“Not yet.” She swore his eyes turned gray for a minute. She watched his hands glow brightly when he brought them near her arm. “I have to burn the poison out of your bloodstream.”
Another searing pain laced up her hand, and she blacked out.
When she came to again, she had to fight to open her eyes, crusted shut from dried tears. She lay in a pile of straw in a dank, dark room. Mina’s first thought was “dungeon,” and her second thought was that she wasn’t dead. Iron bracelets adorned each of her wrists with small etched writing that looked Fae. Her skin burned and itched in slight irritation. She tried to use power to get them off, but it only hurt her wrists and turned them bright red. She quickly abandoned that idea. It seemed—though the bands were light—there was enough iron in the cuffs to limit her power. She studied the burns on her wrists and noticed that her palm had been well bandaged.
Peeling back the white cloth, she saw that the cut had already healed. But the scar was still there, jagged and pink.
How long had she been here? She pulled off the bandage and let it fall to the straw. There wasn’t much room in her cell, just enough space to stand and walk five paces from one side to the other. A Fae light floated in the middle of the area, giving her light to see by, but little else was in the room. There wasn’t even a door.
How strange. “I’m either still dreaming… or dead.”
“No, you’re not dead, though you should be,” Teague’s voice rang out around her. A hole opened in the brick wall, and he stepped through it. He wore his royal robes again with the silver-leaf emblem on the collar. Which probably meant they were at the Fae palace, and she was in his dungeon “You thought to rob me of my prize, dear Mina. We can’t have that. I said I wanted your life, and I shall have it, but only I will decide when your short lifespan will be over. Do you understand?” He grasped her chin and made her look up at him.
She searched his eyes for a hint of gray. “And when will that be?”
“Soon, if you don’t stop asking annoying questions.” He thrust her chin downward and forced her gaze away.
“Fine,” she snapped, instantly regretting it.
Every inch of her wanted to fight and defy him, but if surviving was a possibility—if holding back her anger could help—she had to rein that in. She’d told Nan she was going to survive.
Teague wouldn’t admit it, because he preferred looking cruel and in control. But he saved her life, gave her a second chance. She wasn’t sure why he’d done it, but she hoped it was because part of him was still good.
She had seen it in her vision. Good still existed in him. She just needed to find it.
“How’s your hand?” He turned away from her, clasped his hands behind his back, and pretended to talk to the wall.
“It’s fine.”
“And how do you fare?” Again without turning around.
“Fine as well.”
“Is that the only word in your vocabulary?” He spun, the irritation across his face obvious.
Which just set her off. “I don’t know. I’m sure there’s a lot of really interesting vocabulary words I’d like to call you right now, but somehow this dungeon doesn’t seem like the ideal time and place to let loose those choice words.”
Teague started to laugh, and he didn’t stop. “There! That’s the fire and the wit I remember.”
“Oh, I’m sure you didn’t extend my life just so you could have intellectual battles. But then again, I’m sure you get plenty of stimulating conversations with the ogres each day.”
“You have no idea why I did what I did!”
“No, I don’t,” she yelled back. “So explain.”
“I plan on making you suffer like I suffered.”
“I don’t understa…”
Teague had vanished.
He came again hours later for more of the same. Taunting and teasing—they battled with wits and words. It became a frustrating habit, actually. Each time, Teague riled her until they were yelling at each other, and then he’d disappear, leaving her miserable.
She’d stared at the Fae light that floated above her cell and realized she could make it dim or glow brighter with just a thought. She had spent her hours trying to make the wall open up like Teague had and escape. But it must be warded against her, because the only thing she could actually control in her whole cell was the Fae light.
After another few hours, she grew hungry. Her stomach growled, but she wasn’t going to beg for food from Teague. She was too proud for that.
The light above her disappeared into the wall and left her in darkness.
“Hey wait!” Mina called out in shock. But then she stopped herself. She could handle being in the dark. She wasn’t scared.
Minutes later, the Fae light reappeared, floating just above her as if it had never left. The bricks in the wall folded out to reveal a slot, and a tray of food appeared. As soon as Mina took the tray, the bricks moved back and formed a solid wall again.
The meal was simple—bread, a sweet grain mixture similar to oatmeal, and warm cider. For prison food, it wasn’t half-bad. Mina finished the food and then put the tray by the wall and stretched out on the straw. She fell asleep only to wake up with a familiar sensation. There wasn’t a toilet in her cell.
“This is so embarrassing.” Mina wanted to cry as she looked around for options.
Again, the Fae light bobbed and floated through the wall. When it returned, the bricks shifted to reveal a door.
This was the first time a door had appeared. Mina wasn’t sure what to make of it, but she had a feeling the light had responded to her current need. She tried the brass pull handle, and it opened to reveal a simple water closet to relieve herself, along with necessities like soap and water. Mina took way longer than she needed and used the soap and water to scrub her face, hands, and as much of her body as she could reach. She didn’t have a comb, so she did the best she could, running her hands through her long brown hair to pull out the snarls.
When she came out, the closet disappeared.
That became her daily routine. Mina would sleep on the straw and then spend hours talking to herself, pondering aloud what had happened to her friends and family. Was Teague leaving the human plane alone? When he didn’t come to torment her, that was its own special torture—she assumed he was destroying her plane as she sat there helpless.
Her plane? There was a good part of her that wanted to go and explore the Fae world and learn about her mother’s family. She had learned all she wanted to know about the Grimm line, but she desperately wanted to know about her mother’s parents. Were they still out there? Did she have cousins, aunts, uncles?
Only twice did she give in to her sadness and cry over the loss of her mother and brother. She missed them terribly, and after days, even wished for Ever’s company. When she thought she’d been in the dungeon over a week, she almost began to miss Teague and his temper.
Mina amused herself by creating a game of sorts with the straw. She would bend a piece around and around creating a ball, which she would hold between her finger and thumb on her left hand and then flick with her right at a brick on the far wall. She even scratched a round target onto the brick.
She flicked the ball at the target.
