Page 48 of Even Robots Die (Even Ever After #3)

Florentine

I wake up in a room that I don’t recognize.

My mind is a bit fuzzy, but that’s not the reason why.

The walls are made of old stones, and for a second, I think I’m back in Blois’ castle.

Except if I were there, there would be no reason for them to put me in a room that’s not mine.

I shift in the bed and that’s when I feel my skin rebelling at the movement in two different spots.

The events of the day come to my mind in rapid fire.

I should be in much more pain.

I should be in a hospital bed.

How long have I been out?

There is no one in this damn room, and I have no idea how I ended up here. Are my sisters safe? What happened after I passed out? And where the hell am I?

My breathing grows erratic with all of the questions spinning in my mind and I have to sit up in bed.

“Oh, you’re awake. I thought it would take longer. The doctor said it would take longer, but I’m glad you’re already up. I should go get my dad, then.”

Cassiopé’s voice pulls me out of my spiraling mind and I try to get my breathing back under control as my heart beats against my ribcage like a war drum.

And then something that she just said occurs to me.

“Your dad is here?”

Shouldn’t he still be in Blois? What about his brain going all crazy if he’s in Elhyor’s vicinity?

As if she can read all of my questions on my face—truthfully, I must look horrified right now—she hurries to answer.

“Elhyor left the city with Angélique as soon as Dad called me to say he was on his way.”

“Why?” I ask.

Cassiopé looks a bit lost.

“Why did Elhyor leave?”

“No. Why did he come?” I ask again.

I don’t need to tell her who ‘him’ is. She immediately understands and looks almost sorry to tell me.

“He kinda went berserker when he learned you got shot. Daniel is probably hiding as we speak because he doesn’t want to face his wrath.”

“What the hell happened while I was out?” I ask without expecting an answer.

But with Cassiopé being Cassiopé, she can’t prevent herself from answering.

“I’d say my Dad trusted Daniel to keep you safe, and he monumentally screwed up. It’s not your fault …”

“No, it’s not my fault indeed. It’s your dad’s fault,” I stop her mid-sentence.

And maybe it’s a bit my fault too. I should have known that in the few weeks I had disappeared in Blois, things wouldn’t have gotten any better, and that coming back home with a bat-shifter wasn’t the best idea. But Brice should have known, too.

He said he had spies and whatnot in Paris. I believed him. I believed it was for my own safety that Daniel was coming with me, but now I see how flawed this plan of his was.

“I want to see him,” I say with steel in my voice.

“Okay,” Cassiopé says before she opens the door and there, right behind it, is Brice.

“I don’t want to hear what you have to say,” I tell him before he can utter a single word.

“Bring my sisters here. I don’t know what you need to do or organize to make sure it happens, but I want them here.

You made me come back with a shape-shifter in tow.

You made me put them in a risky situation. Fix it. Now.”

Cassiopé gasps at the tone I’m using with her dad, but I don’t care. This needs to be addressed. I almost died because Daniel was there. I’m pretty sure things would have been totally different if I had come home on my own.

I won’t forgive myself if anything happens to the girls.

Brice doesn’t say anything though, and he looks at me as if I shouldn’t be moving—because obviously I’ve already discarded the thin bed sheet that was covering me and I’m standing with my butt resting on the side of the bed.

I’d like to stand completely, but my head is spinning slightly and I don’t want to take the risk of falling while I boss Brice around.

Except Brice does something I didn’t expect.

“Warn them that she is awake,” he says through his holo as he looks me in the eye.

A few seconds pass where it’s just me and him and the silence of the room. He looks like he wants to come closer but won’t let himself do so. Or maybe I’m imagining it.

In any case, it only lasts a few seconds before noise reaches me from the corridor.

“Stop being an ass, Elodie.”

I recognize Juliette’s voice as Amélie comes into view through the door opening.

“There was no need for all that yelling,” Brice tells me with a smirk before he sees himself out as my sisters pour inside the room.

It occurs to me that I still don’t know for sure where I am. I have an inkling of an idea, but I should have asked Cassiopé when she was there, just to be sure.

“See, she’s alright. Now can we go?” Elodie says, and if she wasn’t my sister, I probably would strangle her for those words.

“I don’t think it’s safe to go,” Coralie says almost too quietly.

“What happened?" I ask.

“We were chilling at home when those guys broke the door down. They tied us down and gagged us and were waiting for some kind of confirmation for extraction. And then there was another group that broke inside and killed everyone. You should see the living room. It’s ruined!

They had no respect for our home whatsoever.

There’s blood everywhere and I’m not even sure they took care of the bodies.

And then they brought us here,” Elodie says, and I’m pretty sure I look as flabbergasted as I feel.

Elodie seems to think my face is like this because I agree with her but no, what shocks me is the fact that the only thing she seems to care about is going back home and blaming the people who—if I understood correctly—saved them from being taken prisoner by the birds.

Next to her, Amélie and Juliette look a bit pale, as if they haven’t gotten over what has happened already, and Coralie is back to being quiet.

“You do realize that they saved your life?” I ask after a few seconds.

“They wouldn’t have needed to save our lives if you hadn’t come home with a bat-shifter,” Elodie bites back as she crosses her arms under her breast.

I deserved that one.

“If you had come and found Dad when we asked, it never would have happened,” she adds.

That one was unfair, though.

“I couldn’t even move. How would I have been able to find him?” I ask, at a loss for words.

“You’re here now. Do your trick and find him,” Elodie says with a shrug and I still don’t know what to say to that.

I choose to change the subject instead.

“Are you all okay? Did any of you get hurt in the attack?”

“Only a few scratches,” Amélie answers as Cassiopé enters again.

I’m relieved to know nothing bad happened to the girls. The living room is ruined, maybe, but it’s only material loss. We’ll find a way. I’ll use the money I set aside from Brice and we’ll get new furniture. It’s okay. It was more fear than real damage.

“She needs to rest,” Cassiopé says. “Order of the doctor.”

Without arguing, the girls leave the room and I’m back to being alone with just Cassiopé.

“How are you feeling?” she asks me.

“Tired. And itchy. Does it always itch while healing?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she answers with a small smile. “I only need to shift to heal.”

I nod.

“We’re in Notre Dame, right?" I ask her.

“Yes, but enough questions. You do need to rest or it won’t heal correctly. There’s still about ten minutes on the timer the doctor set, and you’ve already moved more than you should have.”

Cassiopé helps me back onto the bed and retrieves a blanket that she sets next to me on the bed.

“You should sleep,” she tells me before she walks to the door. “I'll make sure you’re not bothered for a while.”

Then she leaves and closes the door after her.

And when the silence settles over me in this room, that’s not mine, it occurs to me that none of my sisters asked if I was okay. Elodie only had reproaches to make, but none of the others had much to say.

I realize that the only person who asked me how I felt was basically a stranger to me.

Cassiopé.

And I don’t know how I should feel about that.