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My smile grows, turning mean. Then I chuck my bowl at the bars, the gruel splashing against his face. “Fuck you, pig.”

I never would’ve guessed beforehand, but I don’t make a very good prisoner.

For one second, the guard does nothing, his face shocked. And then he lets out a lion’s roar, rushing at the bars.

I spin to my feet, ignoring a wave of dizziness that rushes through me, just as he makes a grab for me. His hand closes on nothing but air.

“You filthy, vile slave!” he bellows. “I could kill you right now! Right where you stand!”

Light ripples across my skin as my siren surfaces.

“Could you kill me?” I say, my musical voice taunting. “Why don’t you come in and find out?”

He roars again. Because obviously he can’t lay a finger on me. Not the one bargaining chip Karnon believes he has over Des.

“Or are you scared?” I lean against one of the stone walls. “The lion who’s scared of a little woman.”

He snarls, banging against the bars until another soldier—one with horse ears—pulls him away, flashing me a glare that’s supposed to scare me. But nothing is more frightening than the fate that already awaits me.

I watch them walk away, glad for once that my siren fears nothing and no one. Animals can scent that kind of thing, and that’s what these guards are—part animal. Not so different from Eli when it comes down to it.

I slide down the wall, leaning my head back against it. I’m exhausted, and it’s only been what? A day?

This place breaks us fast.

“Psst, human,” a female voice calls from the cell next to mine once the guards’ voices have disappeared, “are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I call back weakly. My skin’s stopped shining, and all of the strength that comes with the siren has fled, leaving me exhausted.

“That was brave, what you did there. Rash—stupid even—but also brave.”

I manage a laugh. I don’t know much about fae, but rolling an insult into a compliment seems like something they would do.

I lean my head back against the wall. “What’s your name?” I ask her.

“Aetherial,” she says. “Yours?”

“Callypso.”

“You’re new here, huh?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I sigh out, my eyes moving to those tally marks.

“How many times have you met the Fauna King?” she asks after a beat of silence.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one that got special visits with him. I’d figured as much.

“Just once.”

“Oh, fun’s only beginning for you,” she says.

That makes me crack a smile. My fellow inmates are faewarriors. These women are the toughest of the tough. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that. I’d only associated them with the sleeping women trapped inside those glass coffins. I hadn’t thought that they might’ve fought their fate every bit as much as I was planning to. But right now, hearing Aetherial make light of our terrible situation, I remember.

“How many times have you met him?” I ask.

“Four,” she says. “I’ve lost movement in my arms and legs. He takes out those first. Doesn’t want his women to be difficult.”

“That’s what that kiss was?” I say, surprised. That, after all, was the only time Karnon forced his magic on me. “A way to immobilize us?” I wiggle my fingers and toes as I speak. I haven’t lost any use of my limbs.