“I guess that makes me the beauty,” Jillian said.
Oh, good green earth. She really wanted to get on his nerves today.
“What?” Driscoll screeched. “You did not just go there.”
“It’s too easy,” Jillian said, a smile in her voice.
And even though I was grumpy they had woken me up and still hadn’t told me why, I couldn’t help my rising amusement at their banter.
Driscoll huffed. “It’s not enough that I’m trapped in a prison cell, forced to look over this depressing view of the castle grounds. Castle grounds that I used to enjoy immensely. Right down there, where the fountains used to be, was where I’d make out with the head of the king’s personal guard. He got a little too invested, and I had to break it off with him, and then I caught the eye of the stable master?—”
“Driscoll!” A crack formed in the stone wall where the hammering was coming from. “Shut up!” Jillian said.
“Um, Jil?” I asked. “Do you see that?”
“See what?” Jillian asked airily.
Maybe I was seeing things, hearing things. The crack spread, and I jumped back.
Outside, a crow cawed, landing on the branch of a spindly tree that sat below the bars of my cell, staring at me with its black eyes. The prisons were located on the top floor of the castle, all of them facing the castle grounds. The crow sat on what once was a magnificent tree, full of thick green leaves that turned golden brown and orange in the fall, that bloomed bright pink in the spring. Now it was black. Black as death. Everything surrounding this castle was. Rotten to the core.
Ever since she usurped my father and stole the crown. I swallowed, my attention falling back onto that crack.
“You really know how to draw things out, don’t you?” This time, Driscoll’s voice was dry as the desert land of Gilraeth.
“Draw what out?” I asked. “Jil, are you sure you don’t see anything?”
“Nope,” she said.
“Are you going to share why we’re all awake right now?”
“Also nope,” Jillian said, far too cheerful.
The crow flew off, no doubt to answer some call from its master. Maybe to tell her we were all awake in the middle of the night, causing trouble. It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t kill us. Death would be too easy after what I’d done to her. So instead, I sat here in this cell, watching as she destroyed the earth court bit by bit.
The crack now formed a square, and I gasped as a stone fell to the floor with a crash.
“Did you do it?” Driscoll asked. “Honestly, I’m surprised, Jil. I didn’t know if you had it in you. You always did have a weak upper body.”
Jillian’s pale face, dotted by freckles, appeared in the empty square. I stared in shock, my gaze moving down to the stoneblock on the floor, then back up to Jillian’s face. A face I hadn’t seen in two years.
“What? How—” I could barely get the words out.
“Happy name day,” Jillian and Driscoll said at the same time.
Oh. So that’s what this was about. I swallowed back my tears.
“Does she look happy?” Driscoll asked. “Is she smiling, or does she look like she wants to kill you?”
“She looks sad,” Jillian said, reaching her hand out through the opening.
“I knew it.” I could just imagine Driscoll throwing his hands up in the air. “I told you she hates her name day, ever since...” he trailed off.
Ever since my name day became synonymous with the worst day of my life.
I reached out and grabbed Jillian’s hand, reveling in the feel of it, the feel of a human touch.
“How did you guys do this?”
