Though we needed this plan to work, I realize now that part of me wanted us to be wrong. I wanted anything that kept me from this sick, twisted feeling as I wait for my opportunity to use the only weapon we have against her.
Khijhana’s tooth is deceptively light in my pocket. Such a small thing to fell a giant. Madame doesn’t put her back to me, though, doesn’t give me a single opening for me to risk going for the weapon.
“What have you done?” she snarls.
For a moment, I think she’s speaking to me, but then her hand tightens around Damian’s neck even more.
He chokes out words likeneverandloyalandMother, but she is undeterred.
“You knew what I went through looking for Melodi,” she emphasizes my sister's name as she slams his head against the wall again. “I have already lost one daughter, and now you try to take the ones who return to me?”
She eases up her grip just enough to let him speak.
“You don’t need them.” Damian’s black eyes are wild, desperate. He wraps his hands around the one she has on his neck, his tone pleading as he continues speaking. “I am your loyal child. We would have gotten Melodi—”
She squeezes harder, and I wait for her to order him to the dungeons. I wait for him to go like the perverse whipped dog that he is.
But I am utterly unprepared when she takes a carefully sharpened fingernail and drags it up his sternum, splitting him from navel to neck.
She lets him drop to the floor. His eyes are wide with disbelief, with betrayal, with pain. Aika stands in the doorway, two guards slack jawed in the hall behind her. She eyes Damian with nothing but satisfaction on her features.
I should feel the same. I know I should.
Instead, I remember the day Madame brought him here, a broken, bleeding boy. Abandoned by everyone, destroyed by his father, gazing up at her with reverence in his eyes. It seems such a waste, the life of cruelty he’s lived.
I’m not sad that he’s dead. But neither can I find the vengeance I was expecting to feel when he loses his life at the hands of the only person he loved.
Blood pools near my feet, and I deftly step away from it, bringing my eyes up to meet Madame’s.
“Come, Zaina.” Her tone is eerily placid, but a muscle twitches in her jaw. “We’ll discuss your discipline along with your sister’s.”
I stay rooted to the spot.
This is our only chance. When she leaves this room, she will likely strip us of our weapons. We will lose the only opportunity to end this.
Aika moves farther into the room, but Madame holds up a bloody hand. My sister halts in her tracks. Pumpkin slips out of the small bag she carries, scurrying to the floor. He cowers behind my sister, huddled into her skirts where he is out of Madame’s sight.
If the guards notice, they don’t comment.
“Rebellion, even now, Daughter?” Madame turns slowly, walking a circle around the room. “I knew you must be planning something, but surely there’s more to it than this.”
Her back isn’t entirely toward me, but it’s close enough. I gently ease my hand into my pocket. But she stops at the window to the balcony, cocking her head and inhaling sharply.
Before I can react, before I can move, she darts her arm through the glass. My lips part, a scream wrenching from my throat as she drags Einar in through the broken shards.
Shards of glass fall off of her like beads of water. Her skin is untouched, but Einar is already coated in blood.
I tell myself she won’t kill him. She needs him. But her chest heaves as she looks from him to me, and I know there is no reason left in her anymore.
Before anyone can react, before I can even scream again, she takes a shard of glass and stabs it straight into my husband’s chest.
CHAPTERFIFTY-EIGHT
ZAINA
No.
I don’t know if I scream the word out loud or in my head as I lunge for Einar.