Page 42 of Cruel Master

Zero.

I stare at the door.

Any second now. If Saldar is one thing, it’s punctual. I push my hair behind my shoulder and count. The timer sits locked to zero, and I stare at it, counting in my head. Thirty seconds. One minute. Two.

This isn’t right.

I shiver, deep dread shuddering up my spine and into my limbs. Something is wrong here. Very, very wrong. Saldar didn’t set this game up just to miss the chance to make his grand entrance. It makes no sense.

He should be here.

Panic hits, scrabbly and raw. Until right this moment, I felt a weird kind of safe. Notsafesafe, but safe as far as the rules of Saldar’s game went. I understood them. I knew how things should go.

Now I’m just trapped in some cave, all alone.

“Saldar! Someone!” My voice is raw and scratchy. “Is anyone there? Please. Someone answer!”

Chapter Seventeen

Hadrian

Everythinghurts.

Muscles I didn’t know I have scream at me as I roll onto my side. My head aches worse than the time Juliet and I drank the bottle of cooking brandy her mother used for making cakes. I didn’t drink much last night. Did I? I can’t…

Memories roll in fast. The cramps. The agony. Collapsing.

I try to open my eyes, but what feels like the surface of the sun greets me when I do. I squeeze them shut again. Even breathing hurts. What happened? How long was I out?

Oh no. Juliet.

I force my eyes open again, this time pushing through the pain. Gradually, my eyes adjust, and I’m greeted with a white ceiling and bright lights. The air smells of disinfectant. I’m in Medical. The door opens, and Doctor Richard rushes in. I spent a lot of time with him while designing my Saldar costume.

“Hadrian! I’m glad to see you’re awake. Nasty business, strychnine poisoning. Not enough to be fatal but—”

“Strychnine?” My voice croaks, and speaking is like a razor on the inside of my throat. I’ve heard of it, but I associate it with old-fashioned murder mysteries, not something that actually happens to people.

“I’m afraid so. In one of your drinks. Your friend Jacob is interviewing everyone who was at the bar.”

“Someone tried to kill me?”

I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

I wasn’t crazy.

Doctor Richard teeters his hand from side to side. “I don’t believe so, but it’s a close-run thing. You consumed enough to make you very sick but not enough for it to be lethal. Information on the poison is readily available, so I’d assume the smaller dose was deliberate. If they’d wanted to kill you, they could have just added a much larger dose.”

If they wanted me dead, I would be.

I run a hand through my hair, fear wrapping spidery webs around me. I can’t linger, though. Processing this will need to wait. “I need to go. My Ward, she’s all alone.”

“Absolutely not. You’re badly dehydrated and need—”

“I can’t leave her—”

“Hadrian, let me finish. Sebastian and Gabriel checked on her. She’s fine. The kitchen staff are delivering her food. She can wait another couple of hours.”

“What time is it?” I struggle to sit as I ask the question, despite the doctor’s disapproving glare. Before he answers, the wall clock confirms my greatest fears.