Page 42 of The Enemy's Daughter

Annette.

After returning Tristan’s horse, I stare into Annette’s first-floor window, watching her sleep for a long time. Three things keep me from knocking on the glass. One, I might keel over. Genuinely. Just as Tristan said, Annette does live only two houses over in the direction that he pointed. But for obvious reasons, my weak body is about to give out.

Two, I’m stunned by the abundance I see. From the grand furniture and mysteriously glowing clock, illuminating both Annette’s sleeping face and her bedroom, to the enormous closet that’s filled with enough clothes to dress an entire family, I’ve never seen such prosperity and riches. She’s clearly not one of the women I thought was a slave.

The third thing is a question I can’t stop asking myself: Am I really going to knock on the window of the girl who tried to starve me by locking me in a room? Wouldn’t she just turn me in?

I hug myself to ward off the chill as my doubts in my plan grow.

Annette’s eyes open. They find my face immediately as if she sensed me staring at her. She blinks in disbelief, then screams as she jerks upright in bed.

Fates.I duck down, then attempt to run.

The window opens behind me. “What the hellfire are you doing?” she yells. “Help!” she screams again.

I spin to face her, and the movement drops me to my knees. “Shhhhhh,” I hush her. “I—”

“Came to kill me? To get your revenge?”

“No, I... I want you to help me to... leave.” I keep my voice only slightly above a whisper, but the damage is done. It’ll only beseconds before someone comes running. Desperately, I try and fail to push to my feet.

“Wait,” she calls.

But then, the light to her room flicks on, and a man’s voice asks if she’s okay.

I drop like a fainting goat, hoping the darkness will hide me. Although it’s probably pointless; Annette’s going to turn me in. Long seconds pass with my heartbeat a booming drum in my ears. What a stupid idea this was.

“Yes,” Annette finally responds. “It was... I dreamed that clan girl came to attack me.”

My eyes flutter closed.

“It was just a dream,” says a man’s voice. Then, mercifully, he turns off the light.

Both Annette and I remain still for a long while. Honestly, I’m not even sure Icanmove after all I’ve put myself through tonight. Finally, Annette reaches over, and a smaller light beside her bed blinks on.

“What makes you thinkI’dhelp you escape?” she asks, voice finally at an appropriately quiet volume.

With a grunt, I dig deep and push myself to sit up. “Because... I think I’m not the only one who wants this marriage to Tristan to end.”

Annette’s eyes tighten. Her long, dark hair hangs in a mess around her face.

“I want help getting through your electric fence. And I’ll need a horse.”

She makes a sound of disgust. “And how much information will you be taking back to the clans now that you’ve been in Tristan’s head? You’ve had access to every security detail we have.”

Smart girl. “If you’re talking about us connecting—that’s onlyhappened once. When Tristan saved me.” A spot just under my heart burns at having to admit this to her. “I promise you, I wasn’t in any condition to dig around in his mind.”

Her face twists. “You were healed. You’ve obviously...opened the door.That changes things between you and him.He may not even have known you’ve seen something.”

My gaze shifts to the starry sky. Looks like I’m about to make Annette extremely happy. “We didn’t get close enough to open the door. We... found a window.”

“Impossible,” she spits.

“Look, I don’t understand it either. But I was dying, and then he was dying, and I assure youwe still have no relationship. We were just strangers—enemies—who needed to find a way to work together to come out of it alive. So we held hands, and he sang a song and—and, I don’t even know, but it worked. Whatever you think you know about the connection, there’s obviously more that you don’t. And... I haven’t allowed us to connect like that since.”

The growing look of hope on her face twists my stomach.

“Why not?”

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