I snatched my hand against my chest and waited.

Nothing happened. The Inquisitor only looked at me.

I tried to breathe more slowly. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. It wouldn't work. My heart kept hammering, every breath catching somewhere too high in my chest.

The second manacle opened.

I barely felt it. My arm fell uselessly against my side, and this time when my legs folded beneath me, no one caught me.

Stone struck my knees and I stayed there.

"Isadora." The Inquisitor crouched in front of me. Gold hair slipped over one shoulder. A thin line of blood reached his jaw. "Look at me."

My stomach turned. I raised my eyes. He was studying me again. Not my nakedness. My face.

"Where is Silas Veyne?"

For a moment, I didn't understand him.

Then the cell disappeared. The cold disappeared.

Everything disappeared except those two words. Silas Veyne.

I must have moved. I don't know how. One moment I was kneeling before him. The next my back was against the wall and I was trying to make myself smaller than bones allowed.

The Inquisitor didn't move.

"How do you know that name?" It came out thin.

I flinched as he reached inside his coat. His hand emerged holding a small glass jar--my jar. Mrs. Harrow's salve. The green wax seal I'd pressed over the lid was broken.

He turned it between his fingers. "You're very good."

I stared at him.

"That isn't an accusation."

"Yes, it is."

His mouth almost curved. "You ground the feverfew rather than steeping it. Added the vervain after the mixture cooled. Worked the enchantment backward through the carrier instead of laying it over the finished compound."

My mouth went dry.

"There are easier ways to make a fever salve."

I said nothing.

"Safer ways."

Still I said nothing.

"But Silas Veyne doesn't teach them."

My heart slammed against my ribs.

The Inquisitor set the jar carefully on the floor between us. "I've seen his work before."

My eyes went to the door. "Is he here?" The question escaped before I could stop it.

Something changed in the Inquisitor's face. "No."

Air left me. Too much of it. Relief made me dizzy. Something else came with it, something small and horrible that I shoved down before I could give it a name.

The Inquisitor watched me. "How long were you with him?"

"I wasn't."

His gaze dropped to the scar beneath my breast. Only for a moment. I wrapped my arms around myself. When his eyes returned to mine, his voice was almost kind. "Isadora. Where is Silas Veyne?"

"I don't know."

"Think carefully."

"I don't know."

"I believe you." I looked at him. He smiled faintly. "About that, at least."

My stomach dropped.

"When did you last see him?"

"Years ago."

"How many?"

"I don't remember."

"Approximately."

"I don't know."

He considered me for a moment. "You learned Veyne's method well enough that I recognized his hand in yours from a jar of fever salve."

My fingers curled against my arms.

"You remembered exactly how much feverfew to grind. When to add the vervain. Which direction to work the enchantment." He leaned forward slightly. "But you can't remember when you last saw the man who taught you?"

I said nothing.

His voice remained gentle. "Two years?"

My heart stumbled.

"Three?"

I looked away.

"Ah."

One quiet syllable. I wished he'd shouted.

"You do remember."

Silas had been gentle after punishments too. I knew better than to trust gentle. So I looked at the blood drying on the Inquisitor's beautiful face and waited to find out what his version of consequences looked like.

###

The room had a bed.

I didn't trust it.

There were other things I didn't trust.

The fire. The clean shift someone had given me. The bowl of stew I'd eaten despite myself. The little copper tub of hot water they'd brought in so I could wash the filth of the cell from my skin.

But mostly the bed.

It was narrow, tucked against one wall beneath a shuttered window, with a thick wool blanket folded neatly across the foot.

I sat on the very edge of it.

The room wasn't a cell. There were no bars. No chains bolted into the walls. No bucket in the corner.

There was, however, a lock on the other side of the door.

I had checked. Twice.

I rubbed my wrists. Someone had wrapped them while I slept. White linen circled each one, neat and clean against the bruising left by the manacles.

I didn't remember anyone doing it.

That bothered me too.

Everything bothered me. Kindness most of all.

I had been ten the first time Silas gave me a room of my own.

I'd never slept alone before.

When Silas had found me, I'd been sleeping with five others above the kitchens. Four pallets between us. Mine was nearest the door because I was the smallest and nobody wanted my feet in their face when they got up before dawn.

Silas's house had seemed enormous.

I remembered standing in the doorway while he lit the lamps with a flick of his fingers.

One after another.

Magic... Real magic. I'd forgotten to breathe.

There had been a bed there too. Not much bigger than this one.

But it had been mine.

Silas had leaned against the doorframe and watched me stare at it.

Go on, Dora. I hadn't moved. It's yours.

I'd looked at him then. Nobody had ever given me anything that large before. I'd slept on top of the blanket because I was afraid if I disturbed it, someone might realize there had been a mistake.

Silas laughed when he found me like that the next morning.

He'd sat beside me and shown me how to pull the blankets back. Tucked them around my shoulders himself. There. Better?

I'd nodded.

His fingers had brushed the hair away from my forehead.

You belong here now, Dora.

I pulled my knees onto the bed.

The memory wouldn't go away. I didn't want it to.

That was worse.

There had been good years.

Good months, at least.

Days.

A key turned in the lock. I was on my feet before the door opened.

The Inquisitor stepped inside.

He'd lost the cloak. Without all that black wool and silver embroidery, he looked less like something from a cautionary tale and considerably more like a man. He wore a dark waistcoat over a fine white shirt, the sleeves fitted neatly to his forearms, the collar open at his throat.

An extraordinarily well-dressed man.

Three thin scratches still crossed his cheek. They looked rather good on him.

I resented them for it.

"Miss Briar." He locked the door behind him. "Good afternoon."

My eyes flicked to the shuttered window. "Is it?"

One corner of his mouth lifted. "Technically."

He had something tucked beneath one arm.

A box. Perhaps the length of my forearm, made from black wood polished until the firelight slid across it like water. Silver edged the corners. A tiny clasp gleamed at the front.

It looked expensive.

Everything about the Inquisitor looked expensive.

He crossed the room and set the box on the little table beside my untouched cup.

"You've eaten."

I glanced at the empty bowl. "Very perceptive."

That seemed to amuse him.

My hands wanted to shake.

I smoothed the front of my shift instead. Once. Then I pulled my shoulders back and lifted my chin.

"What do you want?"

"Several things." The Inquisitor removed one glove. Finger by finger. Then the other. He folded them together and placed them beside the box.

Silas used to do that. Not with gloves, with everything. When he knew I was frightened, he never hurried. Let the waiting do half the work.

I curled my fingers into the sides of my shift. "What is that?" I nodded toward the box.

"You don't recognize it?" He pulled out the chair and sat, stretching his long legs across the floor as though this were his study rather than a room I couldn't leave. His thumb found the silver clasp.

I watched it.

The lid opened. Dark velvet. Gold. For one strange moment, that was all I understood. Then Aurelius reached inside and lifted out a bracelet.

It was beautiful. Delicate golden leaves intertwined around one another, their veins picked out in tiny green stones. At the center sat a larger jewel, dark as bottle glass.

Something cold moved through me.

I stepped back.

Aurelius's eyes lifted from the bracelet to my face. "Interesting."

"I've never seen it before."

"I didn't ask."

"I haven't."

He let the bracelet turn between his fingers, gold flashing softly in the firelight. "Then why are you afraid of it?"

I looked at the dark green stone.

He waited.

"It feels wrong."

"Wrong."

"You asked."

His mouth twitched. "And here I was hoping for something more technical."

I glared at him. "Hungry."

The amusement vanished. "For what?"

"I don't know."

"Magic?"

"Maybe."

"Life?"

My eyes snapped to his.

There it was again, that faint curve of his mouth. "Ah."

"You already know."

"I suspect."

"Then why ask me?"

"Because three sanctioned thaumaturges have held this bracelet and felt nothing at all."

I looked at the gold dangling carelessly from his fingers. "Perhaps they're not very good."

He laughed.

The sound startled me. Warm and low, entirely too pleasant for a man who could have me hanged.

I looked away first.

When he spoke again, the amusement had gone from his voice. "Lady Cecily Vaust wore it to her engagement ball three months ago. By morning, she couldn't stand. Within a week, she could barely stay awake long enough to eat."

My attention returned to the bracelet. "She took it off?"

"That night."

"And she's still ill?"

"Dying."

My stomach tightened.

Aurelius leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs. The bracelet hung between his hands. "What?"

I shook my head.

"Isadora."

"If it was feeding from her, taking it off should have broken the connection."

He went very still. I looked at the stone again, trying to follow the wrongness of it. The hunger wasn't contained there. I could feel that now. "Unless the bracelet isn't where it's going."

His gaze sharpened on me. "Explain."

"It's a conduit." I nodded toward the stone. "Or part of one. Whatever it took from her went somewhere else."

Aurelius looked down at the bracelet. For the first time since he'd walked into my cell, he seemed to have forgotten to watch me. "Three thaumaturges failed to tell me that."

I couldn't help myself. "Perhaps you should pay me instead."

His eyes rose slowly to mine. For one glorious second, I thought I'd surprised him. Then he leaned back in the chair. "Tell me what I need to know," he said, "and perhaps I'll let you keep your neck."

The smile died on my face.

I'd almost forgotten. The cell. The locked door. The thin shift they'd given me because my own clothes had been taken away. The fact that somewhere beyond these walls, someone was deciding how I would die.

My fingers tightened in the fabric.

Aurelius watched me remember. "How do we find where it leads?"

"I don't know."

"You recognized it as a conduit."

"That doesn't mean I know how it works."

"No?"

"No." I glanced at the bracelet. It still hung from his fingers, beautiful and terrible. "Knowing a bridge goes somewhere doesn't tell me what's on the other side."

His gaze lingered on me for a moment.

Then he stood.

My stomach dropped. "What are you doing?"

"Finding out." He crossed the space between us.

I backed away until the edge of the bed caught behind my knees. "Aurelius."

He stopped.

It was the first time I'd used his name.

Something changed in his face. Only slightly. Then his gaze dropped. "Give me your hand."

I stared at the bracelet. "No."

"That wasn't a request."

My eyes snapped to his. The warmth had simply gone out of him. I had mistaken courtesy for permission.

I tucked my hand behind my back.

Aurelius sighed. "Isadora."

"No."

He rose.

I backed away until the bed caught behind my knees.

He didn't come any closer. Somehow, that was worse. "You are under sentence of death for unlawful magical practice."

My mouth went dry. "I know."

"Do you?" His voice hadn't changed. That frightened me most. Still quiet. Still almost pleasant. "You have just demonstrated an understanding of an artefact that three licensed thaumaturges failed to recognize."

"That doesn't mean I can use it."

"No. But it makes you useful." The word landed harder than it should have. "And useful," Aurelius continued, "is a considerably safer thing for you to be than condemned."

I stared at him.

There it was. Not a threat. He didn't need one.

My gaze dropped to the bracelet hanging from his fingers. "What happens if I say no?"

Aurelius was silent for a moment. Then, "Your case proceeds."

My stomach turned. "To what?"

His eyes held mine. "Sentencing."

I knew what that meant.

He held out his empty hand. For several seconds, I only looked at it. Then, very slowly, I brought my hand from behind my back and placed it in his.

His fingers closed around mine. "Good."

Something warm and horrible fluttered low in my stomach.

He drew me closer. Gold brushed my skin, cool and impossibly delicate, and the bracelet closed around my wrist with a soft click.

Nothing happened.

I stared at it. Gold leaves against pale skin. Green stone dark beneath the firelight. My pulse beat once beneath it. Twice.

On the third, something sank into my wrist.

Not through skin--deeper. I felt it pass through flesh and close around the bone.

My breath stopped.

Then it pulled.

Pain ground through my arm, deep and sickening, as though something had sunk teeth into the marrow and sucked.

I screamed. My knees struck the floor.

The bracelet flashed green.

Another pull.

Heat tore from my wrist to my shoulder, followed by a cold so profound I felt hollow in its wake. I clawed for the clasp.

Aurelius caught my other arm. "Don't."

"Take it off!"

The stone pulsed. Pain. Then that awful inward pressure again. Something drinking where nothing should have been able to reach. "Take it off!"

"What do you feel?"

"Please!"

"Isadora."

Another pulse went through me. I folded around it with a gasp.

Then the pain changed. It was still there, buried deep in the bone, but something beneath it was worse. A slow, steady drawing from somewhere far inside me. Not blood. Not breath.

Something else.

Something mine.

I stopped fighting.

"Oh." The word barely came out.

I knew. My magic. The bracelet was drinking my magic.

The next pull left cold in places I hadn't known could feel cold. Behind my ribs. Beneath my tongue. At the roots of my teeth. Even the fire seemed farther away when I looked at it.

Aurelius's grip tightened around my arm. "Where is it going?"

"I don't know."

"Follow it."

I shook my head. "I can't."

"Yes, you can."

The stone pulsed again. My stomach rolled. I closed my eyes.

"Isadora."

The floor felt wonderfully solid beneath my knees. I wanted more of it. Wanted to lie down and press my cheek against the stone and stop holding myself upright.

Sleep.

Just for a moment.

"Open your eyes."

I didn't.

Fingers closed around my jaw. "Look at me."

My eyelids dragged open.

Gold.

That was the first thing I found. His hair caught the firelight. Then his face came slowly into focus around it, three scratches bright across one cheek. His eyes held mine.

"Stay with me."

I swallowed. Even that felt difficult.

"What is the bracelet doing?"

I knew this. I had known it a moment ago. "Taking."

"Taking what?"

The answer was somewhere very far away. "Me."

His expression sharpened. "Your magic?"

I nodded.

"Don't nod. Answer me."

"Yes."

Easier.

"Good."

Warmth stirred low in my stomach. I frowned. Nothing was good.

The bracelet drank again. My body swayed toward him before I realized I'd moved.

"Where is it taking your magic?"

"I don't know."

"Find out."

I tried.

There was the floor beneath my knees. Fire against one side of my face. Gold biting cold around my wrist. Aurelius's fingers against my jaw.

And beneath all of it--

There. Something impossibly thin stretched out from the bracelet.

I reached for it and the room tipped.

"Isadora."

Far away.

"Eyes."

I opened them.

Aurelius was closer.

No. I was closer. I couldn't remember how that had happened. My shoulder rested against his chest. One arm was around my waist now, holding me upright. I could feel the rise and fall of his breathing against my back. The leather of his glove at my side. His warmth soaking through my shift.

I should have moved. Some distant part of me knew that. But moving required deciding where my arms went. Where my legs went. Where I went.

Aurelius was warm. I let my head fall against him.

"Stay with me."

I closed my eyes. His fingers tightened against my jaw. "No. Look at me." Something in his voice cut through the fog. Lower now. Harder.

Simple.

I opened my eyes.

"Good girl."

Everything stopped.

Firelight.

Rosemary.

A warm hand smoothing my hair.

Good girl, Dora. The pain doesn't last long, I told you. You're being so, so good for me.

My breath caught.

The cell rushed back.

Aurelius was watching me. Too closely. I tried to turn my face away.

His hand held me where I was. "What was that?"

"Nothing."

"Liar."

I closed my eyes.

"Open them."

They opened. Shame burned somewhere beneath the cold.

I hated that I'd obeyed.

I hated more that some small, ruined part of me had wanted the praise again.

"Where is it going?"

"I can't."

"You can."

"No."

His thumb pressed beneath my chin. "Follow it."

The words went through me cleanly.

No argument. No fear. Nothing complicated enough to require thought.

Just a thing I had been told to do.

So I did it. I followed the pull down through my arm.

Through gold.

Through green stone.

Past the place that drank and drank and never filled.

There.

A thread. Thin as spun glass. I caught it. "I found it."

My tongue felt too large for my mouth.

Aurelius's arm tightened around me. "Where?"

"Don't know."

"Follow it."

I did.

The cell loosened around me.

Stone disappeared first.

Then fire.

Then the weight of Aurelius's arm.

Then my own body.

There was only the thread.

And his voice.

"That's it."

Farther.

"Stay with it."

Warmth moved across my cheek.

A hand, perhaps.

It didn't matter.

"Tell me what you see."

"Dark," I murmured.

"Keep going."

The thread stretched through nothing.

North.

Away.

Cold.

Something waited at the other end.

No.

Someone.

A feeling touched me through the thread.

Familiar.

My heart stumbled.

I knew that feeling.

I knew--

Dora.

Something inside me slammed shut.

The thread snapped from my grasp.

The pulling stopped.

Silence crashed into the place it had occupied. My body came back all at once. Cold stone beneath my knees. Fire. Breath. Weight. Aurelius around me. My own heart battering against my ribs.

I gasped.

The bracelet's green stone went black.

Aurelius went completely still. His hand closed around my wrist. "What did you do?"

I blinked at him. "What?"

"What did you do?"

"I--"

He dragged my wrist toward the fire. His thumb ground against the stone.

Nothing.

Dead glass. "Turn it back on."

"I don't know how."

"Isadora."

"I don't--"

He caught my face. "Turn it back on."

"I can't!"

Magic cracked through the room. The fire flattened in the grate. I barely had time to flinch before his hand closed over my forehead.

And he was inside me.

I screamed. The sound seemed to come from everywhere.

There was no door. No pressure building against the edges of my thoughts. One moment they belonged to me, the next, they didn't.

Something vast and bright tore through me.

Not my body--worse. Every place inside myself that had ever been private split open beneath it.

Memories broke loose.

The kitchens.

A little room.

Silas laughing.

Blood on white sheets.

Enough to mend.

No! I twisted beneath Aurelius's hand, but there was nowhere to pull away to. He wasn't holding my body.

He was holding me.

Another memory opened. I made a sound I didn't recognize. "Stop." His magic drove deeper.

"Stop!" The word broke into a scream.

He didn't. I felt him pass through things I had spent years refusing to remember. Felt them open for him. Felt him see.

Then his magic struck something.

Everything stopped.

So deep inside me I had never felt it before. It was wound through me. Rooted into places that felt so completely mine I couldn't tell where it ended and I began.

Aurelius felt it too. His breath caught. For one suspended heartbeat, his magic pressed against it.

Something pressed back.

Aurelius tore himself out of my mind.

His hand left my forehead.

I folded over. My palms struck stone. I couldn't breathe properly. Every attempt came thin and ragged, my stomach heaving around air that wouldn't go deep enough.

Beside me, Aurelius stumbled back.

For the first time since I'd met him, he looked shaken. One gloved hand braced against the chair. His chest rose and fell hard beneath his coat. The scratches I'd left across his cheek stood stark against skin gone suddenly pale.

I couldn't look at him.

He had seen.

The little room.

The blood.

Silas.

Things I had never told anyone. Things I barely admitted to myself.

I pressed a hand over my mouth. It didn't help.

Behind me, Aurelius dragged in a ragged breath. "What did he do to you?"

I went still.

Not who.

My hand lowered slowly.

Aurelius was staring at me. Whatever he'd found had stripped the last of the composure from his face.

"What do you mean?"

"That thing you followed." His breathing hadn't quite steadied. "The connection."

"The bracelet?"

"No."

The word came too quickly.

He crouched in front of me, close enough that I could see the pulse beating hard in his throat.

"The bracelet connected to you because something in you was already there to receive it."

Cold crept through me. "I don't understand."

His eyes searched mine, as though the answer might still be somewhere behind them. "Neither do I."

That frightened me more.

Aurelius Voss always seemed to understand.

His gaze dropped to the dead green stone around my wrist.

Then back to me.

"Whatever Veyne made," he said quietly, "he built you into it."

###

I stared at him.

The words made sense separately. Together, they meant nothing at all.

Aurelius looked down. The bracelet still circled my wrist. His expression hardened. "Give me your hand."

I flinched.

He went still.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then he held out his hand, palm up, waiting.

I looked at it. My wrist ached beneath the gold. The stone was black now, dull and harmless-looking against my skin. Harmless. I almost laughed.

Slowly, I put my hand in his. His fingers closed around mine, careful this time. The clasp resisted him. Aurelius swore under his breath and bent closer, turning my wrist toward the fire. I watched his face instead of what he was doing. The concentration between his brows. The scratches along his cheek. The faint sheen of sweat at his temple.

He had seen everything. My stomach turned.

The bracelet came loose. I sucked in a breath as the gold lifted from my skin. A dark band circled my wrist beneath it, angry red fading into purple at the edges. Aurelius stared at the mark.

His thumb moved softly against it. "Does it hurt?"

"Yes."

His eyes lifted to mine. I didn't know why that made my throat tighten. He put the bracelet back into its velvet box and shut the lid.

The click sounded very small.

I became aware of the room again by pieces. The fire snapping in the grate. My knees aching against the stone. My shift damp between my shoulder blades. The trembling in my hands.

Aurelius stood.

I recoiled before I could stop myself.

His jaw tightened and he stepped away instead. "There is water beside the bed."

I looked.

There was.

I couldn't remember it being brought in.

Getting to my feet proved more complicated. I planted one hand against the floor, pushed myself halfway upright, and the room immediately tipped.

Aurelius moved.

I threw up a hand. "Don't."

The word hung between us. Then, slowly, he lowered his hands. "All right." Something about that was worse than if he'd argued.

I made it to the bed myself. Barely. The mattress sank beneath me. I reached for the water with both hands because one wasn't enough to stop the cup from shaking.

Aurelius returned to the chair.

He didn't lounge this time. He sat forward with his elbows on his knees, the closed box between his hands, staring at nothing.

The water tasted faintly metallic. My pulse began, little by little, to slow. The shaking didn't.

Neither of us spoke.

I wished he would leave. I didn't want him out of my sight. Both things felt equally true.

Then I remembered his hand against my forehead.

My fingers tightened around the tin. "How much did you see?"

His gaze held mine for a long moment. "Enough."

Heat crawled up my throat. I looked down at the water. "That's not an answer."

"No." Aurelius exhaled slowly. "I saw his teaching methods. Making you cast the same spell again and again until he considered it perfect." His mouth tightened. "Cutting you when it wasn't."

My thumb worried at a loose thread in the blanket. I could feel every scar beneath my shift now, as though naming them had woken them.

I didn't want to ask. But his face had gone pale. "You already knew he did that."

A muscle moved in his jaw. "I did."

Of course. The Inquisition had been hunting Silas for years. Aurelius had known what sort of man he was before he'd ever walked into my cell.

And still he looked like this. I gripped the cup tighter. "What else did you see, Aurelius?"

His gaze shifted away. That was all it took. Something hot and sickening rushed through me.

"My room," It came out barely above a whisper.

Aurelius went very still. I wanted him to tell me I was wrong. He didn't.

"You saw what he did to me there."

His eyes closed briefly. That was answer enough.

The cup slipped in my hands. I caught it before it fell, water spilling cold across my fingers.

Aurelius didn't move to help me. For once, I was grateful.

"I didn't know," I whispered.

His brow drew together. "Didn't know what?"

I stared into the cup. What could I possibly say? That I hadn't known which memories would look ugly from inside someone else's head? That some of them had never felt ugly at all? Silas brushing my hair. Silas teaching me how to cast a ward. Silas carrying me to bed when I was sick.

Silas hurting me. Silas holding me afterward. They didn't stay neatly separated when I remembered them.

"I don't know."

Aurelius was silent for so long I finally looked at him. Whatever I'd expected to find on his face wasn't there.

No disgust. No pity. Something colder. "You were a child."

My stomach clenched. "I wasn't, at the end."

His expression changed. "No," he said quietly. "You were sixteen."

Sixteen.

Silas's study. Rain against the windows. When will you teach me again? I'd practiced the question for three days. The first blow had knocked me into the bookcase.

I blinked, and the cell came back around me.

Aurelius had gone very still.

"You saw that."

"Yes."

My face burned. I wanted to ask which part but the question itself made me feel sick.

Aurelius looked away first. His jaw worked once before he spoke. "I shouldn't have done that." His eyes returned to mine. "Entered your mind."

I almost laughed. The sound that came out wasn't one. "No."

No excuse followed. No explanation about the bracelet or Veyne or whatever he'd found buried inside me. He simply sat there with the admission between us.

I looked at the scratches on his cheek. Three thin marks. My doing. He hadn't punished me for those either. "You called me something."

His brow furrowed. "What did I call you?"

He knew. I could tell he knew. My fingers tightened around the cup. "You know."

His gaze stayed on mine. His voice was quieter when he said, "I want to hear you say it."

My stomach fluttered. I hated that it did. "You called me a good girl."

The words sounded different in my voice.

Aurelius went very still. I stared down at the water. "You'd already seen him say it." My throat tightened. "Before you said it to me."

"Yes."

I made myself look at him. "Did you do it on purpose?"

"No." The answer came immediately.

I searched his face. "You weren't trying to make me..." The rest of the question lodged somewhere behind my teeth.

His expression shifted. "React?"

Heat rushed into my cheeks. "Yes."

"No."

Something in my chest loosened.

Aurelius watched me. His gaze lingered on my face for a fraction too long.

I knew that look now. "What?"

"Nothing."

"That isn't nothing."

One corner of his mouth moved.

My stomach sank. Or fluttered.

I chose sank. "Aurelius."

His eyes warmed. "Good girl."

Heat swept through me so quickly I nearly dropped the cup.

My face burned. "You did that on purpose."

"Yes."

I stared at him. No apology this time. The bastard looked almost pleased with himself. "You said you weren't trying to make me react."

"Before." I hated how calm he sounded.

"You're awful."

"So I've been told."

I should have looked away. Instead, I watched his mouth curve.

The room felt different suddenly.

Or perhaps I did. The warmth hadn't gone away. It lingered low in my stomach, strange and restless, while something softer spread through the rest of me. My shoulders had loosened. My fingers no longer gripped the cup quite so tightly.

Even my thoughts seemed quieter.

I knew that feeling.

My smile faded.

I knew it with Silas. Afterward, sometimes. When the pain was over and he'd gathered me against him. When his fingers moved through my hair and his voice went soft again.

Good girl, Dora.

I'd thought it was him. I'd thought only he could make everything inside me go quiet like that.

But Silas wasn't here. Aurelius was. And my body apparently didn't understand the difference.

I looked down at myself as though it might explain.

"What?" Aurelius's voice made my stomach flutter again.

I frowned at it.

His eyebrows rose.

"Stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"That."

"I spoke."

"I know."

Amusement touched his eyes. "Would you prefer I didn't?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Because no, that wasn't what I wanted at all.

Aurelius stood.

My breath caught.

He crossed the little space between us and stopped in front of me, close enough that the dark fabric of his coat filled my vision. I tipped my head back automatically.

His hand closed around my chin. Not tentative. Not quite gentle either. His fingers settled firmly along my jaw and turned my face up until I had nowhere comfortable to look but at him.

His gaze moved over my face. "Do you want me to stop?"

The question caught me completely unprepared.

I stared at him. His grip didn't loosen. If anything, his thumb settled more firmly beneath my chin, keeping my face tipped toward his.

But he waited.

"No," I whispered.

Something in his expression changed. "No what?"

My stomach tightened. He knew exactly what he was doing now.

"No. I don't want you to stop."

"Good."

Warmth rolled through me again. Aurelius watched it happen. This time, his mouth curved. "Good girl."

My breath caught.

His thumb moved once beneath my chin. Then he let me go.

The loss of his hand startled me more than it should have. My chin lifted after him before I caught myself.

Aurelius's gaze dropped to the movement. "Something wrong?"

"No."

"No?"

I glared at him. "You let go."

"I did."

He waited.

Heat climbed into my face.

His mouth curved faintly. "Would you rather I hadn't?"

I looked down at the cup.

"Isadora."

My eyes lifted to his.

"Would you?"

My pulse beat hard against my throat. "Yes."

"Tell me."

I swallowed. "I wanted you to keep touching me."

"Better." Something darkened in his eyes. He straightened, putting another inch of distance between us. "Put the cup down, Isadora."

I hesitated, then leaned over and set it on the floor beside the bed. When I looked up again, approval had softened the hard line of his mouth. Warmth curled low in my stomach.

Oh. Apparently that worked too.

His smile deepened.

Bastard.

Aurelius hooked one hand around the back of the chair and drew it toward him, turning it neatly before settling into it barely a foot from the bed. He leaned back and crossed one ankle over his opposite knee, looking entirely too comfortable.

I sat very still on the edge of the mattress.

The heat inside me kept building while I waited for him to tell me what came next.

His gaze moved slowly over me.

Then he leaned back. "Make yourself comfortable."

I stared at him. There was something in his voice now, low and measured, that sent heat straight through me.

My eyes flicked toward the door.

"No one will come in." His tone softened, though nothing else about him did. "We are alone."

I looked back at him.

Aurelius held my gaze. "Lean back," he said. "And show me what you wanted from me."

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Heat rushed into my face so violently it seemed to reach the tips of my ears. Aurelius merely watched me, infuriatingly composed. "You couldn't possibly mean--"

"I mean exactly what you think I mean."

My mouth snapped shut.

His gaze didn't leave mine. "Lean back," he said, that same terrible softness in his voice. "Touch yourself the way you wanted me to touch you."

Every coherent thought vanished from my head. "You want me to..."

"I want to watch you come undone, Isadora."

My stomach turned over. He tilted his head slightly. "Unless you don't want me to."

That was the worst part.

Because I did.

My face burned as I shifted backward across the mattress, Aurelius's gaze following me the entire way. I settled against the pillows and drew my knees up, suddenly unable to look anywhere but at him. Then, slowly, I gathered the hem of my shift in trembling fingers.

His attention never left my face.

I swallowed and let my hand disappear beneath the gathered fabric.

A quiet breath escaped me. Something changed in his eyes.

"There," he said softly. "Beautiful."

###

Everything had narrowed to pressure.

To the helpless rhythm of my body chasing it. To cool air against overheated skin and the terrible openness of lying there beneath Aurelius's unwavering attention. I had long since stopped trying to hide from him. There was no room left for embarrassment, no room for anything except the unbearable intensity building tighter and tighter inside me.

His voice reached me through it.

Low. Certain.

I clung to it as the last of my restraint gave way.

Awareness returned by degrees. My trembling legs. My ragged breathing. The mattress beneath me. My whole body shivering through the last fading echoes of something I had never known could feel like this.

For several breaths, neither of us moved.

Then the chair creaked. Aurelius rose and crossed the little distance between us. I was too dazed to do anything but watch as he drew the blanket over my trembling legs and settled one hand against the side of my face.

His thumb brushed my burning cheek. "Good girl."

My eyes closed.

The words still did something to me. But with his hand warm against my face and my body slowly becoming mine again, they didn't feel like Silas's anymore.

And then he left.

Time became difficult to measure after that. Food appeared through the hatch twice a day. Someone brought fresh water once. No one questioned me. No one mentioned the bracelet, or Silas, or the thing Aurelius had found buried inside me. I spent most of those hours beneath the blanket, sleeping when I could and staring at the black stone walls when I couldn't.

On the second morning, the lock turned.

I sat up too quickly.

It wasn't Aurelius.

A clerk entered with two guards and a folded sheet of cream-coloured paper tucked beneath one arm. He didn't sit. He didn't even look at me before breaking the seal.

"Isadora Briar. By order of the Office of the High Inquisitor, your sentence of death has been commuted."

For several seconds, I didn't understand the words.

Then I did. My hands began to shake.

The clerk continued reading. "In consideration of your material value to an active investigation and the ongoing threat to your person, you are hereby remanded into protective custody and compulsory service under the authority of the Crown until such time as the Office determines your confinement is no longer necessary."

I stared at him. "Compulsory service?"

His eyes finally lifted from the page. "You belong to the Inquisition now."