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I turned over on the cot, trying to get comfortable despite the pain, when Viktor appeared. He’d appeared. He hadn’t opened the door. He hadn’t entered from another way. The room beyond my cell had been empty, but suddenly he was there. He carried a woman in his arms. He crossed the room without haste and laid his burden down on a long, narrow table. I froze—the woman was Florence Shen.

She was bound hand and foot, a cruel gag pressed between her bleeding lips. Her hair was tangled and wet. Everything about her was damp, as if she’d ridden through rain or fallen in a lake. Her eyes were wide and terrified. She turned her head—and spotted me.

For a moment, we just stared at each other. I had a rough idea of how bad I must look: gaunt, scarred, bandaged. Oh, they bathed me, scrubbed my skin raw. Kept my hair brushed and my clothes changed. I wore a simple white shift now; the material was rough, but at least it was clean. I looked like what I was: the specimen in some horrible experiment. The sight of me didn’t seem to inspire much confidence in poor Florence. Recognition slowly dawned in her eyes, and then an even greater terror. She struggled against her bonds.

I pushed myself slowly to my feet and made my way over to the bars of my cell. The hardwood floor beneath my bare feet shone like polished glass. Then I slammed my hands against the cage. “Viktor!” My voice came out raw as I hadn’t really had to use it much the last few days.

He ignored me. He fastened Florence’s arms and legs to the table with leather straps and buckles, the way you might prepare someone before a healer’s procedure. That wasn’t a good sign.

I scanned the room, searching again. I already knew every inch of it. I already knew there was nothing I could use—at least, nothing accessible.

Viktor moved to a table near the instruments and started pulling things down off the shelves, most of them sharp.

I wrapped my hands around the bars and leaned my forehead against them. “Let her go, Viktor. She has a dragon. Nyxaris will be here any minute. Are you really up for that kind of a fight in your condition?”

He still wouldn’t look at me, he glanced instead at Florence. Her eyes were locked on mine, breathing shallow around the gag. I looked at that gag and felt so much pity for her. At least I could still speak. For now.

“Nyxaris will burn you to ash,” I went on. “Is that what you want? Whatever you planned to do with her, it’s not worth it. It’s too risky. You value your life more than anything, don’t you, Viktor?”

Viktor turned slowly. A smile spread across his ancient white face. “Why, Regan. Concerned for my welfare, are we?”

“Concerned for my own,” I snapped. “I don’t feel like tasting dragon fire.”

“More than you already have, you mean?” His eyes moved down to my legs half-covered with the remnants of the short gown.

I refused to look down, refused to flinch. He’d taken me back here that night, the night I’d tried to kill him. The night he’d nearly ripped my throat out. And he’d healed me so tenderly. Bandaging my throat, nursing me back to health. He’d healed me so he could break me.

The welts and burns up my inner thighs were proof of that. He’d wanted it to hurt even more when he … I closed my eyes.

“Nyxaris,” Viktor said thoughtfully. “Yes, I’m counting on him. But I don’t think he’ll be a problem for very much longer. Besides, I’m quite confident that Nyxaris is currently out of commission.”

My blood went cold. “What does that mean?”

His red eyes narrowed. “Tell me, Regan, are you truly upset that it’s Florence Shen lying on this table? Or that it isn’t Medra Pendragon?”

The name hit me like a bucket of ice water. “What?” I said unsteadily.

“Oh, it was meant to be her. All along.” He shrugged. “I had planned for it to be the red-haired bitch, but I grew tired of waiting. And Blake’s evolution was … quite inconvenient.”

He meant Vorago; I assumed that Blake was dead, but I didn’t really want to know, to be honest. I preferred thinking of him alive—him and Medra.

“But then this sweet, sweet girl …” His gaze drifted back to Florence. He walked over to her, then ran a hand down her stomach. Florence shuddered and sobbed around her gag.

“Get your filthy hands off her.” I tried to rattle the bars of my cage, but they didn’t actually move no matter how I shook them. Still, my chains clanged against them and made an impressively annoying sound.

“Sweet little Florence. Your rider traits have now fully taken hold.” He reached down and fingered a strand of her hair. “Dark blue streaks. Hardly noticeable if one didn’t know to look. And your ears, of course.” He touched one, and I watched the girl try to shrink away, moving her head back and forth.

“You don’t need her,” I snapped. “You’re already a fucking dragon.”

The word seemed to get his attention. He moved. Fast. One moment he was at the table by Florence’s side and the next he was in front of my cage. His hands shot through the bars, seizing my chains and yanking me forward. My skull cracked against the bars and stars burst behind my eyes. I felt warm blood trickle down my temple.

“You dare,” Viktor roared, his red eyes inches from mine, “to speak to me about dragons?” His voice echoed off the walls, sending the infected highbloods shrieking. On the table, Florence thrashed against her bonds in terror, her eyes never leaving mine. “You nearly destroyed me, you little bitch.” His spittle struck my face. “You nearly broke me. You and that Avari dog.”

My heart hammered. Up close, I saw what I’d missed before. The black veins that had once covered his dragon wings now crossed his highblood skin, webbing over his thin ancient face like black lines through white marble.

I smiled, tasting blood. “Are you dying, Viktor?”

His grip tightened. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”