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No, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t true. This was a… hospital. But not a hospital for the sick of body, but those sick of mind. I’d visited patients here. Iknewthis place, with its metallic smell and clanging doors.
“I don’t understand.” Tears squeezed from my eyes and slipped down my face. “Why am I restrained?”
She wore one of those sorry smiles, the shallow kind given to the suffering because you couldn’t help them. But that wasn’t me. I wasn’t suffering. I just needed to get out, to get back to Minerva and find Devere. I’d been in Rochefort’s house. Something had happened. Something terrible that had stolen my breath and clogged my heart.
“The doctor will be along soon. Try and stay calm, Val. It will make things much easier for you.” She turned away to leave.
“Wait, don’t go.” I tried to reach for her, but the straps held me back. “Wait, Miss Couper? You have to help me. I’m not supposed to be here.”
She hesitated.
“Please, this isn’t right. You know it’s not right. I don’t know what this place is, but I shouldn’t be here. I wasn’t here—moments ago, I was in Rochefort Manor. Something happened, and I… I was running, and I…” I raised my arms an inch, as far as the straps allowed. “I don’t know how I got here, but it’s all wrong. You have to help me.”
She sighed and turned back around, but she came no closer. “Perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but Val… you’ve always been here.”
“What?” Why would she lie like this? I’d done nothing to hurt her. Why was she hurting me?
“I’m sorry, Valentine. Some days are better than others. It seems today is one of the bad ones. Don’t worry. It will all be over soon.”
It will… all be… over soon…
“But… No, you’re not listening to me. I told you, I’m not supposed to be here. I have to get back to Devere, my friend. Russo arrested him and he needs me!”
“Devere from Minerva?” Her eyebrows lifted in sympathy. “You haven’t been back there in fifteen years, Val.”
I laughed, because this whole pantomime was absurd. “Then where have I been?”
“Here, in the Massalia Criminal Correction Asylum. The sooner you come to understand that and accept it, the more likely you are to be allowed out of those restraints. But until that happens, there’s nothing more I can do for you.”
“Massalia? I don’t—No, that’s not—No, I’m not a patient here.” My thoughts swirled. “I’m an… investigator. I’ve visited here, but I don’t…”My research, the criminals…“This isn’t right. None of this is right.” I pulled on the restraints again. “You’re lying. You’re with him, with Rochefort! He’s not real, you know. He’s fae. I know it sounds… Well, it sounds insane.” A laugh bubbled free. “But he’s made Minerva his fantasy, and he makes everyone dance for him like puppets. He’s lying to you. To everyone. You have to believe me. He put me here, somehow… He’s doing this to hurt me and to hurt Devere. You have to understand. Nothing is what it seems.” I yanked on the restraints again.
Her sad eyes glanced away.
I was losing her. She’d leave, and I’d be alone in this awful place. “Wait, please, you have to believe me!”
The door opened. Shoes clipped against the polished floors.
“Ah, Doctor Russo,” Miss Couper said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but he appears to be stuck in one of his episodes.”
Russo?
I strained to look around Miss Couper to see Russo, the fiend! But I saw two big men approaching my bed. One carried a needle and syringe the size of my forearm.
“Russo!” I yelled. “Where is Devere? What have you done with him?”
ThenDoctor Russoemerged, dressed all in white. He looked… different. Older. With flinty eyes that had seen too much. His gaze skipped to me and away again without recognition. “Thank you,” he told Nurse Couper. “What a shame. I had hoped we were making progress. I’ll increase his medication.”
The brute of a man brandishing the syringe grabbed my arm.
Fear flushed my skin cold. “Russo, you son of a bitch! Don’t do this!” I thrashed. I had to get away. This wasn’t right. I wasn’t supposed to be here. All of it was lies! Terrible lies! Russo wasn’t a doctor, Miss Couper wasn’t a nurse, and I wasn’t a mental patient! This was Adair’s doing. “The fae! This is the fae’s work!”
The brute’s thick hand pinned my right arm still, and then the hard point of the needle jabbed into my wrist.
“No!” I screeched. “Listen to me. You’re all trapped in a fantasy. A game! I can save you. Just let me go and I can save you and stop Adair!”
The drug’s chill wormed through my veins and dragged me down. I began to fall while lying still, through the floor, down and down, yet not moving. I couldn’t move, just a twitch. So I screamed, but made no sound. So tired… When would it end? I blinked, and the tears fell again. This wasn’t my life. It wasn’t. I’d stolen my father’s coin, taken a carriage, and left Minerva, and then after that I’d… I’d studied, somehow… somewhere. I’d become a respectable investigator, specializing in the criminally inclined. I’d made mistakes, and I’d had to go back to Minerva because I needed the money. And Devere had been there… Devere, made of magic and mechanics. And Rochefort was fae, turning the cogs of a devastating world he controlled.
Russo’s figure hovered in the corner of my swimming vision. He wasn’t a doctor. He was a constable. We’d grown up in Minerva together.
