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Suddenly, Lex is behind me, palm pressed to my cheek. “Remember what I said to you before?” he asks, forcing me to face him. His eyes aren’t like Pace’s—dark and empty. They’re alight with a fire I’m not used to seeing there. It’s fervent, bright with conviction, willing me to follow his words. “Our son can’t live here.Wecan’t follow him to West End. No kingdom will have us.”

Leaning close, Pace explains, “Lex can go to med school, and become a surgeon. I’ll go into IT. Wicker can still apply for law school.”

Wicker meets my gaze next. “We’re going to make a nice life for you.”

“Both of you,” Lex adds, and it isn’t until his thumb sweeps across my cheek that I realize I’m crying.

God, I’m so tired of crying. “This is it, isn’t it?” I look at Pace, remembering his words from that day in the dungeon. “You’re putting me intoyourcage.”

Whatever desperation might have been in Pace’s eyes, they shutter completely. He cuts the ignition, his jaw hardening. “Thirty minutes,” he says, not even having the guts to look at me. “You say a fucking word about this to Danner—toanyone—and we’re all dead.” His eyes dart down to my stomach. “And you’ll never see this baby alive.”

That’s the last thing he says to me as they all begin climbing out of the car.

* * *

I turn,taking in the big, opulent room I’ve been calling my own for the past six months.

The first time I walked through the doors, I was hurt. Full of nerves, but too numb to properly feel them. Alone, exhausted, and humiliated.

Tonight is much the same.

The big, creepy bed, which once seemed so sterile and overwhelming, now calls to me in the strangest way. It’s been witness to so much. Painful things, for sure, but also gentle, safe, secret things. I wonder how many Princesses have found tenderness in it, and how impossible such a thing must be. Was the shine of being a Princess always a lie? Could anything so pure as love ever be created in the midst of something so wretched?

There are clothes strewn about the room. Wicker’s socks on the floor. Pace’s hoodie slung around a bedpost. Lex’s hair ties on the nightstand. A half-empty cup of tea is spoiling on the dresser from where Stella left it.

Her absence throbs inside my chest like a slowly failing organ.

Did they get rid of her so there wouldn’t be a witness?

No.No. That’s fucking crazy.

Pace told me himself. They aren’t killers by nature. They’re torturers. This couldn’t haveallbeen a lie. Some of it, yes. Most of it, maybe.

But not that.

What I need is air, time to think, and the flutter of butterfly wings. Luckily, the three of them are off in Pace’s room, gathering his equipment, so I don’t think twice about going to my dresser and finding the burner phone buried inside a box of tampons.

A plan forming, I walk over to the bed, struggling to recall the gemstones I watched Wicker press before smashing them. A moment later, the wall parts, revealing the small, musty panic room. I step inside, close the door, and turn on my phone’s flashlight. It takes a minute to find the tiny lever that slides the wall away, but I do it quickly, silently, with only the pounding of my heart in my ears.

I have less than twenty minutes.

I’m shocked at how well I know my way through the inner maze, noticing landmarks that identify different exits back into the house. Ignoring them all, I march to the one that’s most familiar: the stairway down to the solarium.

The cicadas are singing when I step out, the sun barely a glow of memory in the sky. Crouching in the one spot where I know I can’t be seen or heard, I take out my phone, pressing the number programmed underInstar.

It rings. And rings. And rings.

I’m about to hang up when a voice answers, loud, pulsing music in the background.

“Verity?”

“Lav, oh my God.” I jolt in surprise. “I thought you weren’t going to answer.”

“I’m at the tower. Are you coming?”

“No. I need to talk to you—”

“Hold on,” she says, and then more muffled, “Nick,Jesus, give me a minute, okay?”