Page 4 of The Mask Falling

“Paige?”

“I’m fine, Warden.” Tears scalded my face. “I’m fine.”

When I could move, I spat out the last of the bile and climbed straight back into the bath, insides writhing in protest. I needed to do this. I needed to wash my imprisonment off me.

Perhaps the Underqueen would care for a drink. To celebrate her short-lived reign.

“I can’t.” My throat had a thick lining. “Warden, I can’t breathe—”

Drink.

For a terrible instant, I thought I would pass out and slide under the surface, never to emerge. Then Warden was there, holding my elbows.

“Breathe in,” he said. My hands went to his shoulders. “Paige, look at me.” I tried, through a dark haze. “Breathe in. Slowly.”

Easier said than done. I managed to inhale, but it did little to wring out the soaked cloth of my lungs.

“Good,” he said. “This will pass.” I had to blink several times before I believed he was really there. “Breathe out.”

His voice guided me back to myself. My fingers dug into his shoulders. When the surge of terror had receded, Warden drew back, his shirt wet from my touch, and saw the extent of my injuries.

His gaze darted to mine, asking permission. I gave a small nod. He took in every cut and bruise on my upper body, lingering for no longer than necessary, ending on my ravaged wrists.

“Who did this?”

The pitch of his voice was so low, it was little more than a vibration. “Vigiles,” I said. “Sometimes for information. Sometimes for the fun of it. Suhail was the one who … poured.”

Banked heat flickered in his eyes.

“You must be angry with me,” I said. “For giving myself up to Scion. For not telling anyone I had a plan.”

His attention dropped to my hands, which rested on his wrists. Half of my fingernails were black.

“I resented you. For eluding us all,” he said. “For knowing exactly what she does to those who defy her, yet still gambling with your life, all for a strategy with little chance of success.”

“I don’t regret it.” I whispered the confession. “It was the only way to destroy Senshield, and it had to be then.”

“To those of us who care for you, your life would not have been an acceptable exchange for that victory. Every night, I wished you had not thought it was. That you had not done it.” With the barest touch, Warden lifted my chin. “I also expected nothing less of you.”

I managed a short-lived smile.

With him beside me, I was calmer. All I wanted now was to be out of the water and into a bed. Warden moved to sit on the floor, while I reached for a cake of soap.

“Jaxon was in the Archon. He told me things.” The bathwater rusted around me. “He said it was the spirit of the Ripper that scarred you twenty years ago.”

Warden was silent for a long time.

“We were hung in chains to await our punishment, to learn whether we would be sequestered—executed—for our crimes,” he said. “That was not our fate. The Sargas do not destroy their fellow Rephaim lightly.”

“Nashira destroyed Alsafi.”

The skirr of her blade. The thump of his head. I had barely known Alsafi, yet he had sacrificed himself to buy me a chance to escape.

“That, I imagine, was a rare instance of passion. His betrayal must have incensed her,” Warden said. “No, the scars were a far more imaginative solution to our disloyalty, marking us forever as traitors.”

“Did you ever stop seeing the room where it happened?” I dragged a cloth up my arm. “Did you ever stop thinking you were still trapped there?”

Another silence.

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