Is he at my door, listening?

I dredge my mind for a memory to banish the pain.

When I recovered from being Pri-ya, I was horrified to realize that, although my time with the princes and afterward at the abbey was blurred, I retained every single memory of what Barrons and I had done together in bed in graphic detail.

Now I’m grateful for them.

I can use them to keep myself from screaming.

You’re leaving me, Rainbow Girl.

No—that’s the wrong one!

I rewind, fast.

There. The first time he came to me, touched me, was inside me. I give myself over to it, replaying every detail in loving memory.

In time, I’m able to remove my fist. The tension in my body eases.

Warm in memories, my body shivers on the cold marble bathroom floor.

Alina’s cold. Barrons is cold.

I should be cold, too.

*   *   *

When I finally sleep, the cold invades my dreams. I pick my way through jagged-edged ravines gouged into cliffs of black ice. I know this place. The paths I walk are familiar, as if I’ve walked them a hundred times before. Creatures watch me from caverns chiseled into the frozen walls.

I catch glimpses of the beautiful, sad woman slipping barefoot across the snow, just ahead. She’s calling to me. But each time she opens her mouth, an icy wind steals her words. You must—I catch, before a gust carries the rest of her sentence away.

I cannot—she cries.

Make haste! she warns over her shoulder.

I run after her in my dreams, trying to hear what she’s saying. Stretching out my hand to catch her.

But she stumbles at the edge of an abyss, loses her footing, and is gone.

I stare, stunned and horrified.

The loss is unbearable, as if I myself have died.

I awaken violently, snapping up from the floor, gasping.

I’m still trying to process the dream when my body jerks and begins to move like a pre-programmed automaton.

I watch in terror as my legs make me rise, force me to leave the bathroom. My feet carry me across the room, my hands open the balcony doors. My body is propelled by an unseen power into the darkness, beyond the protection of my crimson ward line.

I’m not functioning of my own volition. I know it, and I can’t stop myself. I’m completely unprotected where I stand. I don’t even have my spear. Darroc took it away before the prince sifted me out.

I stare out at a shadowy outline of rooftops, awaiting, dreading whatever command might come next. Knowing I won’t be able to refuse subsequent orders any more than I could this one.

I’m a puppet. Someone is yanking my strings.

As if to underscore that point, or perhaps merely to make a mockery of me, my arms suddenly shoot straight up into the air, flail wildly above my head before dropping limply back to my sides.

I watch my feet as they shuffle a cheery two-step. I wish I could believe I’m dreaming, but I’m not.

I dance on the balcony, soft-shoeing it faster and faster.

Just as I begin to wonder if I’m going to be the fairy-tale girl that danced herself to death, my feet go still. Panting, I curl my fingers tightly around the wrought-iron railing. If my unknown puppet master decides I’m to fling myself off the balcony next, it’s in for a hell of a fight.

Is it Darroc? Why would he do this? Can he do this? Does he have so much power?

The temperature drops so sharply that my hands ice to the railing. When I jerk them away, ice shatters and falls into the night below, tinkling against pavement. Small patches of skin from my fingertips remain on the railing. I back up, determined not to commit forced suicide.

Never hurt you, Mac, the Sinsar Dubh croons in my mind.

I inhale sharply. The air is so bitterly cold it burns my throat and lungs.

“You just did,” I grit.

I feel its curiosity. It doesn’t understand how it hurt me. Skin heals.

That was not pain.

I stiffen. I don’t like its tone. It is too silky, too full of promise. I try desperately to get to my dark lake in time to arm myself against it, to defend myself, but a wall erupts between me and my watery abyss, and I can find no way around or through it.

The Sinsar Dubh forces me to my knees. I strain against it every inch of the way, teeth clenched. It whips me around and I collapse onto my back. My arms and legs fly out as if I’m making snow angels. I’m pinned to cold metal girders.

This, Mac, the Sinsar Dubh purrs, is pain.

I drift in agony. I have no idea how long it tortures me, but the entire time I’m excruciatingly aware of one thing: Barrons isn’t going to save me.

He isn’t going to roar me back to reality like he did the last time the Book crushed me in the street, the last time it “tasted me.”