The way Ruudde looked at Nolan didn’t match his threats. He sounded interested. Open to suggestions.
Nolan tried to see beyond the body to the person in control, just as everyone had done to him and Amara. Ruudde—or whatever his real name was—had controlled this body for over a decade. Had its owner been stuck there all that time? He’d be nothing but trapped thoughts, watching his body paraded around. Executing people. Having sex. Abusing magic and wrecking his country.
And Ruudde wanted Nolan to lock Amara up the same way.
“If you don’t cooperate, we’ll make do. It’d be easier if you were on our side, though. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I’ve learned how. Don’t make me, will you?”
Nolan shook his head fiercely to chase away Ruudde’s words. “Why do you even want Cilla alive? Who are those mages who’ve been trying to kill her? The knifewielder? Why did Jorn lie about all this?”
“So many questions.”
“Why lie about Cilla being the princess? At least tell me her real name.”
“That was a neat trick, wasn’t it? Great motivation for her to stay protected, out of sight, and not ask questions.” Ruudde kicked off his boots and dragged his feet onto the bed, sitting cross-legged. “Think, Nolan. What’ll it be?”
Nolan couldn’t make Amara go back. Even if Jorn changed, she’d still need to distract the curse. She’d still have her every thought listened in on; she’d still be trapped.
Nolan would be trapped, too. Alongside Amara, he’d endure the same pain as before, and this time Jorn wouldn’t give him permission to pull back to his own world and write through the hurt. Something might happen to Amara in those few seconds he was gone. Nolan wouldn’t be able to bear not staying now that he knew, anyway.
Forget the pills; he wouldn’t need them anymore.
He let his head dangle, staring at Amara’s boots, torn and stained from the storm and seas. He saw her fingernails. They were finally growing back properly.
“She decides,” Nolan said.
He drew back—
—and there, at his desk, he wrapped his arms around himself and tried not to vomit. The sun heated his room even through drawn curtains. Sweat sat at his hairline in tiny, hot beads. The air smelled musty.
He couldn’t betray Amara. But which option betrayed her more? She had to decide—
—but she didn’t.
Amara simply stood from her chair, and Nolan felt her fury fill every part of her. It pushed and pulsed at the edges until it threatened to spill.
“She’s not in control, Nolan,” Ruudde said. “How many mushrooms are you on? Anything Amara decides, you can overrule. Her, we can control. You’re the wild card.”
Amara stood mere footlengths in front of him, but Ruudde looked past her, at that boy in another world who ruined everything just by being.
Amara had thought of Cilla that way, once.
“I’ll give you some time to consider my offer,” Ruudde said. “Let’s find a place to keep Amara.”
30
Amara got a cell just like Cilla’s. They moved in a mattress, a pot, a privacy screen. They cut her hair to her ears in an uneven bob that left her neck cold and bare.
She was a servant.
They spoiled her, though. They escorted her to a bath and gave her clean clothes and brand-new horse-fuzz boots. She got a thick blanket and fresh meals. The servant who brought her lunch looked old, as if he should have been barenecked years ago. Was Ruudde keeping servants even as adults, like the Andans or some Elig clans did?
Of course he was. He had no reason to care about Alinean laws. About any of this world’s laws.
Down the hall, Amara heard Cilla receiving the same treatment. For whatever reason, Ruudde wanted Cilla healthy and in one piece, but why spoil Amara? Maybe it was his way of showing good will. Of saying, If you go back to Jorn, we’ll treat you right.
Only she didn’t know if he was saying it to her or to Nolan.
Unlike Cilla, Amara wasn’t kept under constant watch. They’d probably have offered her the guest quarters if not for the risk of escape. As it was, they seemed moments away from gifting her a painting or two to brighten up her cell. They needed her. No, they needed Nolan. Amara was just—a vessel. Something to lug around and damage and repair and then damage all over again. If she broke beyond fixing, no problem. They could replace her.
It was a very convenient arrangement.
Sitting on her mattress after her first lunch, she took the privacy screen, tinted paper drawn over slats, and cracked one of the slats over her knee.
She turned her arm, exposing lighter, fragile skin. She slashed the wood across. It healed. She slashed again. She watched the skin pale, then split and redden, and watched it pull together and fix itself and leave nothing but blood and splinters coating intact skin. She slashed again.
You can feel this, can’t you?
Slash. Heal.
Does it hurt? Then go. Go away.
Slash, heal.
Your. Damn. Fault. Everything.
Slash. Slash.
Get out of my body!
It didn’t heal. She watched the cuts, her arm trembling. Her hand balled into a fist. It hurt. She hadn’t realized before. The pain welled up, spread, burned, rooted deep under her skin. The cuts kept bleeding. A steady trickle. She wiped it away and more blood dripped out.
Good.
One day turned into three.
On the first day, the cuts healed within the hour. Amara didn’t try again.
On the second day, Jorn arrived on the mainland. He passed her cell on his way to Cilla’s and looked almost surprised to see Amara there. He said one thing and one thing only: “Nolan, is it? I tried to warn you.”
Amara crawled onto the mattress and waited for Jorn to move out of sight so she could breathe normally again.
She couldn’t go back to him.
Down the hall, she heard Jorn talking to Cilla. “Just eat. This helps no one.”
On the third day, Ruudde stood in front of Amara’s cell and said, “Cilla followed you from the harbor. Did you know that?”
Amara didn’t respond.
“I thought she simply wanted your protection, but no. She keeps asking after you. Come.”
Jorn already stood in front of Cilla’s cell when Amara approached, and the Jélisse marshal—what’d his name been? Gacco?—sat on the same bench as before. Amara had caught glimpses of him when she stood close enough to her bars and twisted her head just right. He rotated guard duties with a couple of other marshals.
On the other side of the bars, Cilla looked gray. She sat on her mattress, legs crossed and eyes closed. Amara’s hands hovered uselessly in the air. She edged away from Jorn, though she had no illusions about Ruudde being any safer. She just couldn’t stand being so close. Jorn’s breathing was too deep, his skin too warm, his chest so broad she couldn’t hide him from her peripheral vision, and when she looked at him, she saw freckles on a flat nose and thought of Maart.