He witnessed me kill Yakariah. So why couldn’t I remember it?
I crumpled to the ground, shaking.
“I didn’t… I wouldn’t…” My head moved back and forth, my knees tucking into my chest.
I was still covered in the other man’s blood and whatever unspeakable grime that coated the floor below me.
Grigory would come for me.
He’d ask me what happened.
He wouldn’t leave me here to suffer.
I just had to wait.
It’s going to be fine. It has to be.
Grigory didn’t come for me.
And it wasn’t fine at all.
My stomach clenched in hunger as a shiver rippled down my spine.
What day is it? I wondered, not for the first time.
I blinked into the darkness, the candles doing little to light the grungy space around me. They were burning low again. Soon they’d flicker out, leaving me alone and frozen in the darkness until someone came by to magically relight them.
I always tried to talk to the figment, but he never spoke back. I wasn’t even sure he existed.
Grigory had left me down here to rot, not bothering to check on me at all. That hurt worst of all—his lack of faith in me.
Maybe I deserved that part. I had snuck out of his room, breaking my promise, but I’d just wanted to change my clothes.
What a mistake that had been.
I curled into a small ball in the blankets on the floor, my skin crawling with goose bumps.
So cold.
So damp.
So… alone.
I tried to sleep again, hoping Grigory would come to me in my dreams. But every itch and bite against my limbs yanked me back to awareness.
Are they real?
Are there bugs here?
Am I dying?
My heart fractured a little more in my chest, my bond to Grigory seeming to shatter with each passing breath.
How could he not believe me? Was I that unpredictable to him? He was always two steps ahead of me. Why couldn’t he see my innocence now?
I yawned… allowing sleep to take me once more.
“Grigory?” My voice echoed back at me, waking me from a dream. One where Grigory held me and told me everything would be all right. Except it wasn’t okay at all. He wasn’t here. And I didn’t feel him in my mind either, not like before.