Page 168 of A Sin So Pure

They haven’t sent down a meal since.

Fae can live without sustenance for a month. But it isn’t a pleasant experience.

My stomach is long past the point of rumbling its frustrations; it wails on about the constant ache that I try to ignore.

The stone wall is cold as ice at my back, but at least it makes me feel something other than numb. I close my eyes and focus on the one thing holding my sanity together: the tether of magic still linking Patience and me.

It’s the only thing to do in the dungeons of Casimir.

I’m tempted to snap it every time I wake from my nightmares. But I wasn’t lying to him when I said I wanted to savor his death. It’s more than a want now.

Ineedto see the life drain from his eyes, feel his pulse stop under my fingertips. Simply snapping this tether isn’t good enough anymore.

Still, the tether is a fail-safe, so long as I maintain it. I build it up, slow and steady, siphoning all the magic I can into fortifying the connection.

Either way, his fate is sealed. In that alone, our plan worked.

The image of Imogen, shock and desperation stricken across her face, flashes across my mind. I wince at the onslaught of memories. They strike me without warning, sharp and to the heart, more often than I’d like. The way betrayal burned in those amber eyes before she was consumed by darkness replays in my head over and over again.

It’s a new ghost, haunting me the same way the memory of Patience once did.

This is worse, I think.

All I can hope is that she is safe. That Josie and Leo are safe. And that they can take better care of her than I did.

I palm my thigh, where the gun Imogen gifted me still rests, strapped to my flesh. I’m keeping it safe.

In my fantasies, I shoot Patience between the eyes with it.

Hours or days pass; I’m too tired to count the minutes.

But then the air shifts with a strange breeze, the shadows in the corner of the dungeon swirling in a familiar pattern. I know it’s him before he even steps through.

It’s not a relief, like it should be, because I’m not Pride anymore. How could I be?

Silas’s nose scrunches at the dank smell of the cellar. He is all casual nonchalance as he stands on the other side of my iron cage, fresh blood splattered on his shirt and white hair glowing red under the torchlight.

He frowns.

“I owe Wrath fifty dollars,” he mutters. “They really kept you down here this whole time?”

No “Hello.”

No “How are you?”

No “You traitorous bitch.”

My throat is rough from disuse and dehydration, but it still holds the same snippy spark I reserve for the Unseelie King.

“Yeah, well, I don’t think they trust me enough to keep me in Avalon.”

A silence passes between us where we study each other. Silas tilts his head as he takes in the damp dungeon and my state of appearance. Any wounds I sustained from the altercation in the ballroom are long healed, but the fact remains that I haven’t bathed or looked in a mirror since before the ball.

“So,” I say.

“So?” Silas mirrors. He leans back against the stone wall, crossing his feet and shoving his hands in his pockets.

I roll my eyes.Even now, he has to be a pain?

---