Master?
Sebastian clearly has a god complex, and I’m not sure there’s anything more terrifying than a man who assumes he’s above all else.
“Let’s get started,” she says, returning her gaze to me. Her eyes are dark and wide-set, making her look far more innocent than she probably is. “Come in, Grace.”
Despite myself, I glance back at Sebastian. I don’t trust him by any meaning of the word, but he’s yet to physically harm me. Even when I was paralyzed and completely defenseless, he didn’t draw blood or violate me. He only carried me to my cell and left me face-up on the bed.
He’s stated he needs me several times, but who’s to say Cora feels the same way? Who’s to say she won’t kill me the second he leaves?
“Just you,” he says to me. He nods at Cora. There’s nothing reassuring about his gaze, nothing gentle or soft. His eyes are cold and hard, as if he’s desperate to be rid of me.
I look away, embarrassed I turned to him in the first place. With a quiet breath, I step into Cora’s room. This time, I don’t look back.
“It’s not working,”Cora says.
We’ve been at it for two hours and sixteen minutes. I know, because unlike anywhere else I’ve seen in the Echo, her room has a clock. It hangs above her kitchenette, adjacent to a small window. Through the glass, I see glimpses of a barren landscape with jagged mountains in the distance. The town, the place with a look-a-like university building, must be the opposite direction.
“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing,” I remind her. I drop my hands, turning to glare at her. She’s stood behind me for the last hour while I hold my hands out like a zombie. Every now and then, she lets me lower them to get feeling back in my shoulders.
“You’re supposed to be channeling your magic.”
“And again, I have no idea what that means.”
“Clearly,” she bites. She rounds the couch and roughly takes my hands in hers. She doesn’t look at me as she crouches, turning my palms toward the ceiling and then the floor.
“Maybe I’m too human,” I say.
I study the houseplants that line the wall behind her. They’re all in black pots and though they look dead—shriveled and limp—I’m weirdly confident they’re not. I think she’s somehow growing dead plants. They sprawl along her stone wall, filling the room with the overwhelming scent of death and decay.
I bet she and Tessa would get along.
“You should get a fish tank,” I tell her absently. “My new roommate says?—”
“No,” Cora interrupts. Her voice is harsher than I expect, but her attention remains on my hands. “No fish.”
No fish. Got it.
I sit in silence for as long as I can bear. Truthfully, it’s not long.
“Maybe it’s just not going to happen. Maybe Sebastian doesn’t need me like he thought. Did you ever think of that? He probably needs some other witch. I might not be a witch at all, you know?—”
“You are the last Pruce,” she says.
I don’t know what that means, and she must gauge that from my expression. Her dark eyes flicker over my face. She frowns as she rotates my hands again.
“What has Sebastian told you of the curse? Ofwhyhe needs you?”
“He’s told me nothing,” I say. I grit the words through my teeth. “He’s only said that he needs me. And then he knocked out—or killed, I don’t even know—my roommate and my landlord. He dragged me here and locked me?—”
“Enough,” she interrupts. Her eyes meet mine again, and rather than echoing my frustration, she looks bored. “You are ridiculously loud.”
“So I’ve been told,” I say, slumping against the couch. It’s black velvet and comfier than it looked. Far better than the dingy bed in my cell. “But I’m not going to apologize. I’m completely in the dark here. Held against my will. Called horrible names. Threatened?—”
“Too. Loud,” Cora snaps. She drops my hands, but rather than going back behind the couch, she sits beside me. “If you promise to stop talking for five fucking minutes, I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”
I seal my lips, terrified she’ll take it back if I so much as sayyes.
“You are the last Pruce, the last descendant,” she says. She holds her hand over the back of the couch and bendstwo fingers. Without so much as turning her head, she beckons to something unseen. I follow the movement, eyes widening as a steaming mug floats across the room.
