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I glanced down at the girl by my side with her flamered curls. We could do this. We could get through this. We were both alive. And I planned on keeping it that way. So far, so good.

One ward left to go.

Chapter 53

LUNAYA

Persis had named the little female fluffin Nell. Now Lunaya watched while they played through the bars of the fluffin’s cage. Nell had quickly taken to Persis. Lunaya watched as Persis held a finger out through the bars. She crept forward, her black nose twitching, and then licked his fingertip.

Persis’s face was delighted. “My little beauty,” he whispered.

The fluffin answered by flopping onto her side, presenting her soft white belly. Persis slipped his fingers through the cage, trying to reach the animal.

“She likes me,” he said, over his shoulder, as if surprised.

“Of course she likes you,” Lunaya answered. “You’re her friend.”

Persis turned with a frown on his young face. “She shouldn’t be in the cage.”

“I agree.”

“Why don’t we just leave?” he burst out. “We could run away together, the three of us.”

Lunaya’s throat tightened. “I am like the fluffin. I can walk around in my cage, but I can’t leave it.”

“Because of Marcus and Catherine,” Persis said. Lunaya nodded. The boy was persistent. “What happens if you go too far away? Have you tried?”

“It hurts,” Lunaya said simply. There was more she could say. But she didn’t want to scare the boy. She glanced down at her hands. She’d worn a dress with long sleeves. But where the skin peeked out, there were webs of black. The thick dark branching veins were all across her body now—mirroring the ones that covered the Luminthar.

How ironic and how tragic that poor Molindra had been the one selected for this terrible task. Luminthars were meant to draw greater strength from the sun. But the Bonewood was almost always a cloudy, foggy place—like a land under a curse. It hadn’t been the Luminthar’s sun powers they wanted, it had been Lunaya and her Orphos blood. Catherine had twisted it, shaping Lunaya into an unnatural key. Now Lunaya could climb onto a dragons’ back and feel Molindra’s power beneath her hands. She could hear the dragon’s voice in her mind with the power of the blinding sun. But every day that went by like this took something from her that she would never get back. Her life-force fed the dragon and kept it alive. Eventually, what Catherine had done would kill both girl and dragon.

Lunaya watched Persis playing with the fluffin. The boy was trapped, too, but his cage was larger than the other children’s. Once upon a time, he had been friends with the O’Rourke children. He knew the house, knew the servants. When the other child wards had been brought to the manor and confined, he had been ignored and allowed to roam free.

“I’m stuck here, too,” Persis said, confirming that he had a measure of self-awareness.

“You’re small. Quiet.”

“Good at sneaking,” he clarified. “People don’t notice me. Or they don’t care.”

She could see this hurt him. “I care about you.” The words didn’t lift his spirits. The boy’s face was bleak and hopeless. “It won’t be like this forever,” she said before she could stop herself.

Persis blinked. “What do you mean?”

The fluffin had her face pressed to the bars. Her huge ears were perked. She seemed to be listening, too.

“We’re going to do something. Something very brave but very dangerous.”

Persis’s eyes were wide. “I can do that. I don’t mind danger.”

Lunaya smiled slightly. “I know. You’re a very brave little boy.”

“I’m twelve,” he corrected. “Practically a grown-up.” He paused. “There’s a new girl in the dungeons. I’ve seen her.”

Lunaya’s breath caught. “Persis!”

“She’s a grown-up girl. Like you.”

Lunaya had heard the others speaking of the girl. She knew who she was and what had been done to her.