It took all my strength to mask my pain. If no one had said the threnody, Seb would be forced to linger. He was still afraid. He was still alone, and worst of all, still a prisoner.

“Why didn’t she kill me?” The words chafed my throat. “Why didn’t she just get it over with?”

Warden ignored the question. After examining my shoulder, he took a chalice from the nightstand. It brimmed with dark liquid. I watched him. He lifted the chalice to my lips, taking the back of my head in one hand. I pulled against him. A soft growl escaped his throat. “It will ease the swelling in your leg,” he said. “Drink.”

I jerked my head away. Warden took the cup from my lips.

“Do you not wish to heal?”

I stared him out.

It must have been an accident that I’d survived. There was no reason for them not to have killed me.

“You were branded,” he said. “You must allow me to treat the wound for a few days, or it will become infected.”

I twisted to look at my shoulder, covering my breasts with the sheets. “Branded with—with what?” My fingers shook as I traced the taut skin. XX-59-40. No, no! “Oh—you bastard, you sick bastard—I’ll kill you. Just wait—when you’re asleep—”

My throat was too sore. I stopped, heaving. Warden flicked his gaze over my face, like he was trying to read a foreign language.

He wasn’t stupid. Why was he looking at me like that? They’d branded me like some kind of animal. Lower than an animal. A number.

The silence was broken only by my gasping breaths. Warden placed a gloved hand over my knee. I pulled my leg from his grip, sending a bolt of pain down to my toes. “Don’t touch me.”

“The brand will stop hurting, in time,” he said, “but your femoral artery is a different matter.”

He slid his hand lower, pulling the sheets away from my leg. When I saw my bare thigh, I thought I would chuck up again. Swollen past its normal size, it was stained with bruises that had spread almost to my knee. The area around my groin was black and bloodshot. Warden applied just the slightest bit of pressure to my leg, barely enough to spring a hair trigger. I choked.

“This injury will not repair itself. No wound caused by flux can heal without a second, stronger antidote.”

I thought I would die if he pressed any harder.

“Go to hell,” I gasped out.

“There is no hell. There is only æther.”

I clenched my teeth, shaking with the effort of not sobbing. Warden removed his hand from my leg and turned away.