“The dogs wouldn’t bite at all if their master didn’t abuse them.” My voice trembled, but at least I’d found some drop of courage. “The master is always at fault.”
“Maybe. But the master is the one who holds the leash, so in the end, does it really matter?” He pulled the knife from Bradley’s body with a sickening, wet sound. “Let this be a warning to you, Lila. There is no escape, and the harder you try, the direr your circumstances will become. You are dismissed.”
I couldn’t get out of that room fast enough. With my hands still cuffed behind my back, I lurched back through the doorway, and the guards caught me by the elbows, steadying me so I didn’t fall over.
“Oh, and Lila?” called Daxton through the doorway. I didn’t turn around. “I expect to see you at dinner tonight.”
Over my dead body, if I’d had any choice, but I didn’t. This was it. This was going to be my life from here on out—existing merely to give legitimacy to Daxton’s rule and to buy him the sympathy of the people. And if he ever did decide to kill me, there were a million ways to do it that wouldn’t lose him either of those things. Hire someone else to murder me in front of an audience, for instance, the way I’d tried to do to him. Poison me until I was so weak that my heart gave out. Stage some sort of accident that couldn’t be traced back to him. My life was at his mercy, but then again, that’s exactly how it had been since my seventeenth birthday. This wasn’t anything new. The noose around my neck had only tightened, and now Daxton wasn’t bothering to feign civility anymore. It should have been refreshing to know precisely where we stood, with no pretenses between us. But when I was the one directly underneath his boot, that wasn’t much of a silver lining.
When the guards finally led me back to my room, it had been ransacked so completely that nothing was where it should have been. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to discover they’d found my hollowed-out book, but if Daxton was going to kill me for the assassination attempt, he would have already done it. He didn’t need the proof, and my punishment was continuing to live under his rule.
I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up, taking my time returning books to the shelves and clothes to the closet. It was busywork, but I was grateful for something to do. Still, no matter how many trinkets I picked up and returned to their original spots, I couldn’t shake the image of Bradley’s mutilated body, and I couldn’t stop hearing that single pathetic moan. I could have lived a hundred more years, and I would never forget those few minutes I’d spent with Daxton in that room of horrors.
My picture frame was, thankfully, unbroken, and I set it back on the nightstand. It was almost a form of torture in and of itself now, having those memories so readily at my fingertips. But I needed something to keep me sane, and if Daxton was going to deny me everything else, then those few pictures were all I had left.
At dinnertime, a knock sounded on my door. I was sitting on the sofa once more, staring at the wall of bookshelves. I couldn’t read any of them, but I’d thought about opening one up and pretending. “Come in,” I called, expecting the guards. To my surprise, it was Benjy who opened the door.
“Hey,” he said with a tight smile, and I scrambled to my feet. He didn’t step inside the room, however, and I stayed put, too. Seeing him alive and well was a balm I hadn’t known I’d needed, but now that he was standing in front of me without a scratch on him, everything inside me seemed to deflate.
“Is it time for dinner?” I said, and he nodded, pressing his lips together.
“The Prime Minister asked me to escort you.” A flicker of uncertainty passed over his face, and I knew without a doubt that something else was going on.
“Very well,” I said with a sniff, another image of Bradley flashing in my mind. No matter how much perfume I sprayed, the stench of that room still lingered in my nose. “Will Greyson be joining us?”
“Not tonight.” He must have sensed my silent question, because he added, “Daxton and I visit him regularly, and he’s all right. Bored, and he asks about you every time we see him, but he’s okay.”
Relieved, I took Benjy’s arm and let him lead me into the hallway. The fact that they hadn’t insisted on handcuffs this time surprised me, but I doubted Daxton would ever let me get close enough to him again for that to be a problem.
When we arrived, two servants opened the doors to the dining room for us, and I stopped when I saw the spread laid out on the table. Whole hams and chickens, a mountain of colorful fruit, and a maze of vegetables and soups. More kinds of bread than I’d known existed. And along the edges of the room, waiting to be served, sat tray after tray full of decadent desserts.
“What...?” Never before had I seen such an opulent display of food, not even at the endless stream of parties I’d attended as Lila before the war.