by Sara Thorn
Quinn looked up at me, and I leaned down from the stage in order to talk with him.
“When are we going to escape?” I asked him.
“I’m not sure yet,” he said. “But I’ll think of something, and when I do, you’ll know it’s time.”
I nodded.
“And Mara, we aren’t escaping—just you.”
I didn’t want to run away without Quinn. Not only was I afraid of getting caught while trying to flee, but I was more afraid of what Cassius would do to him when he found out Quinn had helped me get away.
“I don’t think I can leave you behind,” I said as my voice shook.
“Yes, you can,” he smiled. “Now, what kind of music would you like to dance to?”
As Quinn summoned the magic to fill the opera house with the beautiful sound of one of my favorite scores, I slipped on the black ballet shoes and tied the ribbons around my ankles. Then, I stood up and took a deep breath in as I prepared for two of the most wonderful and terrifying experiences of my life—to perform on the most impressive stage that I had ever danced on and to escape from the man that I wasn’t sure if I hated or had feelings for. My knees shook as I rose to my toes, but as I looked out into the rows of empty seats, I saw Cassius looking at me so intently that I suddenly felt nothing else but the thrum of the music in my veins and the heat of Cassius gaze pounding against my chest. I couldn’t help but start to dance.
I didn’t know how long I had been dancing when I heard what sounded like a train crashing through the side of the theatre. It felt like I had been dancing both forever and not nearly long enough. Everything that happened next was a blur.
At first, I thought that maybe this was the sign Quinn had mentioned, the signal that I should make a run for it. But when I saw both he and Cassius jump to their feet with equal looks of shock, I knew something was wrong. The other men who had come with us ran toward the thunderous sound coming from the entrance into the hall, but their screams, followed shortly by their silence, made it unmistakable clear that they wouldn’t be returning to Mystreuce. I wondered with sick curiosity, what the opera house ushers would think of the scene in the morning when they found two dead men in the theater upon showing up for their morning shifts.
“Get down!” Cassius shouted at me.
I dropped to my feet to flatten myself against the stage, but before I had made it all the way down, a sharp, burning sensation entered my chest. Within seconds, Cassius and Quinn were both standing beside me. I pressed my hand to my sternum, where the pain radiated in increasing waves of intensity, and I the warm, wetness of blood seeped through my fingers.
“It’s okay,” Cassius said. He was trying to speak calmly and reassuringly to me, but I could hear the fear in his voice despite his efforts. “I’ve got you; you’re going to be okay.”
I saw Quinn’s eyes darken, and it looked like he was getting ready to unleash something terrible onto whoever was attacking us, but Cassius shouted at him to back down.
“We can’t fight them,” Cassius said to him. “We have to get Mara back to Mystreuce now, or she will die.”
“But I can stop them,” Quinn argued as his eyes seemed to change into something entirely different—dragon eyes maybe, or something else more demonic-looking? I couldn’t tell.
“And at what cost?” Cassius said to him. “I said, stand down. We will surrender, and you will take Mara back to the fae quarters to heal her. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Quinn said. He didn’t seem happy with the command but was in agreement with it enough to do it. His eyes lightened and returned to their normal size and color. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing as I felt myself waning in and out of consciousness.
The one thing that I wished I had imagined was the sound of Dregon’s voice as he victoriously called for Cassius to drop the weapon he had clenched in his hand and surrender.
All of a sudden, my head started to swim with the thoughts of what Quinn’s roommate had said in the fae quarters. Dregon was there; he had been listening. He had heard all about how Cassius was planning to bring me here. Oh God, he heard about my plan to escape.
I tried to hold onto lucidity long enough to tell Cassius what I knew and to tell him I was sorry for trying to run away. But when I opened my mouth to speak to him, blood gurgled out instead of words. I was going to die right here on the stage of my childhood fantasies, and the worst part about it was that all I could think about was how I had betrayed him.
Cassius had brought me here out of kindness and whatever compassion he had left in his half-human heart. He was surrendering himself to his half-brother’s brutal minion in order to save my life, instead of just slaughtering the men where they stood, and I had betrayed him. The last thing I saw was Dregon standing over me as Cassius leaned above my body and guarded me like a shield. When my eyes fell closed, I felt myself being lifted and heard Dregon’s vile laughter and the sound of shackles clamped around Quinn. The last thing I heard before I surrendered to unconsciousness was Cassius voice in my ear telling me that I would be okay.
The next few days passed without any flow of time whatsoever. I faded in and out of being awake and being somewhere else. Even when I was conscious, I couldn’t remember what I had seen or heard. I didn’t know where I was or who was around me. All I knew was that Cassius wasn’t there.
Slowly I started to open my eyes for more than a few seconds at a time, and even the soft light of the fae quarters burned against my retinas. I struggled to breathe as each rise and fall of my ribcage felt as though my bones were breaking and rebreaking over and over again. I had always wondered if people dreamed when they were unconscious. No one that I had ever asked about it seemed to remember if they did or not. I liked to imagine that I would dream for long periods of time in order to keep my mind from going sour as my body tried to heal itself and that the dreams would just fade away once I woke up. I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming now. All my mind seemed to be registering was the pain.
After more time had passed, I started to hear voices during the snippets that I was semi-awake. I could only recognize one of them—Sen. I didn’t know what she was saying most of the time, but every so often I would hear her say, “They’re okay, Mara, and you will be, too.”
I wasn’t sure if she actually said that or if I was dreaming it, but it brought me a small slice of comfort either way. Then one day, I was able to open my eyes and keep them open.
“Hey, look,” someone said. “Sen, I think she’s awake for real this time.”
I pinched my eyelids together several times until I was able to tolerate the dim light. When I saw Sen standing above me, I wanted to cry and tell her everything that had happened, but when I tried to speak, all I could do was choke.
“Easy,” Sen said as she lifted my head a little and tried to pour a few drops of water into my mouth. “Your throat hasn’t managed talking or drinking for quite a while. Give yourself a few minutes.” She sat with me as I struggled to swallow.
When the first few drops of water hit my throat, I realized how ravenously thirsty I was. Sen held the cup to my lips until I had drunk all that I could. I tried again to push a few raspy words from my mouth.
“Where are they?” I managed to get out before my voice gave up again.
Sen looked at me with a solemn expression. “Gone.”
Chapter Fifteen
The pain I felt while my body continued trying to mend itself was nothing compared to the pain that I felt as I listened to Sen tell me what had happened to Cassius and Quinn.
She told me what had happened to me on the stage in Boston, how one of Dregon’s henchmen had launched an iron-tipped arrow into my chest, and Cassius had saved my life by breaking off the shaft, leaving the tip inside my chest until he was able to deliver me to the fae back here on Mystreuce. He handed me right over to Sen before they took him away. She said the fae had a hell of a time removing the arrow tip from beneath my ribcage since none of them could touch the iron without being burned
.
After that, she told me how Quinn had been imprisoned for treachery against Athan’s rule with his plot to help me escape, and that after Cassius had been publicly mocked and scolded by his half-brother for both his lack of better judgment and his undermining of Athan’s rule, that he was threatened with the promise of something terrible if he didn’t agree to go back to playing the part of a drunken fool.
“What did Athan threaten him with?” I asked her.
“Your death.”
I scoffed at her answer. “Surely, my life doesn’t mean that much to Cassius.” It hurt my chest even more to utter those words, but I was quickly reaching the point of caring about him too much.
Sen smiled tenderly at me, and her eyes were laced with sympathy as she spoke. “We both know that it does.”
I sat in silence for a time after that and thought about what both Quinn and Cassius must be suffering thanks to me. I should never have let Cassius take me home, and I should never have let Quinn try to help me escape. I was sure they both hated me now.
“How long was I asleep for?” I asked.
“Fifteen days.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe that I had been out of it for half a month.
“It was not an easy recovery,” she said. “You are lucky to have survived it. Had it not been for Cassius’s quick thinking, you would not have.”
I held my fist against my aching chest every time she mentioned his name. My heart hurt for more reason than one.
“After I removed the arrow tip, there was much suturing needed, bones to set, and flesh to heal. I did what I could, and your body took it from there.”
“Thank you,” I said as I reached out to take her hand in mine. “You saved my life.”
She smiled and tipped her head toward me. I could see that she was worried about her brother, even as she tried to put on a strong face for my benefit.
“What will happen to Quinn?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Imprisonment under Athan leaves little hope for compassion or mercy. Last I heard, he was chained to a wall beneath Athan’s throne room,” Sen answered sadly.
I flinched at the thought of Quinn being restrained.
“We have to free him,” I said.
“I agree. But we can’t do it without your help, and you need to get better before you can help anyone.”
Sen was right. I had to recover as quickly as I could, or I would be no good to anyone else. As it was, I could do barely more than sit up for a few moments at a time and sip on the tinctures and broths that Sen gave me. I was useless until my body healed, and even then, I didn’t know how much help I could be. I lay back down on the mat, which Sen had covered in soft blankets for me, and turned my head to the side to watch out the doorway at the fae who occasionally walked past the room. I slept and rested and ate as much as I could tolerate. I tried to stretch my muscles and stand up for a few moments until my chest started to feel like it was catching fire.
At one point, I saw Cassius walk past the open doorway. I called to him in a voice that sounded like a desperate cry and waited for him to come back into view, but he never did.
“Why is Cassius avoiding me?” I asked Sen while we were sitting together, having a cup of her medicinal tea.
“He knows that there are eyes on him constantly now. He has been watching you like a hawk as you have been recovering, but he has kept his distance and has pretended not to care if you live or die. Athan knows now that you are Cassius’s weakness, and he will exploit that weakness if he needs to. Cassius is trying to protect you.”
“He must hate me for what I’ve done,” I said as I stared into my tea. “Quinn must hate me, too.”
“No one hates you,” Sen said. “And no one blames you, except for maybe yourself. Guilt is as potent as poison. You need to let it go.”
Sen was really wise for her age, or at least for how old she looked to be. I respected her for both her kindness and her wisdom, and above all, for her inner strength. For such a tiny thing, she seemed almost unbreakable.
After some more time had passed, I was finally well enough to be back up on my feet. I had no idea where I would be staying now that Cassius was trying to keep his distance from me. Staying in the same room didn’t really allow for much space between us. I also didn’t know how he planned to protect me if I couldn’t stay with him.
“You’ll be staying here, in Quinn’s room, until we get him back,” Sen said as she saw me walking along the corridors in the fae quarters while I thought about all the things running through my mind. “The other guys in his room have bunked up with some of the others, so you’ll have the room all to yourself,” she said.
“Oh, I don’t need the whole room to myself,” I said. I felt horrible at the idea that after everything I had already done to trouble everyone, now I was kicking Quinn’s friends out of their room.
“Trust me,” Sen said with a mischievous look on her face. “You do. Besides, they don’t mind at all.”
“Okay,” I conceded. “But why would I need a room all to my—”
“Just trust me on this one,” she winked.
I walked back to Quinn’s room by myself and sat down on the edge of the bed. I didn’t even know where to start with sorting out my thoughts. I had to figure out how to help Sen and save Quinn from Athan’s prison. I needed to find a way to talk to Cassius and tell him how sorry I was that I had betrayed him and hoped that he could forgive me, and I needed to either resign myself to this life in this world or figure out how to get home on my own. I was just about to mentally tackle the first thing on that list before a figure showed up and stood in my doorway.
“Cassius!” I cried as I got up off the bed and ran toward him, throwing my arms around his neck and crashing into him so hard that the pain in my chest took my breath away. I stumbled backward, realizing that even though I was better, I still wasn’t fully back to a hundred percent. Cassius caught me with his arms behind my back and helped me sit back down on the bed. He came to sit next to me and looked at me with a sympathetic expression of pain.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “It still hurts.” I placed my palm lightly over my chest, where my broken ribs were still throbbing from clashing against Cassius’s chest.
“I bet,” he said. “You took quite a hit.”
“Sen told me how you saved me. She told me how you surrendered yourself to save my life.” My words all ran together in one long, rambling breath as I tried to get them all out for him to hear before he told me how much he hated me now. “I’m sorry, Cassius…I’m so sorry. Please believe me. I just wanted to go home, but I never wanted to betray you; I swear it.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead, he just looked down at the floor with his elbow resting against his thigh and his forehead in his hand. I could see his shoulders rise slowly up and down as if he were making a point to keep his breathing steady and measured.
“Are you angry with me?” I asked quietly.
“Yes,” he said. “Very.”
My heart dropped. “Do you hate me?”
“No.”
He lifted his head from his hand and looked at me. “I couldn’t hate you, Mara, not even if I wanted to.”
I thought that hearing that would make me feel better, but instead, it made me feel even worse for what I had done.“You must understand at least a little bit,” I said. “I just wanted to go home; I just didn’t want to be a prisoner or a slave anymore.”
“You have it all wrong,” Cassius said. He looked at me as though he was a vulnerable and exposed nerve. “You have never been my prisoner; it is I who have been yours. If being a slave means that the desires of another person command you, then it is I who am your slave. Because no matter how hard I try to keep myself from you or how much I try to push you from my thoughts, I find myself unable to do anything but keep you safe and protected. My weakness for you has enslaved me, Mara, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
He sta
red at me with intensity in his dark eyes that darted back and forth between my pupils.
“I want to be so angry with you,” Cassius shouted. “I want to hate you and go back to not caring about any of this at all.”
I knew that feeling; I wanted to hate him, too.
Cassius shook vehemently as if he were going to erupt into a fury of wrath. He lunged at me, and when his mouth covered mine, I felt as though stars had ignited inside my head, throwing every other thought I’d had ever had away. All I could feel was the feverish wrap of his tongue around mine and the heat that rose in me from the bottom of my belly and spread down between my thighs and into every place of blood rushing throughout my body. I put my hands against his chest and clawed at his shirt to pull him closer, ignoring the throbbing pain in my chest and feeling instead, the throbbing between my thighs. I wasn’t thinking; I couldn’t think. All I could do was feel.
I wasn’t sure what would have happened if Sen had not come into the room just then, just as Cassius had laid me back onto the bed and started to crawl over me. I wanted him so badly at that moment, and by the swelling desire I felt pressing against me, I could tell that Cassius wanted me, too.
“Cassius,” Sen said, loudly enough that he could hear her over our labored breathing. “Athan is here.”
Cassius immediately got to his feet and rushed out the door before I could say anything.
“Everything okay?” Sen asked as she looked at me with concern.
“Yeah,” I said. “He didn’t—I mean, it wasn’t what it looked like.” I doubted that I could put a coherent sentence together at that moment.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s not hard to see that something is going on between you two. Just be careful, okay?”
I nodded. My mind was still swirling around inside my skull. What even was that? I thought to myself as Sen went back out into the corridor. I had heard that there was a fine line between strong emotions, but I couldn’t give a name to what I just felt if my life depended on it, which maybe it did.
