The Mirrored Shard Read Free Page B

again. Honestly, I’d thought the odds were good that Draven was dead, tortured for Octavia’s amusement. I’d never expected us to be having a conversation, certainly. Draven stared at me with glee burning in his eyes.
    “Don’t look so alarmed. This is what happens when you don’t behave like a good little pet. Nothing compared with what happens when the queen’s in one of her moods. Care to see the scars?”
    I jerked my hand free in disgust. Draven’s fingers left red marks around my wrist. Even half-starved and caged, he was still strong. And even crazier than when I’d last seen him. I didn’t see this ending well, for either of us.
    “Leave me alone,” I whispered. “Don’t talk to me. We have nothing to say to each other.”
    Draven laughed. He sounded like a frog trying to talk. “I don’t bear you any ill will, Aoife. You did exactly what I would have done. You protected yourself, and you got your revenge.” He coughed, a deep, wet rattle that revealed sickness dug far into his lungs. The air was cold against my skin, and I could hear water dripping off the stones. “It’s my own fault I let myself be outsmarted by a teenager.”
    “How long has Octavia kept you down here?” I rubbed my arms against the cold. If her plan was to lock me upwith Draven as punishment, it was working. One might hope their mother would notice they were gone and raise a fuss, but only if one didn’t have Nerissa for a parent. I doubted she’d notice until she got irritated with me for something and didn’t have anyone to yell at.
    “Always,” Draven said. “Unless I’m trotted out at parties for her courtiers to view, or tortured by that pale-faced horror Tremaine for her amusement. Always in the dark.” He coughed again, and I saw blood fleck his lips. “Always.”
    “I saved her life,” I snarled, angrier than ever at Octavia. “I broke your curse, and she puts me down here with you like I’m no better than a prisoner.”
    “You stupid child,” Draven said. “You are a prisoner. Even worse, you’re a prisoner who doesn’t know it. You think everything will be fine as long as you stay out of the queen’s line of vision. But sooner or later you’ll be in this cage with me. And then I’m not going to be so understanding about you putting me here.”
    “You’re so generous,” I muttered. I knew, though, deep down, that he was right. My time in Octavia’s good graces was limited. I had to get out of here, and out of Thorn, before it expired entirely.
    “I’m nothing of the sort,” Draven said. “Maybe I’m just curious as to why you’re still here, the girl who has the power to bend worlds together as if you were folding paper.” He raised a finger when I opened my mouth to retort. “Either you don’t have the nerve to make a run for it, or you’re waiting for something. So which is it?”
    “Why do you care?” I said. Draven grinned at me—thatsame grin, tinged with insanity, that I’d had nightmares about since the first time I’d run afoul of him, back in Lovecraft.
    “Because if you’re waiting for something, there are only a few things. Your mother is happy as a crazy little clam here in the Thorn Land, and your human family has gone on without you just fine, so it must be … the dead kid? Dean?”
    I turned away from him, partly so he wouldn’t see my tears and partly so I wouldn’t reach through the mesh and wring his neck.
    “You don’t want to talk to me about Dean.”
    “Oh, but I do,” Draven said. “I know that someone must have told you there are ways to visit the dead. My research, shall we say … outside … of the norms of the Proctor laws told me plenty. And I bet your dear old dad knows all about it.”
    I snorted. As if my father would ever discuss that sort of thing with me.
    “Not Dad, then. Mother.” Draven hit the bars as if he’d just solved a great mystery. “Your mother told you how to reach the Deadlands and now you’re darting off to