Focus on yourself, Flick, she scolded. She strained against the bindings around her wrists again, but they wouldn’t budge, and her hands wouldn’t stop shaking enough for her to properly figure out where one knot ended and the other began.
Flick slumped back in her chair.
Those twin streaks of blood shone bright against the floorboards. She was grateful Chester, Reni, and Felix hadn’t been with her when the Ram’s men found her. Right now, Flick was certain the one thing keeping her alive was the fact that she had the ledger—and perhaps the fact that she was the Ram’s daughter.
Seeing her mother as evil was harder than she thought. Her entire life, her measure of good was tied to how her mother felt. If her mother was happy, that meant Flick was good. If her mother was upset, Flick had done something wrong.
Flick had always been an obedient daughter, but if her mother wasn’t a good person to begin with, what sort of scale had Flick followed her entire life? And to think, she’d once been ready to undermine Arthie and Jin simply for her mother’s pleasure.
She looked up as the doorknob rattled, and she imagined the revelation rattling into her just the same: Felicity Linden would be obedient no longer.
But when the door opened, it wasn’t only her mother who entered. Four black-clad men followed her inside, and the wan light of the lamp they set on the chest glinted off her mask.
No one spoke.
One of the men brought in a small silver tray, something like pens clattering atop it, another carried a heavy crate that Flick thought safe to assume wasn’t full of pastries. A pang shot through her, and the weight of her brass knuckles pulsed in her pocket.
“It’s been a day since your arrival, Felicity. Have you anything to share?” the Ram asked.
Flick said nothing, but she felt a lick of pride when the Ram didn’t look surprised. Her resilience was gaining a reputation, at least. But goodness, aday. That meant the Casimirs had been on Ceylan for at least as long.
“The manacles,” the Ram demanded, her eyes locked on Flick. “I’ve been told she forges for the Casimirs. She values her hands very much, and I don’t see her using them to the fullest extent after this.”
It took everything in Flick’s power to keep the emotions from showing on her face.My hands.She had a job to finish. She had invites to forge before the tribute.
“Unless, of course, you share the answers I seek,” the Ram continued.
Flick held her breath quick before her fright could betray her. At the Ram’s nod, the men swept toward her. She felt powerless, helpless. She wanted to shout at the men that they would be next to die, but they knew that already. She could see it in their eyes. What would Jin do? He’d goad the Ram, even as he was strung up, even when hope was in short supply.
Flick was not Jin. And yet, the words trickled out of her anyway. “Whatever will the people think when they learn the Ram is torturing a young girl for information you only assume she has?”
There’s a time and place to fight, Jin had said.
This was the time for fighting. Flick waited until the men made her stand, waited until their grip on her eased when they thought she wouldn’t fight back. She ripped her hands free, wanting to pull her brass knuckles over her fingers and punch something. Something told her to save them—she couldn’t best four men on her own. Instead, she kicked at the crate they’d brought in that had seen better days. It rammed against the nearest man’s shins, but where could she go? What could she do?
She hadn’t found the place she’d sought out—she’d been dragged here. She hadn’t found the answers she wanted—she was trapped in a room with four trained men and her mother.
The fight drained out of her. The men clamped metal cuffs around her wrists. They were wide and heavy, the chain fat. Flick wasn’t breathing so much as gasping. They kicked the crate back toward her and shoved her on it.
The Ram marched closer. “Where is the ledger?”
Flick found no remorse in her mother’s eyes, no sympathy, and she did her utmost to not give her any emotion back.
“The Casimirs took it from me,” Flick said. Had she somehow planted a seed of worry in her mother by revealing that Jin and Arthie were alive and well?
The Ram didn’t believe her. She waved a hand. “Hang her up.”
Nothing else mattered then. Not the plan, not the Casimirs, not Flick being a bad daughter or a good one.
Only the fact that, without a doubt, she was going to suffer.
“You will pay for this,” Flick said, but her voice was small. Her strength had scattered into the recesses of her mind.
The men looped the chain to a hook in the ceiling, forcing her to extend her arms as high as they would go. The links slid with eerie, haunting clinks until it was done. Flick’s arms quivered in protest.
“Stop,” she whispered. “Please stop.”
The men stopped in some semblance of pity, but when they glanced at the Ram, she only nodded, and Flick knew the worst was yet to come.
