Page 48 of The Secrets of Jane: Reborn

My body tenses when they’re rough with Anya, pulling on her hair to straighten out her neck, stretching the vulnerability of her throat. Dad unsheathes a blade, indenting Anya’s cheek with it, who merely sneers in response. “Then explainher.”

“Only if you state clearly what you want rather than being sovague,” Soren replies without missing a beat, hostility clear in his voice, although he hasn’t moved from his position, still leaning against a table.

I nearly rise to my feet in shock when one of my dad’s eyes slowly turns milky like Rorge’s, in a fascinatingly grotesque way. “I can see she’s not mine. So where is the original, and who isshe?”

What the hells—so Dad is like one of them?

“Remove the blade and put her down, Ritter, and we’ll have arealconversation. Because if you slit her throat, we’ll become like the Ballad of the Blood, and then this will all be fucking useless. Don’t be an idiot.” Soren’s bitter tone iscutting, despite how calm he makes himself seem.

“Maeve has been with us for a very long time,” Dad responds, and a woman comes out from behind them, sort of awkwardly trying to make her way in as if she’s reluctant to be here. “Which also made it easy to find her, and then locate your skin shifter. Which would be something you’d want to inform an ally, no?”

Skin—Anya?

Isshea skin shifter?

My sensation of being lost returns to me, feeling so small against all these people who are capable of so much; meanwhile, I can barely hit Bones with a training sword. Oh, but at least myskin won’t burn.

So fucking useful, right?

My father inhales through his nose, his eyes nearly rolling with his blink as he faces the one holding Anya, nodding.

The man releases her, and she slowly steps away from him as if he were a mere nuisance. “It was necessary for reconnaissance,” Anya states, adjusting one of her bracers. “You’d have done the same. She’s unharmed, as you can see.”

My father ignores her as he holds an arm out in Anya’s direction to indicate her, and then faces Soren, who I don’t know if he’s even blinked. “Anyone else I need to know about? Anymoreof my people missing?”

“She’s the only one,” Soren tightly replies.

A certain hatred crosses my father’s eyes, although that expression is immediately replaced with concern and confusion; the same reaction washes over the room as the rubies in the wall and ceiling glow, much like when I was alone with Cypress.

A red cast settles on us all.

“This is why, sir,” the one named Maeve says unconfidently, her voice shaking. “I didn’t come to you. I wasn’t treated poorly, but I stayed put. The witch told me when I came back is when we’d have to leave. And when, well, when things will gethard.”

Immediately, my father’s gaze darts over to me, the expression so vividly similar to when he found me on our front porch, clenching my mom all those years ago. My dad then looks back at the men behind him. “Send a raven to Tempest. It’s time we leave Skull’s Row. We move to the sea.”

J A N E

Pain radiates at my scalp, my eyes clenching shut, and my nose crinkling. “You’re so rough,” I grind out.

Rather than pausing, Donna only pulls tighter, working with a ruthless efficiency. “You’ll thank me later to have the hair out of your face.”

Never did I think getting ready to leave would involve braiding my hair. The design is tightly woven down the center of my scalp. I wish Soren was capable of doing more than loosebraids, or I’d have asked him to do this for me. At least he might be able to make the painfun. In the same breath, if he could do them, I doubt he would. There’s too much that needs to be done in such a short amount of time.

“Ruby earrings?” Donna asks from behind me.

I raise my hands to my ears, fingers brushing against the metal casing and gemstone. “They’re in.”

A requirement from the witch.

“Good,” she replies, my neck stiffening to keep my head still. “You’re almost ready.”

Almost. There’s such an unspoken promise there that she has no idea what she just alluded to. The notion that this all turns utterly sour has been at the forefront, side, and back of my mind, along with another consideration—What if Misery doesn’t have to catch me? Cypress didn’t say it was indefinite, just highly likely, and that she can’t control free will.

What if there is an out here?

What if there’s a choice I can make that changes it all?

“Have you ever been on a pirate ship?” she asks, pulling me from the haze of my worries.