Page 230

But they’d reached the main floor, and he wasn’t pulling her to the front door. He was pulling her to the kitchen, and she didn’t understand what was happening.

“Luka and Axel are right. This isn’t working,” he muttered. “I try to be reasonable; you throw it back in my face. I try to give you space; you still refuse to give even a little bit. I push; you push back.”

“Theon—”

“I’m done trying, Tessa,” he snapped, his words growing more clipped the longer he spoke. “You have single-handedly ruined plans that I have spent years formulating.”

“I didn’t know—”

“It’s not your place to know!” he shouted, yanking open the pantry door.

“Theon…”

But when he reached for the door that would lead down to the wine cellar, her heart rate picked up. “Theon, wait. Please. Just wait.”

She dug in her heels, trying to find something to grab onto with her other hand as he pulled her down the steps into the cellar. It was a small, windowless space with stone walls and low lighting. There were two racks full of wine, with hardly enough room to move between them. The space was cool to keep the wine chilled, cold on her bare feet.

“Theon, why are we down here?” She could hardly speak, unable to keep her voice from wavering.

“I am going running. Luka is taking care of Pen, and Axel has left. You have repeatedly proven you cannot be trusted to be left alone.”

“I won’t go anywhere,” she pleaded, clawing at his arm as he released his grip on her elbow. “Please don’t, Theon!”

But his shadows were peeling her off of him, dragging her away from him, shoving her to the cold floor.

“Theon, don’t.” Tears were streaming down her face, and all she could do was say the same thing over and over. “Please don’t. Please don’t make me stay down here.”

He slowly lowered to a crouch before her, his emerald eyes chips of hard stone as he brushed her hair back from her face. Hope bubbled up when he stared at her, and then it shattered when he said, “I told you there would be harsher consequences. If only I’d known this was all I had to do from the beginning.”

Then he was taking the stairs two at a time, the door banging shut behind him. His darkness went with him, and she was scrambling up the stairs. But the door was locked, and she was screaming as she pounded on it. She was stuck, trapped within these walls. No windows. No way out. And she could hardly get down air. Just like when Mother Cordelia would withhold air.

There was no one to hear her cries.

Theon had left.

Axel had left.

Luka had left.

Alone.

Completely alone.

This was why hope was pointless.

This was why she didn’t bother caring about anything.

This was why she wished for death.

She stumbled back down the stairs, dropping to her knees as she ran her hands along the floor. She wasn’t made to be kept inside. She needed to be out. She needed to be able to see the sky, feel the wind.

There had to be a way out, out, out.

But there wasn’t.

There were no cracks in the marble floor. Her fingernails cracked and bled as she clawed at the stone walls, trying to find some place that she could dig. That she could do something.

But there was nothing.