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Did he mean Taina? Or Odessa?

Perhaps both.

Either way, as he left the Great Hall, as he left me standing there alone, it was clear he blamed me for it all.

None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for me.

I was a mistake.

I should never have existed.

If I had gone with Sarrasine tonight as soon as she had asked, perhaps this all might have been avoided. At least she had claimed to want me.

Or if I had said no and run when I’d had the chance, I might have been able to stop things, too. Odessa would never have mounted those tower steps.

But instead, I had done neither. I had wavered back and forth, trusting my aunt like a foolish girl. Until choices were taken and Odessa was dead.

Now I was trapped. In a place no one wanted me. With death all around me.

I was responsible. For whatever had happened to Taina. For Odessa’s death.

I had brought all of this upon them. Simply by being born.

Why had my mother done this to me? Why had she given birth to me simply to leave me? Had she known I would grow up in this way, an unnatural, unwanted child?

I stumbled out of the Great Hall and down a new corridor.

I could have gone outside, sought out Sir Ector or Dame Halyna. But what would have been the point? I doubted they wanted to see me either.

Were they thinking about me? Soon, Crescent would find them and tell them what I had done. They would hate me then, too.

But not as much as I hated myself.

I went slowly up a narrow staircase and out into a corridor on the second level of the castle, above the Great Hall.

It was quiet here, too, but at least there were no bodies. The hallway was empty.

I passed chamber after chamber with the doors left open. The beds inside were empty, covers turned back as if people had fled quickly.

If everyone else was gone, shouldn’t I leave, too? But where would I go? And why bother? There was nothing left to hurt me here.

I passed another room and glanced into the open doorway.

This bed wasn’t empty. Someone was sleeping in it.

I paused, curious despite myself.

I took a step closer, standing in the doorway. Should I rouse them from their slumber? Or let them continue to sleep now that the trouble seemed to be over?

I stepped into the room. It was a lavish chamber, one of the most luxurious I had seen in the castle. Finer than my own. All of the trim was gold, and the bed was made of carved mahogany.

It was a room fit for royalty. I realized where I was and who this must be.

Intrigued now, I moved towards the bed.

A boy was sleeping in it.

He had long, light-brown hair that spilled over the pillow. It looked as if it had been a long time since it had last been trimmed.