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“Never!”

Eli.I’m pulled from the vision, life hammering back into me with the throbbing of my squashed fingers. I try to crawl backward to escape the pile of porcelain I’m buried beneath, but my skin slices in a dozen spots.

“Never what?” a man says.

He’s talking to me, jerk.

The guard digs through the broken teacups from the barrel to get to me, clearing enough porcelain to find my head and shoulders. He yanks me out of the mess and wraps a bloody arm around my neck. Eli is splayed on the ground beyond the doorway to the atrium, his pack and knife tossed aside and the guard who took Milo and me from the lake perched on his back.

“Godsdamn Eye of Malachite, Rayde,” Eli yells as his head is whacked into the white stone.

The guard he called Rayde rolls up the sleeves of his black jumpsuit, grips Eli’s curls and smashes his head down again. Bone on stone.

My mouth fills with saliva. “Get the fuck off him!”

Eli’s back is to me as Rayde drags him away, arms kinked, but his words still find their way to me. “You willneverbe their prisoner.”

My heart trips.Only yours.

Footsteps thud across the atrium, the accompanying voice too familiar. “Lock them up,” my mother says. “And Jace—you fail me again, you’re dead.”

Chapter

Fifty-Two

Jace comes for me, her face pinched with wrath and still bearing Sola’s blue-gray handprints on either cheek—now wrinkled and peeling. Her rapid steps are unhindered, even in the fitted jumpsuit. “Give her to me.”

The guard hands me over with a grunt and a shove, a deep scowl on his face as he watches Jace haul me backward across the atrium. We pass the Centress, rolling her neck and tapping her foot as if the art of abduction bored her.

Jace pushes me through the door of a birthing room and slams me into the wall, knocking my head against the white marble. The room is like the one Milo and I were locked in—windowless walls and a narrow bed in the center with stained sheets, guardrails and chains. She holds me against the coldmaterial with a hand to my throat, her eyes twitching, pressing until my airway closes. I fight the tears building up from the pain and try to pull her fingers away, cursing my weakness. She lifts a knee, and with a hateful grin, smashes it into my hip, pinning me in place.

“There’s no one left to save you, Hollow. I hope I get to be the one to finish you off when the Centress is done with you.” Drops of spit hit my face as she speaks.

She still thinks I’m a Hollow.

Knowing she’ll let me live doesn’t stop the panic of not being able to breathe, the urgency. Tears fall in warm streaks down my cheeks. Black spots dot my vision. Pressure builds. I can’t find the fight in me that surfaces when I’m with Eli.

The door opens.

“That’ll do, Jace,” the Centress says, tossing her hair behind her shoulder.

Jace releases my throat, then cradles my head and conks it into the wall again. My brain rattles. Lights twinkle behind my eyelids as I gasp for air. She tugs my head forward, and I brace myself for another blow, but she gathers two fistfuls of my hair and pulls, distorting the handprints on her cheeks with the glowering look she gives me. With a final breath of hot rage in my face, she drops her knee from my hip and frees my hair.

The Centress steps to the side, letting Jace leave, then closes the door. I wince at each heavy lungful of breath, my back flat to the wall, and let my gaze roll to her midnight eyes and fair face.

“You’ve caused quite a stir in Sonnet, Everielle.” She tilts her head to the side, inspecting my baggy black clothes. She wears black as well, a sweeping dress with long sleeves and a high-cut collar.

I refuse to give her the satisfaction of a response. If only she couldn’t see the tears still dripping from my jaw, hear the rasp inmy throat. I want to ask about Kelter and the others, but I hold back and focus on sharpening the daggers in my wet eyes.

“Calm yourself, love. I have to thank you.”

“For what?” I bite my tongue at my lack of control.

“For returning my rogue guard, of course. All Eli had to do was wake things up in you and bring you back to me.” She purses her pale lips, and her words wrap around my throat, taking my breath. “It was a simple command—take you from the cell, hide you away who-knows-where and finish the job for me without the eyes of every Vaile on you. I couldn’t let anyone else see what you possess. As disturbing as Eli is, he was the convenient choice with a history of loyalty and already your guard, but oh—” She clicks her tongue. “What a mistake.”

No.He wouldn’t do anything for her beyond his regular job. He may have been selfish, taking me from the black room and locking me up for his own reasons, but to helpher? He couldn’t. My arms and legs tingle, all the blood rushing to my face.

“No.”