He dropped me, and I landed awkwardly, barely keeping my balance. “How did you know?” I asked.
From behind me, Lessa laughed, the sound grating and toxic. “You didn’t think I’d lowered myself to emptying your chamber pots because I was bored, did you? It takes more than bloodstained sheets to fool me.” She sauntered forward to stand at my father’s elbow. “You really are stupid, Pénélope. It isn’t that hard a thing to avoid. I would’ve told you how, if you’d bothered to ask. Or were you so desperate to try to keep him that you got with child on purpose?”
Though it was a stupid thing, a reckless thing, to do, I spat in her face. But she only wiped it off her cheek and gave me a malicious smile.
“Have you not done enough damage to this family’s reputation?” my father demanded of me. “We can’t hide this scandal, and what good will you be once it’s discovered? The Comte will know his son has been traipsing around with you and put an end to the relationship and to your purpose. And we cannot even hope to benefit from the child, because with your affliction, neither of you will survive long.”
Panic sliced through me and I struggled against my bonds, feeling bruises rise on my flesh where they pressed into my skin. “You told Ana?s you wouldn’t hurt me. She’ll kill you for this!”
My father chuckled softly. “I’ve no intention of hurting you, dearest Pénélope.” Reaching up with one hand, he stroked Lessa’s cheek as though she were a prized possession. Or a pet. “Make whatever you do look like an accident, darling.” Then he turned and walked into the adjoining room.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Lessa stepped closer, and I turned my face away from the warmth of her breath. From the look in her eye. Because I realized now why she reminded me so much more of Roland than of Tristan – there was a darkness in her. A strange, perverse desire to cause harm solely for the pleasure of it. I would find no mercy in her.
Which meant my only salvation was escape.
“An accident, hmmm?” Her fingers caught hold of a lock of my hair, twisting slowly, gently, around the curl. “That’s more of a challenge given what a coward you are, never taking the slightest risk.”
She stepped around me, walking out into the empty foyer, me drifting behind in the net of her magic. “It will have to be the stairs, don’t you think?”
The marble gleamed ominously, squared edges suddenly taking on the appearance of a dozen knife blades ready to dash and slice my flesh. Even if I could survive a fall like that, she’d only toss me down again and again until something irreparable in me broke. A scream tore from my lips, echoing through the empty house.
Lessa mimicked me, adding her own screams to the cacophony, then burst into laughter. “No one can hear you, Pénélope. At least no one who cares.”
Reaching down, she released the magic binding my feet so my shoes could be removed, leaving my legs dangling loose. Tapping one pointed heel against my chin, she said, “Treacherous things. Such a shame that your vanity will be your undoing.”
Discarding one shoe halfway up the steps, she punched the heel of the other through the hem of my skirt. Then she made her way to the top, towing me along behind. “We’ll want to get this right,” she said. “So we’ll practice a few times.”
A shriek tore from my throat as she whipped me down the stairs, end over end, the steps brushing against my cheeks until I came to rest on the floor, magic splaying my legs apart, my skirts up around my waist. Then I was flying up them again.
“Dramatic, but not quite right. Let’s try something else.”
She threw me down again, my hair slapping the staircase as I flipped. Then my body jerked to a stop, the line of my neck pressed against the icy marble of a step.
“We’ll break your neck first,” she said. “Then smash your skull.” My body turned, my forehead resting on the stone. “Then break a few ribs.” I flipped and rotated down the rest of the steps, my skirts now sodden with urine as I came to a crumpled rest at the bottom, my face soaked with tears.
“Just like that. Enough practice. I think we’re ready.”
Last chance. Only chance.
I sobbed as she lifted me up to the top, cringing as she turned me to face her, brushing the hair from my face. “Last words, my lady?”
I slammed my knee into her stomach.
She doubled over, and I kicked her in the face, feeling her control over my own magic loosen. Lessa shrieked and pressed a hand to her broken nose, eyes streaming tears, and I took advantage, slicing through the power binding me. I landed hard on my feet, barely keeping my balance on the edge of the stairs.
“Bitch,” she howled, and I shoved her hard before turning to run.
I sprinted down the hall toward my father’s rooms. Heat roiled after me, and I dived onto my stomach, pressing my face against the carpet as silvery fire filled the air above me, igniting the wallpaper and artwork. Smoke billowed in all directions, and I held my breath, crawling on hands and knees until I was in the room, kicking the heavy door shut behind me.
The lock clicked into place, but it would only buy me seconds, the heavy wood no match for a troll of Lessa’s strength. I could feel her coming down the hall, feel the weight of her magic surging ahead of her.
And I was trapped.
I knocked a bookcase in front of the door, using my magic to shove a heavy table next to it, for all the good it would do.
“Quit making a mess, Pénélope.” Lessa’s voice drifted through the walls, lilting and singsong. “You know I’ll have to clean it up.”
“I hope you clean quickly,” I shouted, pushing more furniture between us. “It no longer looks like much of an accident.”
The door shuddered.
My breath caught, and I took a step back, then another, knowing she was playing with me. Knowing she could tear the whole manor apart if she wanted. My back pressed against the wall, and I gripped the soft velvet of the curtains as I watched the mess of door and furniture slowly shift inward.
Curtains. Window. A way out.
I whipped the fabric aside, flipping open the lock so that the pane swung out. Below was the atrium, the glass foggy with condensation. It would never hold my weight.
Which might just work in my favor.
Picking up a heavy chair, I lobbed it out the window, not bothering to watch as it crashed through the glass and into the atrium below. Instead I ran to a closet on silent feet, easing the door shut behind me and then taking a deep breath and forcing myself to relax.
Breathe.
My magic softened and diminished, only that which always burned, that which kept me alive, still present and tangible. And, I prayed, negligible enough that Lessa wouldn’t notice it.
Door and furniture were flung aside, and the other girl stormed into the room. Her eyes latched on the open window, and in a blur of motion she was leaning out over the edge, expression panicked. “Pénélope?” she shouted, mockery vanished in the face of my potential escape. “Bloody stones and sky, you better not be dead!”
Then she jumped out the window.