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Hours? Days? Fey wasn’t even sure. More than once, though, someone had brought her food and something to drink. She hadn’t touched any of it. There was no point.

She was dead.

That’s what her sisters would think, anyway. And it wasn’t far from the truth, was it? Her heart was still beating, but what did it matter anymore? What did anything matter anymore?

Everything she was, everything that defined her, was gone. She wasn’t a Queen’s Blade. She didn’t have her sisters, had lost that incredible connection that they had shared. She wasn’t anything, not anymore.

She was empty. A broken husk of a Witch.

Fey heard steps descending the stairs on the other side of the basement but couldn’t bring herself to care. Whatever they brought her, she wouldn’t eat. Wouldn’t drink.

She was already dead. Now she was just waiting for her body to catch up.

The steps grew closer and closer, finally stopping just a few feet away.

“You really should eat something,” Alice said. She almost sounded concerned. Fey could have laughed at that, laughed at the idea that Alice cared about her at all.

“Fuck off,” Fey told her. The words burned in her sore throat.

Alice sighed and crouched down closer.

I could kill her, Fey realized. Alice was close enough that Fey could have reached out and touched her. I could kill her and pray to the Goddess she has the key to my shackles on her. I could escape. Run back to the palace, back to my sisters...

But her muscles didn’t move.

What’s the point of escaping when I’m already dead? she thought.

“At least let me clean that,” Alice said, motioning toward her arm, toward the cut that she’d made. “You don’t want it to get infected, and this room isn’t exactly clean.”

Fey didn’t answer. After a long while, Alice sighed again.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her words barely audible.

Then she stood, turning as though to leave.

“Why?” Fey asked. Her voice was hoarse. She raised her head from the ground to look at Alice’s back. “Why do it, then? Why do this to me if you’re so damned sorry?”

Alice turned, blinking hard, and for a moment Fey was sure there were tears in her eyes.

“I didn’t have a choice, Fey. Believe me. They can find you if you’re connected, you know. I don’t know if our sisters have figured it out yet, but it’s how I always found you. And I can’t risk that, not yet. I can’t risk bringing them here.”

Fey sat up slowly, and the room tilted around her as she did so. Her head hurt and there was a dull throbbing behind her eyes that got worse when she moved. As if she could sense it, Alice grabbed a bottle of water from near Fey’s food and brought it to her.

“Here,” she insisted, holding it out.

I shouldn’t drink it, Fey thought. I should just lay back down and die.

But she didn’t. She took the bottle from Alice, twisting the cap open and drinking half of it in one go. It wasn’t cold anymore. It was room temperature and had the plastic aftertaste of bottled water, but it felt so soothing against her throat. Her headache lessened, just a bit.

Alice watched her, silently. Then sank back to the ground to sit across from her.

“Why not just kill me?” Fey asked. “Why even bother keeping me here alive?”

Horror filled Alice’s eyes as she shook her head violently, like she could shake the words away. “How can you even ask me that, Fey? I don’t want you dead. I could never hurt you.”

Fey raised an eyebrow as she held up her arm, mockingly, the shackle trapping her there speckled with dried blood from the cut on her arm.

Alice at least had the decency to wince.