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Doesn’t he remember that he refused Isaac’s proposal, too? I couldn’t possibly have said yes, and yet he’s acting like it’s all my fault.

“I had to refuse Isaac’s offer of marriage.” I keep an even, congenial tone, my gaze not rising past his chest to create the perfect picture of a meek and dutiful daughter. “But I never?—”

“You’re soiled, aren’t you?” he spits out, the word bitter and all-consuming.

I blink, desperately holding on to my princess mask to hide all the rage simmering just beneath the surface. I know better than to argue with him when he’s in this state, and I keep my gaze glued to the ground. If only I was anywhere but here.

“You let that disgusting Fae bed you.”

My gaze snaps up, my thoughts of corn fields and soft lips erased by the disgust in his voice. He’s my father and king, but right now, he’s nothing more than a drunk who let his guilt and fear take over his rational mind.

“No!” I declare with as much indignation as I can muster.

He considers me for a moment, his glassy eyes distant and cold. “From now on, you shall remain in your room, and your sister will not visit you. Esme will bring you food, and you can bathe at night, when your sister is sleeping.”

Oh no… When I imagined all the ways he could punish me for my bravado, I thought of everything but this, and I fail to mask the biggest wince.

“It was a mistake to let you influence her. I should have separated you two the moment you left.”

The ball of saliva in my throat burns with grievances, but I hold on tight. “It’s not what mother would have wanted?—”

“Don’t argue with me. You’re lucky I don’t send you away altogether. I should have never agreed to that bet.”

It’s not the first time he says it, but I'm finally brave enough to answer, “Don’t you realize how I feel when you say that? If you hadn’t made the deal, I would never have been born.”

His eyes flash with something worse than hatred. “Yes, and it would have spared me a lot of grief.” He waves me off to my room, refilling his cup, and I put one foot in front of the other on my way out of the room.

Now that my worst nightmare has become reality, what am I supposed to do? Count down the minutes until I break the rules and sneak into her room? Even if he locks the door from the outside, I still have the window…

Or I could go back to Faerie and visit Cece’s dreams?

A dangerous thought crosses my mind.

Why wait?

If I’m supposed to remain locked inside my room for the next four days, what’s stopping me from going back to Faerie early?

Instead of threading back upstairs, I wrap myself in a cloak of shadows and run for the basement with my mask safely tucked in my skirts.

Once there, I press it to my face and grab the quill and ink I left down here. Sweat gathers above my brow as I draw the runes for “Fae” and “Faerie” on my lower arm, but in my haste, I fudge the “Faerie” rune slightly at the edge.

The icy depths of the sceawere swallow me whole, and I take a minute to find my footing in the maze of glass. The distortion of a hundred peephole views of the castles, both here and in Faerie, blur together.

I feel colder than I’ve ever felt, the tips of my fingers numb as I tear through the moonlit reflection of the trainee’s balcony and fall to my hands on the paved stones.

The Hawthorn’s leaves are still as a corpse, the fall evening crisp and silent.

“Nell! Nell, are you alright?” Lori’s voice pierces the night. She jumps to her feet and runs up to me, wearing her huntress uniform and stretchy gloves. She kneels beside me, and her eyes buzz around the quiet balcony like she expects to find nightmares on my tail.

Trembling like I’ve been blown in by a storm, I shift to my knees. “Oh, Lori…”

A few pieces of rock dig into my palm, and I bring them closer to my chest as Lori wraps both arms around me. “What happened?”

I hide my face in her lap, and a few strangled cries rock my body. “Isaac decided to marry someone else, and somehow my father blames me. He thinks that I’m ruined. Soiled. That’s what he called it. That’s how he thinks of me now.”

The panic I barely held in back home quakes through me, one bitter wave at a time, and Lori tightens her hold around me. “Oh, Nell… I’m so sorry. It’s not true. It’s horseshit, like you’d say. Look at me.”

I force the sniffles to taper off and meet her gaze.