Page 14

“Thief.”

I startle, taking in a gulp of frosty morning air. The rain carries on outside.

“Wake up, thief.” Elivander stands over me in his blue jumpsuit. My skin flushes, fresh as though covered in morning dew, but still warm, and it has nothing to do with the slice of dawn peering through the barred window.

Lying on the floor on my side, I groan and tuck my bare knees closer to my chest. “Go away.”

He scoffs. “I will, but first I have to take you to the Centress. She’s ready for the Hollows.”

“Where? What does she want?”

“To the school in the village. She wants to take back what you stole.”

“What village? I didn’t steal anything.”

“The only village left in Sonnet. There’s not enough of us to need another village. And she disagrees with the stealing.” He pokes the toe of his boot into my ribs and wiggles it around. “Move.”

I grab his boot. “What’s a Hollow?”

He shakes his foot loose and crouches over my curled up body. “Youare a Hollow.” The warmth surrounding me slips into the icy air, and metal fills my mouth again. I flinch when his hand grazes my cheek, at the softness as he pushes the matted hair off my face. Then his fingers clutch my ear, twisting skin and cartilage. “And a thief. Let’s go.”

I pry his hand away.

He stands and smiles down at me as I sit up, glaring. I don’t want to know what awaits me in the village, but being trapped in this room won’t give me a chance to escape.

“Do I get my clothes back? And my boots?”

“I burned them.” He looks me over, eyeing the dirty camisole. A grin wins over his scowl. “You don’t want to go like that?”

I stare at him, convincing myself he can feel the hatred leaking from my eyes.

He moves to the door, waves the silver stone over the lock and pulls it open. “Hurry up. You don’t want to keep the Centress waiting. She’ll get in your head—and it’s painful.”

With no other choice but another battle of wills, likely ending with Elivander undressing himself, I stand and adjust the barely there fabric of the camisole, now a blotchy gray instead of cream colored. I tug it down past my hips, trying to look dignified as I make my way toward the door.

Elivander grips my arm, his fingers easily circling it and squeezing tight as he leads me into the dim hallway. He walksme all of three steps to the door on the other side of the hall and pulls me inside. The lock clicks with a hover of the stone in his hand.

The windowless walls are gray and white marble, the same as the smooth texture of the floor, so foreign on my feet after the rough stone of the black room. Spigots jut from the marble on the far wall, some at foot level, the rest above my head. Wooden buckets with crude metal bases and handles are littered about the puddled floor, rags draped over the sides. Shelves on the opposite wall are stocked with neatly folded clothes and linens—even blankets. Boots, dozens of pairs of varying sizes, are stowed below the bottom shelf, their twisty laces strewn about like roots. A pile of clothes sits atop a tiny stool in the middle of the room.

“There were clean clothes one room away, and you left me in this?” My face tightens, my eyes bulging as I gesture to the now stretched and saggy underwear hanging from my hips. “And you let me shiver all fucking day and night instead of giving me a damn blanket?”

His brows furrow, deep lines creasing under his curls. “You’re my prisoner.” He shrugs.

“I’m a person!” I yank out of his grasp, and he lets me…because where am I going to go in yet another locked room?

“You’re a Hollow, and the Centress would like you less filthy.”

I roll my neck, trying to push away the imaginary fingers fluttering over it. I shoot him a glance, then the spigots and the buckets and the drains. My heart knots, shoving blood through kinks and loops. “No.”

“It’s not optional.” His boots splash through the standing water as he takes hold of me again and drags me toward the wall of spigots.

The water is cold on my bare feet, but I hardly feel it—or anything at all—as he positions me in front of the wall. I’m stuckin place, my chest hollowing out, my head trying to block the memories. The water. The tears. The voices.

“On or off?” he asks, his eyes traveling down to the camisole before his arm reaches past me to the handle.

All I manage is to shake my head, silently pleading for him not to turn on the water.

But he does.