Spellbinder (Moonshadow #2)

Because she couldn’t trust him, after all.

After he slipped away, Sid listened for the bolt sliding into place. Once the sound confirmed he was truly gone, she turned to pace around the confines of her cell, one hand outstretched and the tips of her fingers touching lightly against the wall to keep her from running into it.

Practice your truth, he had said. Practice until you believe it.

So she began to tell a story to herself.

Not a story of what had actually happened, but a story of what she wanted the truth to be. What she needed the truth to be, in order to get out of this cell and back into the sunlight. She whispered it to herself over and over again, pacing and repeating until she had it thoroughly memorized.

She had enjoyed Juilliard. While most of her time had been focused on her obsession with music, she had played with some of her electives and had taken a few acting classes. The classes helped her to find a way to bridge some of the social isolation she had grown up with.

Acting on the stage or in front of a camera was not the same as acting to save one’s life, but if it was one thing she knew something about, it was how to face the pressure to perform, and how to hide her fear in front of a sometimes pitiless audience.

After she had memorized her story the way she wanted to tell it, she sat cross-legged facing one wall and ruined the zipper of her hoodie by running the metal teeth against the rock until she saw small, fleeting sparks.

Unwilling to miss a single precious flash of color, she didn’t blink. Aside from the guard’s torch, those sparks were the first thing she had seen in days.

The blackness in her cell started to lighten to gray. Then the reflection of a far-off fire appeared and drew closer. She listened to the squeaking wheels of the cart and the metallic clang as the guard shoved food trays into the cells of other prisoners down the hall.

Cry, she told herself. She bit the insides of her cheeks until she drew blood, and the pain became bad enough to bring tears to her eyes.

Then the guard was at her cell door, squatting to take the empty tray and shoving a full one through the slot. It was always the same guard, a dull-eyed Light Fae male with a scarred face. She had always wondered what he had done to be punished with such duty.

Jumping to her feet, she rushed to the cell door and grasped the bars as she sobbed, “Thank you! Thank you!”

Curling a lip, he sneered, “What nonsense are you spouting?”

“My hands. They’re healed!” Shoving her arms through the bars, she held out her hands for his inspection while she bit her cheek harder to make tears run down her face. “Someone came to heal me while I slept. The Queen must have decided to show me mercy after all. Please give me the opportunity to thank her in some way!”

The guard paused, the dullness in his gaze sparking with surprise. Staring at her fingers while she wiggled them, he said slowly, “You think the Queen did this?”

“Well,” she replied, “who else would have done it? I don’t have any magic. I certainly couldn’t have healed myself. If there was only some way I could repay her. I’d be so honored if she would give me another chance to play for her, but even if that isn’t possible I just want the chance to apologize.”

He laughed, a cynical, grating sound. “As if she would waste any more of her time on the likes of you.”

“I know, I know, but… just look at my hands,” she said, opening and closing them in front of his face. “Everybody knows how much she loves music. What if she wants to give me a second chance to perform?”

“You’re a massive fool if you think that,” the guard scoffed.

But his frowning gaze lingered on her hands for a long moment before he pushed the cart away.

After that, there was nothing to do but wait. While she could still see, she dumped the bad food down the privy hole, and after chewing her lip in thought, she dumped her good food too.

The familiar dark gray of the day settled around her. Having lost her night sight, she felt her way back to one wall where she sat cross-legged to run the zipper across the stone and watch the sparks again.

I’m getting out of here, she thought. Maybe things will get better or maybe they’ll get really bad again, but one way or another, I’m leaving this particular hell behind.

While she had no ability to tell time, presently the glow of approaching torches lightened her cell again, much too soon for the supper feeding. She listened to the sounds of footsteps as they grew nearer. There were three guards, maybe four.

As they stopped just outside her cell, she wrapped her hoodie around her middle, shaking.

Here we go.

A key grated in the lock, and her cell door was flung open. While the other guards waited outside, a powerful male strode in, grabbed her by the arm, and hauled her upright.

“On your feet,” he commanded. “I have some questions I want to ask you.”

It was too late to change her mind now. The pitiless audience had chosen to appear, and now she had to put on the performance of her life.





Chapter Nine





They took her to the same room where they had broken her fingers. Her breath shook as she looked at the grim surroundings. She had to stiffen the muscles in her legs to remain standing.

Bad things happened here. This was where they tortured people and killed them.

The guard who brought the meals was present, but he remained in the background while the powerfully built male who had dragged her out of her cell swung her around to face him.

“Who did this?” he demanded, gripping her by the wrists so he could stare at her hands, which she had clenched into fists.

“I don’t know!” she exclaimed, throwing every ounce of passionate conviction she could into her voice. “I was asleep when it happened. When I woke up, my hands were completely healed.”

“You were asleep when someone miraculously healed your broken hands,” the male said, his tone skeptical while his eyes narrowed. “In an underground prison.”

Her gaze darted around. This was a room where they questioned people as they tortured them. Someone had to have truthsense.

“Well, I couldn’t have healed myself,” she said flatly. “I have no magic. I can’t even telepathize. You can ask him if you want.” With a jerk of her chin, she indicated the mealtime guard. “Didn’t I say thank you? I’m a musician. It’s the one skill I’ve got that might interest her majesty. The Queen had to have ordered this, right? Who else could it have been? Like you said, it’s an underground prison.”

Questions weren’t lies. She was banking her future on it. They just helped to support her statements as she was telling them.

When her interrogator’s hard gaze lifted to the mealtime guard, he admitted, “That bit’s true enough. She kept crying and carrying on, and insisting on the chance to apologize to her majesty and make it up to her.”