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Listlessly, I swing my gaze toward the window, finding a cold, dreary sky.

“Oh.” Stella pauses, the heavy brocade of the curtain still clutched in her hands. Outside, rain is pelting the window. She shrugs. “Okay then, rise and gloom, because it’s almost three in the afternoon, and we’ve got a jam-packed evening! What do you say we begin with a trip to the solarium, hm?” When no response arrives, she turns to me, meeting my gaze.

Gradually, all of her chipper spirit plummets away.

“Hey,” she begins, deflating as she perches on the side of the bed. “I know the other night was…” She glances down at her wringing hands. “Well, it was a nightmare. I’m not going to put any sugar on it. I managed to buy you some time with the King and his staff, but Verity,” she says, eyes pleading. “You need to eat. You need to take care of yourself. And somehow, you have to find a way to plan this ridiculous Valentine’s Day party, because there’s only three days left. You can’t just give up.”

That’s exactly what I’ve done, in fact.

I didn’t even get dressed after the shower. I allowed her to tuck me into this bed, and aside from a few trips to the bathroom, more than once to dry heave into the toilet, I haven’t moved since. I didn’t even realize a day and a half had passed until just now.

“What are they gonna do?” I ask, voice full of gravel. “Kill me?” The smile I give her is flat, but feels utterly jagged, and from the flash of panic in her eyes, she sees it.

At this point, death would be a mercy.

“You listen to me, Verity Sinclaire,” she says, the words hard. “You’re no pampered little East End socialite. You’re West End. You’re a fighter!”

The laugh scratches its way from my throat, dry and rough. Those are the same words I used to bolster myself that first week in this Palace. “Who am I going to fight, Stella? My Princes? Their King? Myself, for stabbing them in the back?” Rolling over, I wrench the blanket up to my chin, putting my back to her. “You should go. He’ll be here soon.”

She touches my hair. “Who?”

“Wicker,” I say. It makes sense that Pace didn’t come yesterday. After all, he’d already made his second deposit this week. But Wicker? “If it’s really Saturday, then he’ll be coming.”

After a pause, Stella’s fingers catching on my knotted hair, she says, “Prince Wicker isn’t here. None of them are.”

My eyebrows knit together. “What?”

“They’re at the All-Eastern tournament,” she explains, picking through a mat in my hair. “They won’t be back until late Monday.”

I turn to peer up at her. “When did they leave?”

“Thursday night. Right after…” Her eyes shutter and she sighs, dropping my knotted lock of hair. “I’ll try to clear the rest of your day today. But tomorrow, you’ll have to leave this room. Perhaps we’ll start with that trip to the solarium. You love the solarium!” Standing, she nods at the bedside table. “And please, eat?”

I follow her gaze to the covered tray I haven’t even considered touching. “I can’t.” Every time I close my eyes, I swear I can still feel them on me, the hot splash of semen tickling like a phantom illness that sends me scurrying back to the bathroom.

In a hopeful tone, Stella adds, “Danner can have anything made. He wants to. He’s been asking after you.”

It’s shame more than bile that rises up my throat. It takes me a long while to swallow it down, breathing through the urge to purge it. “I can’t,” I say again.

I can’t look Danner in the eye. He’ll know what happened to me. He’ll know what I did to instigate it. That I did it on his watch. He’ll look at me with those gentle eyes and see something less than Verity Sinclaire. He’ll see a traitor. He’ll see a victim.

I’m not sure which is worse.

It takesa long time for the idea to percolate in my head. Mostly because my thoughts are constantly invaded by the memory of the Royal Cleansing, but also because a part of me isn’t sure it’s worth it.

In the end, it’s desperation that drives me from the bed that night, slipping into the soft, worn clothes Stella left here for me two nights ago. There isn’t any hope behind it. No optimism. Nofight.

It’s just that if there’s one thing that can be salvaged from all of this, then it has to be this.

Ithasto be.

I open my door and cringe against the sconces in the hallway. They’re not bright, but my temples throb with the glow of them. Padding down to the door that leads to their rooms, my heart begins hammering frantically against my ribs. Stella said they were gone, but what if they aren’t? What if I open that door and they’re all inside, waiting?

What are they gonna do? Kill me?

It’s become my new mantra, and no matter how concerned it made Stella to hear it, the general sentiment is true. Unless this works, I have nothing left to lose.

When I push the door open, I’m strung tight in anticipation of finding someone on the other side. Luckily, all that greets me is their dark, vacant sitting room. I tiptoe out of instinct toward Pace’s room, the open door about as inviting as a guillotine.