Chapter Seven

The first thing I noticed was the ceiling.

It was white, with soft cracks in the plaster. It wasn't stone. There was no damp, and no smell of blood.

I lay very still.

A blanket covered me up to my chin. My eyes staring at the ceiling. The bed under me was soft, so soft that my back didn't know what to do with it. Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked.

Where am I?

I turned my head slowly.

A grey-haired man in a dark coat sat beside the bed, rolling a bandage between his fingers. When he saw my eyes open, he stood up, careful and unhurried.

"You're awake, miss. Don't sit up yet."

I sat up anyway. My ribs caught fire, and I sucked in a breath.

"I did say don't sit up," he said mildly.

"Where is this place?" I asked.

"A guest room in the east wing. His Majesty ordered you brought here." He poured water into a glass and held it out, then paused when he saw me stare at his hand. He set it on the table instead. "I'm the royal physician. You fainted in the courtyard. You've been asleep for about two hours."

Two hours.

My eyes went straight to the window. The sky was turning gold. Evening was coming.

"The banquet," I said. "I should be..."

"You should be in bed," he said.

I didn't answer. I looked down and found my boots had been taken off and set neatly by the bed side. My wrists were wrapped in clean white cloth. Someone had washed the dirt off my hands.

I hadn't felt any of it.

That scared me more than the pain. In Blackwood, I woke at the smallest sound. Here, strangers had cleaned me, and I had slept through it.

"Who touched me?" I asked.

"A female healer," he said gently. "No man touched you but me, and only to examine your ribs, with her in the room." He paused. "I wanted you to know that."

I let out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.

"Thank you."

The door opened without a knock.

My body went tight. Then I saw the silver collar and the dark hair, and I forced my shoulders down.

Valerius stepped inside. He had changed out of the clothes he had worn in the archive and now wore black, with the royal crest at his throat. His face looked calm, but something hard lay beneath it, like a blade wrapped in cloth.

"Leave us," he told the physician.

"Majesty, she needs—"

"I know what she needs. Five minutes."

The physician looked at me, then bowed and left. The door stayed open a hand's width behind him. I noticed. I think Valerius did too.

He didn't come close. He took the chair by the window, the farthest one from the bed, and sat with his hands resting on his knees.

"How is your breathing?"

"Better."

"And the dark?"

I didn't know how to answer that. "It's not dark in here."

"No," he said. "It isn't."

Silence.

I picked at the edge of the blanket. I wanted to say sorry. I wanted to say I hadn't meant to cause so much trouble. The words were already sitting in my mouth, worn smooth from use.

Then I remembered how he'd looked at me in the archive. He hadn't looked at me like someone who wanted an apology.

I stayed quiet.

"I spoke with your family in the main hall," Valerius said at last.

My stomach dropped. "Oh."

"Your brother says the archive door jammed, and you panicked."

"Alpha Dorian said that?"

"Alpha Heir Dorian." His eyes didn't leave my face. "He said it twice."

I almost laughed. It was a tiny, awful sound, and I swallowed it.

"A jammed door doesn't slide a bolt into place," Valerius said. "I looked at it myself, Elora, who locked you in?"

There it was.

The answer lay right on the tip of my tongue. One word. A name that had grown up beside me, that had once held my sleeve in the market and bought me roasted chestnuts.

Damon.

I pictured saying it. I pictured Dorian's face going red, and Silas saying I was lying again, and Sienna's tears. I pictured Damon standing in the hall, looking at me with that disgust, saying, She's just trying to ruin Sienna's big day.

And everyone would believe him.

They always did.

I was too tired to watch it happen again.

"I don't know," I said.

Valerius said nothing.

"It was dark," I added. "I didn't see."

"The door was bolted on the outside. You were pulled in by someone."

"I was pushed," I said quietly. "I didn't see his face."

It wasn't a lie. I hadn't seen his face when the door shut. I had only heard his voice.

I kept my eyes on my hands, so I wouldn't have to see whether he believed me.

The silence stretched.

"Hmm," Valerius said.

That was all. It wasn't an agreement, and it wasn't an accusation. It was the sound of a man putting something away to look at later.

"You don't want to tell me," he said. "And that's fine."

"It wouldn't change anything."

"You're certain of that."

"Yes."

"I find..." he said slowly, "that I am not."

I looked up. His silver eyes were steady and patient. He wasn't pushing. Instead, he was just waiting, the way you might wait beside a door you knew would open up eventually.

"When you're ready, the offer stands," he said. "You don't owe me a name today."

My throat closed.

I turned my face toward the window so he couldn't see it.

Nobody had ever told me I didn't owe them something.

A soft knock sounded on the open door. Adrian stood there with a covered tray, his face carefully neutral.

"Your Majesty. The healer asked that Miss Caspian eat something first. And Alpha Denzel is asking whether he might..." He glanced at me. "Wait outside. He's been standing in the corridor for an hour."

An hour.

Something small and warm moved in my chest, so briefly that I might have imagined it.

"Tell him she's awake," Valerius said. "Not yet."

Adrian nodded. He set the tray on the desk and withdrew.

Valerius rose. At the door, he turned back.

"One more thing. Tonight's banquet."

"Your Majesty, I don't think I can—"

"I asked for every member of the Caspian household to attend." He said it evenly. "That includes you."

"Mother told me to stay upstairs."

"I'm aware."

"The family won't want..."

"I didn't ask what the family wants." His voice stayed calm, but it carried weight. "You will have a proper room and a healer. And you will have a seat at that table, beside me, where no one can say you weren't welcome."

I stared at him.

"Why?" I whispered.

For a moment, he looked almost like he was going to answer. Something moved behind his eyes, quick and unreadable.

"Because I wish it to be so," he said.

Then he was gone.

I sat in the soft bed, listening to the clock tick, with the smell of warm broth drifting from the tray.

Outside the door, I heard low voices in the corridor, and one of them was deep and rough and hadn't spoken to me yet.

I didn't know why my heart was beating so fast.