Again.
“You will learn not to defy me, Dani.”
“Danica,” I rasp instinctively.
“I will call you whatever the hell I desire, and that’s the last time you will ever correct me.” He pauses, perhaps waiting for me to agree, but I’d rather perish on the spot. “We will be wed in fifteen days’ time. Your father will vote with me, or I will take his life. You will vote with me or I will make your life a living hell.”
He reaches out for my sleeve and yanks it down my arm, nearly exposing my breast, but I don’t have the energy to cover myself, much less fight him.
“And I get to keep you,” he says, caressing the bare patch of skin. “Maybe forever.”
I DON’T GO to assist Saber when I leave His Majesty’s office, even though I should. I can’t. I can’t face him. Not after the way I failed him—even if he doesn’t know it.
Why didn’t I accept the King’s offer this afternoon? Why! Why did I decide vengeance was worth more than freedom? Why did I think I could have everything?
Knowing I defied him has made him worse than ever. He didn’t do more than terrify me tonight. Terrify and disgust me. But he will. After he gets my votes. Fear is his weapon—it always has been. I was a fool to forget it.
When I get back to my room and the bots have removed my finery, instead of loosening my laces, I have M.A.R.I.E. tighten them. Only when I can’t breathe without pain do I let the bots tie the strings. I take twice my regular dose of sleeping pills and lie gingerly across the bed, my ribs screaming. I can’t do more than breathe shallowly, and just before drifting away I wonder if it’s possible to suffocate in one’s sleep via stays.
But six hours later I open cottony eyes and the world continues to turn. My head aches and my ribs are so sore I can’t move without gritting my teeth, but I live.
I don’t let the bots touch my ribbons, though. I deserve this. I destroyed everything. Worse, I had salvation in my hands, and I threw it away. I stand utterly still while the bots whirl around my dressing stool, tossing layers of silk and satin over my head. I see nothing. I try to be quiet—I imagine Saber was working until five or six this morning, and I at least attempt to let him sleep.
But I want…I want someone who knew me when I was still a good person. I’m quite certain that label doesn’t fit me anymore. This isn’t what I planned or expected when I started this journey. I knew I was skirting decency—that selling Glitter wasn’t something I’d have done if I didn’t feel my life was in peril. But somewhere between my mother’s death and discovering the kind of morals I’m enabling via Saber, I’ve truly begun to wonder if this has all been a mistake.
I want Molli. As soon as I’m presentable, I leave my rooms. My vision feels like a tunnel as I turn down the long wing that houses the families of the lower nobility, and I’m desperate to reach her. A crowd is gathered at the end of the hallway, and I grumble under my breath. It’s the last thing I need right now. But as I draw nearer, I realize that among the many, many doors in this section of the palace, the one they’re surrounding is Molli’s. My heart begins to pound as trepidation roars in my mind.
“Excuse me,” I say softly, tapping one man on the shoulder. But I might as well be a gentle breeze for all the attention he shows me. Apprehension bubbles in my chest as the tension and chatter around me rise.
Then something, some pathos-drenched idiom from Giovanni’s lessons or maybe even before, whispers, Remember who you are. Instantly, reflexively, I cease my gentle tapping of shoulders and stand ramrod straight instead. “Make way,” I bark in as Queenly a manner as I can. “Royal business. Stand aside!”
Layers of people peel away as I stride forward, and I don’t feel guilty in the least as I finally near the door. What good is power if one cannot use it? There are yet more people inside the tiny atrium of Molli’s apartment, but at least the official guards in security livery are holding most of them at bay. One of them steps forward with his hands in front of him like he would stop me from going farther, but I shake my head, wave his hand away, and continue walking toward Molli’s bedroom.
He doesn’t try to stop me again.
The cramped interior manages to feel crowded even in the absence of a true crowd; I’d almost forgotten that her room is so small. Sometimes I wondered if the administration was trying to get her family to move out without actually evicting them. If there’s such a thing as being poor within the Palace of Versailles, the Percy family qualifies.