A stuffed bunny.
Its fur is matted, one button eye missing. Its body is stitched with a dozen mismatched patches from earth-toned fabric sewn together by unsteady hands.
A child’s toy. A relic from a past I refuse to acknowledge, a ghost from a life that was stolen from me. And Cage is too close to it.
Chapter 17
Cage
HER ABILITY TO KEEP ME out of her mind without a countering attack is impressive. Unfortunately for her, I know a few tricks to slip past even the most ironclad minds. One of the most effective is using something personal, something tied to memory.
A single thread is all it takes. If I dangle it just long enough, a small seam will open into a mind. One weakness, and that wall crumbles. I picture the stuffed bunny she used to carry as a child—the one she gave to me. The moment a hint of recognition flickers in her eyes, I seize it. I grasp the thread, yanking it hard, and channel my magic into her mind with lightning speed.
A sharp thud echoes in my chest, my heart hammering against my ribs. My knees weaken, forcing me to grip the edge of the table to steady myself. Kalix is speaking beside me, but his voiceis distant. My gaze is held captive by hers, and before I can resist, I am dragged under. Air abandons me as I am submerged.
The world dissolves. Kalix. Iris. The lab. Gone. Everything disintegrates as I am unwillingly pulled into something vast and unknown. I sink deep into the abyss of her consciousness, a place I was never meant to go.
When I finally blink, the atrium is gone.
A desolate landscape stretches before me. Black sludge clings under my boots, each step met with a sickening sound of suction. The air is thick with acrid smoke that curls in dense coils, and my throat burns as I instinctively cough, but then I see them.
The ground, once a field, is now nothing but scorched earth. The grass has since been reduced to ash. And beyond, through the shifting veil of smoke—bodies. Thousands of them.
I narrow my eyes, focusing past the haze. A vast sea of corpses are sprawled across the battlefield in the armor of their country and the blood of their defeat.
A figure moves. She saunters toward me, slow and unhurried. Her hips sway with grace. A deep, menacing laugh drifts through the air—rich, oily, and laced with something inhuman. As she steps closer, my stomach twists.
Millicent. Not as I know her. She’s clad in black-scaled armor, the dark plating gleams like the hide of predator. And her eyes—
Twin voids stare back at me, a bottomless abyss that threatens to consume everything underneath her gaze.
“Do you not know how to bow?”
The command thrums through the air, thick with power, pressing against me like unseen hands. My knees falter as the force almost buckles them beneath me, but I resist. A wide, devilish smile stretches across her face, pulling her features too tight, too sharp. It isn’t a smile of amusement. It’s hunger. A predator savoring the moment before the kill.
Then…she moves.
Too fast.
A blur of motion, and a jolt of force slams into my shoulder. My body crumbles beneath it. My knees crash into the ground as the impact rattles me to my core.
“Now, how did you get in here?” She tilts her head, the motion is jarring, disjointed, as though her body barely remembers how to mimic human movement. “Have you come home?” Blood slicks her mouth, dripping in slow rivulets down her neck.
“Home?” My voice is hoarse and unsteady. “What is this place? Millicent, I didn’t try to pry into your mind. I want to leave. It was all just—”
I don’t get to finish.
Her hand shoots out, fingers clamping around my jaw. Sharp nails pierce my skin, pressing deep enough to draw blood. She snarls, “Seems we are both stuck, but I see you now.” Her grip tightens, her voice slithering over me like a curse.“Hidden from thee you have been, little sheep. Little lamb.”
The smile returns, spreading too far, stretching up her cheeks, distorting her face into something monstrous. “You are stronger,” she muses, her tone thick with amusement. “Good. You will need your strength.”
Her fingers lengthen. The nails sharpen into wicked points and plunge deeper as pain erupts, hot, searing. One claw punctures the soft flesh inside my cheek, ripping the thin membrane of my mouth. My lips part in a silent scream, but no sound escapes. She lifts me effortlessly, toying with me like a cat playing with its food. I hang there, suspended in her grasp, choking from the blood pooling in my mouth.
“There is nothing you can do to stop what is done.” Her voice lowers to a purr, “What is done has already happened.”
My pulse pounds, erratic—the world tilts.
“Get stronger.”
