Still—
Killian suddenly listed to the side but locked his knees. If I hadn’t known him so well, I’d have missed it.
What do you need my help with? I asked before I could talk myself out of it. Maybe putting some positive out into the world would rebound onto me. There was no doubt I could use the break.
Killian opened his mouth to answer, but Ronan held up his hand. “Don’t.”
You have to tell me what you need if you want my help, I reminded him. Unless he wanted to stand here all day and be cryptic. I could play that game; I had nothing else to do.
“How often have you lamented since arriving here?” Ronan finally asked.
Rather than answer, I pointed to the collar. Duh. I couldn’t announce any deaths or sing any laments.
“None?” Ronan suddenly slid his sword into the scabbard and approached me. I took a quick step away, alarmed by his intensity, and my back hit the cool concrete.
He stopped abruptly and frowned. “I’m—” He cleared his throat and started again. “May I see your eyes?”
The princes were the ones who could read minds, but in that moment, I knew what Ronan had been about to say, and it wasn’t a request. He was going to tell me, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
But he stopped himself, because while he’d never physically hurt me, he had thrown me in a cell until the bánánach floated in through the castle walls to collect me. I’d begged him to believe me, but all he did was sneer, “Look at you! Your guilt is in your eyes and in your voice.”
It was one of the few times I’d ever heard Ronan raise his voice.
I held out my hand to stop him. I don’t want you close to me, I told him. He’d seen guilt once when there was none. I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t see whatever he was looking for now.
He frowned, and I crossed my arms over my chest.
“Ronan, enough.” Killian let out a sigh, as though he’d had it with our pissing contest. “Imogen, every night I stare at the ceiling until I fall asleep. And when I wake up, it’s like I haven’t shut my eyes. My head pounds. My eyes are gritty. I can barely roll out of bed, and when I do, my ears are constantly ringing. Just when I think I can’t take another moment, it stops, and then, when I believe I imagined it, I wake up the next day and it’s there all over again.”
It took a couple of seconds, but I put the pieces together. The king had shown similar signs of fatigue before he finally took his own life...or was forced to.
You still believe I killed your father. And now you think I’m trying to kill you.
Without meaning to, I touched the collar. There was no space between it and my skin, and it stayed flush against me. Part of its magic was that it seemed to conform to my shape while remaining cold and hard.
“Hence, why we’ve come to you,” Ronan replied.
Right. Because if I did it once, I’d do it again, I thought, hoping he heard my mental sarcasm. Why in the world would it matter to me who was king? As the mortals would say, I had no horse in this race. I had been happy—mostly—with my lot in life.
Killian, Ronan, and Flynn had been my friends. They’d been like family. While being gifted to become a banshee had never been my dream, I had accepted it. But, even then, if I’d been given a choice, I never would have chosen to announce death.
I haven’t had an episode since the night your father died. It was an honest answer.
“The night you killed our father,” Ronan ground out, as if he couldn’t let my answer pass by without clarifying whose fault it was.
I didn’t.
Killian moved to stand in front of Ronan, breaking our staring contest. “What if you just don’t remember what you did?” he asked. “Has a banshee ever killed someone before?”
Not that I know of. I didn’t even remember who I sang for. The compulsion came upon me, and minutes later, I would awake with a hoarse voice and wet, red eyes. It was the one blessing of being a banshee, not knowing who I sang for.
“You say you didn’t drive our father mad, but you admit you don’t remember anything. I think you’re lying.” Ronan glared at me over Killian’s shoulder.
In a sense, he was right. But I wasn’t lying purposefully. It wasn’t as if I wanted people to die. I got nothing out of it. I merely announced the deaths of all the Folk in Tuatha.
I can’t help you. I was telling them the truth, and they didn’t believe me.
“Won’t help us,” Ronan said.
You don’t even want my help! I cried the words in my head. You want me to make reasonable an event that has no reason behind it. I didn’t want your father dead. I didn’t want any of you hurt. My throat tightened from a sob that was trying to force its way out of my mouth. I swallowed hard, over and over. You should go.
Ronan stepped around Killian to glare down at me. “I told him it was a waste of our time. So know this—if my brother dies, the pain I cause you will make that collar look like a prick on the finger.”
You can’t possibly hurt me worse than you already have, Ronan. I stared back at him, letting him see just how broken they’d made me.
At my words, he blinked and stumbled away.
“Ronan.” Killian touched his shoulder. “Let’s go.”
The scent of lavender filled the room, and a second later, it was gone, leaving the rot of bad magic in its place.
In a daze, I went to my bed and sat. The springs creaked as I lay down, moving like an old woman whose bones ached.
There was nothing for me to do. The book sat on my mattress, and I slid it beneath my back, hiding it from anyone who might peer in the window. Then I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
I slept until the slider on my door screeched, signifying meal time.
I blinked, confused. Without a window, hours stretched on until the lights went out—the only sign that night had fallen. A tray hit the floor, spilling food around it.
I had ten minutes to eat, and if I didn’t, the guards would enter my room to take it. Tonight, I stared at the tray and the unappetizing food slapped onto it. One slice of some kind of meat. Peas, I assumed. They were a little squished. And a chunk of bread.
None of it held any appeal, so I rolled onto my side to stare at the tray. The guards would hit the door when it was time for me to slide it back out to them.
But, tonight, they didn’t. The door opened, and two guards rushed into the room before I knew what was happening.
“Hands against the wall,” one guard said. “Feet spread.”
There was no putting off their request. Only once had I hesitated, and I’d quickly learned my lesson when my face was shoved against the cement floor.
I did what they asked, instinctively glancing at the bed where the book would be sitting in plain sight. But it wasn’t there.
As I stood out of the way, the guards tossed the cell. They lifted the mattress, stripped the bed, and dug through the small foot locker meant to store clothes and toiletries.
“It’s clear,” one of them called.
A shadow darkened my door as the prison doctor came to stand in the frame. She breathed in, lifted an eyebrow, and took a step inside.
Her heels clacked against the floor as she strolled the short perimeter of my room. “I smell something I shouldn’t.”