ia'

mouth, but n

patient, as though he had all the time in the world-or h

he hall waited beneath the

t," I wh

e words carried, but the elder nodded as t

it is

that, I wa

surprised, others pleased, while still others seemed to be weighing what the

ng the Cress family had done to me; it was simply how my life had always b

to blame, which only m

rned to m

I followed because following was what I knew how to

uards stood at every corner, watching me pass while I kept my head down and my shoulders d

ad spent too long learning how to disappea

the same distance all the way: him ahead, me three steps behind,

im was larger than any I

A fire cast orange light across the stone floor, but the bare walls remained dark

than me stood against the opposite wall. Everything looked expensive, from the furs on

stood on a

to have known cold or hunger or the weight of a raised hand. I

that door," Kaelen said,

he

door with warm water beyond it, and a man who had walk

l wearing my white gown, now of

heavier: a tiredness that had settled deep into my bones. I was tired of

arm. Someone had prepared it during the ceremony, thinking ahea

prepared anythin

ped around me like a blanket, and I closed my eyes, all

nd familiar against my skin, the charm was the one con

voice retu

mour charm before you

I could wait. After fifteen years,

silence, I wanted a moment that belonged only to me, a chance to feel like m

the chain

fifteen years, I rem

. The small stone at its center, however, looked dimmer than I remembered, as thoug

head, faint and distant, sounding almost disapp

nly a trick of the light, and

into the water an

her skin soft, and her lips looked made for smiling, even though I had forgotten how. As the water t

ul, and I alw

ead of the dull, rough appearance the charm had shown the world for fifte

ther had given me, then

recogniz

g in warm water, with a white gown that did not smell of potatoes and old wood. Perhaps s

t. It was mine, proof that I was still here, still alive; that w

aughter had become. I hoped she was proud of me and that she was safe, but more th

fifteen years of gray water and locked doors-had been for nothin

live the way a drown

looked like hers; it could not be ignored, could not pass unnoticed. If Celeste and Vivienne had s

ld have

like them, beauty was not

freer, as though I had been holding my breath for fift

he smell of Cresswood: grease, old wood, cold, and years. Watching it

ckless moment, I l

g knocked ove

urled into the air. My hand flew to my throat, s

mour wa

only rule I had been given-the rule that had ke

to have stopped moving, even breathing, somewhere in the dark of hi

water at the trembling reflection of a face no

beyond the ripples of my own

l, it stood i

longer than I knew, and whatever I did next