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For three weeks, I’d imagined in exquisite detail torturing and killing them. Because even though I knew I would never make it out of here, imagining their demise made me feel something.

It helped.

I braced myself for my next torment as the Lethe who rented me stood on the other side of the door. His footfalls were strong and his gait long.

So he was tall and powerful. Lovely.

The door rattled open, but I didn’t turn. My attention remained fixed on the monitors—the wall of melting colors.

“Mon petit lapin, what’s happened to you?” Blackwood’s voice rolled through the room like thunder.

Black swept across my blurred vision, swallowing the other colors, and I jolted as warm hands cupped my face.

He tipped my chin up and sucked in an audible breath.

My fingers curled into his suit for support while he examined my face, turning it gently from side to side.

The black spot in front of me swayed, and a spark of cobalt blue invaded the sea of ink.

“What have they done to you?” Horror threaded through his whiskey-smooth voice.

Without my sight, I noticed more about his presence than ever before. A hint of honey beneath the bergamot and chai tea. The tenor of his voice. The rough calluses against my soft cheeks.

Blackwood seemed to notice my vacant stare. Maybe he waved a finger in front of my eyes. Maybe he saw the damage to my corneas. I had no idea how he knew, but he did.

“They blinded you,” he breathed. “Who? I’m going to kill them.”

Such a Severin thing to say. Maybe he would bring me all of their heads. Severin loved to cut off the heads of men who harmed me.

I swallowed hard.

I wished I’d spent more time with my eyes closed when I was with Severin, memorizing everything about him without relying on sight.

Maybe then I’d know if this was him.

He felt so much like Severin it made me sick.

“I don’t know.” My voice was hoarse from all the screaming.

I hadn’t taken any of this well.

“Oh, Xeniya⁠—”

I froze, every muscle turning to granite. “You can’t say that name.”

The Order would punish me more severely than ever if anyone spoke my real name, even someone else.

Their rules were absolute. I was one of the Forgotten.

I had no name. We were supposed to be forgotten. That was the point.

I had no name.

I had a code name: Calliope.

I’d learned from Dr. Hayes that all of the Forgotten were called by one of the nine Muses in Greek Mythology. It always made me wonder if eight other girls were out there right now, being held too.

And what happened when we died?