“Yes, Master. Sorry, Master.”
“If it happens again, I’ll tear your head from your neck,” I say. I flick the piece of paper toward him, and he barely manages to catch it before it hits the ground. I wait until he’s righted himself to continue. “Grocery list. Find what you can here in the Echo. The rest, have Amelia take you to the human world.”
The human straightens, chest puffing out with determined confidence. I’m sending him to the market, not into fucking battle, but I suppose he’s just relieved to be breathing.
Once he’s gone, I journey from the library to Grace’sroom. Oskar stands at his usual post, and he smiles as I approach.
“Training?” he asks. He raises an eyebrow. “I thought you gave Cora the day off?”
“I did,” I say. I can’t keep the bitterness from edging my voice. Graceshouldbe training today, but instead…
I knock on her cell door, only pausing for three seconds before opening it. She’s in bed—shocking—but at least she’s awake. The electronic sits beside her, and a movie plays on the screen.
“Get up,” I tell her.
To my surprise, she does. She closes the laptop and crawls out from the covers, wearing a black frock. It’s one of Cora’s, but it’s too short on Grace. She looks downright seductive, her long legs on full-display, her arms crossed, pressing her cleavage together.
Maybe new clothes won’t be so terrible after all.
“Well?” she asks.
Her word is a sharp blade, grating against my last fucking nerve. Despite our last encounter, she doesn’t look afraid of me. No, she looks pissed yet confident, as if she holds some unseen power over me.
Maybe she does, a voice taunts.Maybe it’shergame, and you’re the pawn.
I shake my head roughly, banishing the thought like an unwanted pest.
“Show me magic,” I say roughly. “Give mesomething, Grace, and you can have something off the list. New clothes. Better food. More entertainment.”
“Freedom?” she asks. She arches a defiant eyebrow, and I have to restrain the growl from escaping my throat.
“Your so-called freedom would last ten seconds,” I say. “You wouldn’t make it to the end of the hallway before someone had you spread out and bleeding.”
Her jaw clenches, and I can hear her teeth grinding.
“That sounds like a convenient excuse for keeping me locked away,” she says.
I’m in front of her before she can blink, and she gasps, falling back against the stone wall. I have her exactly where I did last night, only now, I keep myself from touching her, from encroaching her space.
“I would’ve had you,” I whisper. Goosebumps dance across her shoulders, and I watch them, rather than her face. “You’d be dead.”
“You forget I’ve taken you down twice,” she says. “Maybeyou’dbe dead.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” I say. I finally look into her eyes. Dark blue. Violent flame. It tempts a smile from my lips, but I resist the urge. “Magic is nothing if you can’t control it, Grace. Ask the Nectoa.”
“The what?”
“The beast,” I say. “The spider that attacked you.”
“Thatyouattacked me with,” she corrects. She holds my gaze, nose scrunched in disgust.
“I’ll tell you what,” I say, choosing to ignore that statement. “If you can prove you can handle yourself, I’ll grant you free reign of the manor.”
“Really?” she asks. Her eyes light, and a brilliant smile breaks her heavy scowl.
Fuck. I haven’t seen her smile like that since the bar. Back then, she didn’t know to fear me. Tohateme.
“Yes,” I say. I keep my voice, my face, carefully blank. “If you can consistently bring me to my knees, you can explore all the dusty crevices of this place.”
