Page 46 of Wrath of the Never Queen

“Oh.” I gnaw at my bottom lip, excited to see the prince again but unsure of where in the castle he plans on taking me. There is also a nagging sadness in the back of my mind that I should not be enjoying such luxury as warmth and comfort when I know it is the condition of my imprisonment.

“What is it, miss?” Inez asks. Her eyes watch me keenly.

I sigh and push the tray away.

“Do you think me weak-willed, Inez?” I ask. She raises her eyebrows.

“Of course not, miss.”

“You can be honest. I will not be cross,” I tell her earnestly.

“Iambeing honest,” she replies, shaking her head. “There is not one person who has met you who would think you weak-willed. Probably many other unflattering terms, if you ask some of the guards, but not weak-willed. What makes you ask?”

I gaze out the window, watching the snow fall. I remember standing on the windowsill three months ago, ready to risk my life just at a chance to escape. And now I am sitting in my cage, enjoying cake and tea.

“I have become complacent, Inez,” Imurmur, not looking away from the window. “I have stopped fighting.”

She places her warm hand over mine.

“No, miss,” she says. “Fighting does not always mean throwing punches or flinging yourself out of windows.”

I shoot her a sideways glance, wondering how she knew, but say nothing. She leans in.

“Sometimes fighting is just surviving.”

I look down and smile. The snow hare scurries through my mind, limbs outstretched and eyes wide.

“You are right.” I breathe deeply. “I do wonder, though…”

Inez looks at me expectantly, nibbling on her toast.

“If there was way a way to leave, would you?” I ask, keeping my tone light.

She blinks. Once. Twice. Three times. The toast remains in her hand.

“Leave, miss?”

I gesture around us.

“The castle. Would you leave?”

She opens her mouth once and closes it. Opens it again.

“This is my home,” Inez says finally. “I do not know anything else.”

“But to get away from the king would be worth it, no?”

“We can never get away from him, miss.”

The words fall from Inez as casually as ifshe were telling me about the weather, but they cause a deep fissure across my heart.We can never get away from him.

I want to cry for her, for all of them, for me, but I do not. Instead, I rearrange my face into something resembling neutrality and close my hand over the top of hers.

“It was purely hypothetical anyway,” I say with a smile and Inez visibly relaxes, her shoulder sagging. “No point in discussing it any further.”

“Quite right, miss,” Inez replies brightly and reaches for a slice of honey cake.

Later, once we have finished our breakfast, Inez dresses me for my morning walk with the prince. Despite staying indoors, she insists the castle is too chilly to walk around in the simpler dresses—without a lit fire, the cold seeps through the brick.

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