Roughly, the soldiers blindfold me again. Gripping my upper arms, the two drag me back to my cell, dumping me carelessly on the pallet in the corner.

I’m barely aware of it. Whatever was forced down my throat is slipping through me, turning my veins to ice.

They don’t bother removing the cloth around my eyes, and I don’t have the energy to do it myself.

Drifting, drifting …

My mind darkens until all that surrounds me is endless, hopeless blackness.

Chapter 26

Choking. Choking on magic. It’s pounding behind my forehead, tensing up my muscles, squeezing my insides.

I wake with a scream, the sound echoing down the cell block. Somewhere in the distance a guard growls out a warning.

I sit up, panting, placing a sweaty hand to the column of my throat.

Just a dream. The stifling darkness, the corrupted magic, Karnon …

Only, it isn’t, I realize as I finally catch my breath. I can still feel his viselike grip on me, his lips on my mouth, the insidious darkness that seeped into my veins.

My face is coated in sweat, and my stomach is roiling—

I barely make it to the toilet in time to vomit. I spend the next several hours like this—either shivering on my pallet, or purging my stomach of every last ounce of its contents.

At some point, the guards slide a meal through a hatch at the base of the barred wall. The food sits untouched at the edge of my cell.

Eventually, the sickness dissipates. Not completely, but enough to function. Stomach growling, I drag myself out of bed, towards the tin bowl. One glance at the gruel and I decide going hungry is better than spending several more hours with my head in a prison toilet.

I lean my sweaty forehead against the bars and stare out of my cell just as a guard approaches.

I eye him as he passes, noticing the lion tail that swishes behind him.

Do all of Fauna’s fairies share aspects with beasts?

The guard slows, flashing me a cold look. “Don’t stare at me, slave.”

I’m so fucking sick of this world already.

“Nice tail, asshole,” I mutter.

That stops him in his tracks, and I’m just enough of an idiot to smirk at the fact that I got under his skin.

He slams his gloved palms against the bars. “Consider yourself lucky that the king wants to put his dick anywhere near you,” he growls.

My smile grows, turning mean. Then I chuck my bowl at the bars, the gruel splashing against his face. “Fuck you, pig.”

I never would’ve guessed beforehand, but I don’t make a very good prisoner.

For one second, the guard does nothing, his face shocked. And then he lets out a lion’s roar, rushing at the bars.

I spin to my feet, ignoring a wave of dizziness that rushes through me, just as he makes a grab for me. His hand closes on nothing but air.

“You filthy, vile slave!” he bellows. “I could kill you right now! Right where you stand!”

Light ripples across my skin as my siren surfaces.

“Could you kill me?” I say, my musical voice taunting. “Why don’t you come in and find out?”

He roars again. Because obviously he can’t lay a finger on me. Not the one bargaining chip Karnon believes he has over Des.

“Or are you scared?” I lean against one of the stone walls. “The lion who’s scared of a little woman.”

He snarls, banging against the bars until another soldier—one with horse ears—pulls him away, flashing me a glare that’s supposed to scare me. But nothing is more frightening than the fate that already awaits me.

I watch them walk away, glad for once that my siren fears nothing and no one. Animals can scent that kind of thing, and that’s what these guards are—part animal. Not so different from Eli when it comes down to it.

I slide down the wall, leaning my head back against it. I’m exhausted, and it’s only been what? A day?

This place breaks us fast.

“Psst, human,” a female voice calls from the cell next to mine once the guards’ voices have disappeared, “are you alright?”

“Yeah,” I call back weakly. My skin’s stopped shining, and all of the strength that comes with the siren has fled, leaving me exhausted.

“That was brave, what you did there. Rash—stupid even—but also brave.”

I manage a laugh. I don’t know much about fae, but rolling an insult into a compliment seems like something they would do.

I lean my head back against the wall. “What’s your name?” I ask her.

“Aetherial,” she says. “Yours?”

“Callypso.”

“You’re new here, huh?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I sigh out, my eyes moving to those tally marks.

“How many times have you met the Fauna King?” she asks after a beat of silence.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one that got special visits with him. I’d figured as much.

“Just once.”

“Oh, fun’s only beginning for you,” she says.

That makes me crack a smile. My fellow inmates are fae warriors. These women are the toughest of the tough. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten that. I’d only associated them with the sleeping women trapped inside those glass coffins. I hadn’t thought that they might’ve fought their fate every bit as much as I was planning to. But right now, hearing Aetherial make light of our terrible situation, I remember.

“How many times have you met him?” I ask.