The House of the Stone

“Why don’t you sit down right here,” he says.

“I’m fine,” I gasp. But my legs don’t listen. They slip out from under me, and suddenly I’m staring up at a ceiling painted with stars. Their points seem to wave at me. I want to wave back.

“You’ve lost a bit of blood,” Emile says.

The most wonderful sensation travels through my foot and up my leg, a cool numbness that dulls the pain instantly. I can’t help the grateful moan that escapes my lips. Strength floods back into my limbs, and I prop myself up on my elbows.

Emile has the vial in his hands. He opens the space between my toes and carefully administers one drop of black liquid on my wound. It’s like I can feel my skin knitting together. He applies another round of whatever the amazing cool stuff is in the jar, and the pain is gone. My skin is smooth and unblemished. As if there were never a wound in the first place.

My senses sharpen. I sit up. But the absence of pain makes me uneasy. It vanished too quickly, too completely. Almost like it wasn’t real.

“What is this place?” I ask, looking around at the room. Its beauty is making me uncomfortable. I don’t trust it.

“These are the surrogate quarters,” Emile says.

“Then . . . why was I in that cage?”

“Let’s get you ready for dinner,” Emile says, ignoring my question and standing up.

“I’m not having dinner with the Countess.” Though I have to admit, I am starving. But I’d rather starve than spend a meal with that woman.

Emile smiles. “You’re having dinner with the four Founding Houses and the Electress, actually.”

With everything that’s happened since I woke up, I’d sort of ignored the fact that I was bought by a Founding House. I wonder if there’s some sort of correlation between how high up in the royal hierarchy you are and how cruel you are to your surrogate.

I should have kept failing my Augury tests. I should have strived to be Lot 1.

“Is there any point in asking if I can just wear this?” I ask, tugging at the black tunic.

“No,” Emile says.

He turns and walks across the room, sliding open a panel I had mistaken for a wall to reveal rows and rows of glittering fabric.

I can’t help thinking about what Patience, the head caretaker at Southgate, said on Reckoning Day, when I hoped whoever bought me would let me wear pants.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up, dearie.

Wearing a dress is the least of my problems.

I don’t bother to look at what Emile pulls from the closet. I stare out the nearest window, where I can see curving spires of gold shooting up from behind a wall topped with spikes.

“This way, 192,” Emile says.

He’s standing in the doorway to a lavish powder room, all white marble embellished with gold and silver.

“My name is Raven,” I say, marching past him because honestly, I am dying for a bath. But the tub is too small to lie down in, and there is no curtain around it. Just a large tap hanging from the ceiling. It looks like a lamp. Emile pulls a lever and a waterfall explodes out of it.

“I assume you’ve never taken a shower before, 192?”

“No,” I say, not missing the fact that he’s ignored my name.

“I think you’ll enjoy it.”

I stand there awkwardly for a moment, waiting for him to leave. He hangs the dress I’ll be forced to wear tonight on the wall of the powder room, then turns back to me. He seems surprised to find me dry and still clothed.

“Aren’t you going to get in?” he says.

“Aren’t you going to leave?” I ask.

His mouth tightens ever so slightly. “No.”