A few days later, I’m absorbed in drawing a marble on the floor of one of the living rooms. I’ve spent hours trying to capture the light as it shines through, distorting it and throwing a soft rainbow on the floor just beyond. It’s difficult to capture the light just the way it is, but it’s also pretty challenging to get the shadows down. The hardest part is drawing the spaces in between, the many different shades of dark brown and deep grey.

Life is often like that, dealing with the difficulty of trying to figure out just what is shadow and what is light.

Dryas comes to sit beside me as I draw. He’s quiet for a while, maybe thinking that I don’t notice him. But of course, I do because that is who he is. He commands attention, whether or not he means to.

I haven’t seen him much since our encounter. Nor did I expect to; it seems to be a pattern with him to disappear for a while after being so close.

It’s disconcerting, yes. But it’s a part of who he is, I guess.

Dryas moves around at length to peer at the sketch I am making. “It’s good.”

I give him a half-hearted smile. Taking compliments is just not something I’m comfortable with. “Thanks.”

He focuses his gaze on my face, which makes my cheeks heat. “You know that your birthday is tomorrow, don’t you?”

I blush doubly. “I do.”

“I have a surprise for you, for your birthday.” He pulls out a strip of white silk. “You’ll need a blindfold. And you’ll probably want to change.”

I look down at myself, cringing when I realize that I’ve smeared colored pencil on several spots on the front of my ivory dress. I glance back up apologetically. “Sorry. I didn’t realize that I was getting colored pencil all over myself.”

He rolls his eyes. “I could not care less. If you set fire to your entire closet, I would have new garments for you in a day.” He stands up, rolling his head on his neck. “I think I’ll wait for you on the… what do you call it? A deck?”

I smother a smile. “I’ve been calling it the verandah, in my head.”

He merely nods, the ghost of a smile crossing his lips. He leaves me to rush through changing. When I find him again, he takes one look at the delicate pink silk camisole dress I’m wearing and frowns.

“You need to wear something of more substance than that. Cover up a little.”

Instantly, my entire body flushes. I turn and run back upstairs, incredibly ashamed of myself. Thinking nothing of it, I actually looked at myself in the mirror before I came down and thought that I looked good.

Tears leak from my eyes faster than I can wipe them away. I have let this place change me, although I did not know it. Ripping the dress off, I leave it on the floor. Hopefully, the servants will just throw it away.

I choose another white dress this time, as prim and proper as any I have in my closet. With a long white skirt and a high sleeveless top, it feels appropriately restrictive and tight when I zip up the back. Then on top of that, I add a thick black cardigan, wooly and soft against my skin.

I don’t bother to check myself in the mirror this time, because I’m suddenly hyperaware of how strange this all is. My life is not my own. It’s something that I do not recognize, not anymore.

Heading down once more, I find Dryas waiting at the bottom of the stairs. He’s changed too, his jeans and tee shirt traded for a proper suit, black with a white shirt underneath. I’m not in the mood for swooning, but if I was, the cut of the suit flatters him.

He seems unaware and brooding, squinting at the light that filters down from the highest windows in the foyer. When he spots me, he flashes me a guilty look a few seconds.

Why that should be, I do not know.

Still, he says nothing about it. He just waits until I descend, then offers his elbow for me to take. Opening the front door, he ushers me outside to a silver SUV that is waiting.

A chauffeur hops out and opens the back door. We both get in, still silent except for the noises we make getting comfortable on the buttery leather seats. I look out the window as the SUV pulls out, wondering where we’re going. When I glance at Dryas though, he’s looking out his own window, ruminating on things I can’t even begin to guess at.

We drive for some time before we come to a town, it’s beautiful cobblestone streets and ancient stone buildings dazzlingly angled. It’s quaint, every building sun-drenched and cracked with age, overflowing with ivy and flowering vines.

As we drive through the village, I press my nose against the cool glass of my window. I see an old lady walking on the side of the road, her arms loaded with baskets of flowers. Faintly, I think I would trade myself with her. She seems old, but she looks like she lives a good life.

At least she knows what freedom is. I put my hand flat against the glass, wishing I could see her for longer. But already we are going past her, on our way to some unknown destination.

Dryas shifts in his seat, drawing my attention. He draws the blindfold out of his jacket pocket, unfurling it. “You’ll need this. Put it on.”

I’d forgotten it, honestly. It’s part of today’s gift, so… I guess I’m going to wear it. Taking the raw silk in my hands, I slip it on over my eyes, tying it behind my head.

I lean my head back on the headrest for the remainder of the fifteen-minute journey. Trying not to think of all the places that they could be taking me, I close my eyes and feel the lull of the SUV, rolling my bones this way and that.

The car finally comes to a stop. I tense up again, but Dryas is quick to soothe me. “We have arrived. Wait for just a second, I’ll come around and help you out of the vehicle.”

As I can’t see, I’m forced to rely on my other senses. I hear the door open beside me. I feel Dryas’s strong hands as he helps me from the car. Under my feet, the ground seems uneven. He awkwardly helps me down a long flight of steps. We go inside, and the light shining through my blindfold dims severely.

I stumble at one point, but Dryas is right there, catching me and taking my hand. He clasps it in his hand, his fingers large and hot and certain.

“We’re here.” Finally, he takes me by the shoulders and turns me about forty-five degrees. “Take off the blindfold.”

I pull the blindfold off, blinking into the dim light. Standing across from me is Amabel, looking disoriented, wearing a severe-looking black silk dress. Without thinking I just barrel into her, knocking the air from my own lungs. While I’m hugging her small body to my own, I notice Dryas step out of the room, but I pay him no mind.

She’s here. It’s almost too good to be true.

“Ama,” I whisper, tears overtaking me. I bury my face in her blonde hair. She still smells the same, like soap and freshly starched clothes.

Amabel pushes me back a step. I let her go, unsure what is going on. I look at her face and find it twisted in a scornful expression.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, smoothing out her black silk dress.

Blinking at her, I am confused. “Ama, aren’t you glad to see me?”

Ama curls her lip. “Happy to see the sister that is whoring herself out to that… that man?” She lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “I think not.”

For a moment, I am lost. My mouth forms a small O. How could Ama know what I’ve been doing at the castle?

I shake my head. “I haven’t… I’m not—”

My sister makes this sound she makes when she’s dismissing something, a sort of pshh. She shakes her hair out, settling it just so on her shoulders. Always worried about her appearance, though in the Bible Jeremiah says that vanity is wrong.

“I know what you are doing,” she accuses me flatly. “You ran away from your wedding, with every intention of lying with that man. Satan’s minion. I don’t know how you can live with yourself. And to drag me into it…”

My eyes fill with tears again, but these are not tears of reunion and joy. Her voice is the critical one in the back of my head, the one that dogs my every step. Of course, she is right, to some extent. But she’s also quite wrong.

I grab her wrist, pulling her toward me. “You are wrong. I’ve been kidnapped and held captive too.”

She makes the noise again, pshh. “You are enjoying your captivity, then. I see that you’ve gotten some sun on your skin, because your freckles have doubled. You know what I got during my stay?”

Paling, I shake my head. “Amabel—”

She sticks her foot out, her foot looking strange in a black high heeled pump. What’s worse is above the shoe, there’s a chafed, reddened band around her dainty ankle. I can’t help but step forward, aching for her, my eyes disbelieving. She leans in close to me, hissing her words.

“I ran away over and over like anyone would do if they had even a mote of sense. My reward was being shackled like a slave.”

Stunned, I look up at her. Her pretty face is twisted again. She looks short of spitting on me. I reach out to grasp her arm, but she yanks free of my touch.

“Don’t,” she warns.

“Ama, I’m so sorry—”

“Sorry? You haven’t even thought about me,” she says. “You’ve been cooped up avec son démon, n’est-ce pas? You have been running free with your demon, while I have been shackled in a dungeon.”

Her frantic burst of French makes me want to curl into myself. Or else be far away from here, anywhere that isn’t under her hateful gaze. I know that my sister has a tendency to alter facts to fit her own narrative.

Is she right, though?

“I will talk to Dryas about your living situation—” I start, my voice tinged with the desperation I feel.

She turns up her nose, cutting me off. “You mean spread your legs for him? You’re not doing it on my say so, sister.”

“I didn’t mean—”

Ama moves to the stairwell, calling out. “Take me away from this traitor, will you?”

My eyes well up as Ama rushes up the stairs. There’s some confusion and shouting upstairs, then silence. I hear Dryas’s heavy tread on the stairwell before I see him. Turning away, I try to dry my tears, but they won’t stop coming.

What if my sister is right?

What if I am falling for the devil’s tricks?

But when Dryas sighs and reaches out, wrapping me in his arms, I don’t resist. I weep even harder, my tears causing a wet spot to spread across his warm chest.

“I didn’t know that your sister was so cruel,” he says, murmuring into my hair. He pushes back the locks from my face, the ones that cling damply to my flushed skin. He sounds so foreign after talking to my sister, whose accent is half-British, half-French.

For some reason, his words only make me cry harder. He tsks a little, holding me even closer. And I let him because I am weak.

That is the best time for the devil to get you when you are lower than you have ever been. And even knowing that. I cannot turn myself away from him.

I need him, to steady me against the blow I’ve just received. Against the world, it feels like.

Tipping my face up to his, I scan his gaze. “Is it true that you keep her in a dungeon?”

A tiny bit of amusement passes through his eyes. “No.”

I take a deep breath. A thought occurs to me, sudden and unprompted.

“You don’t have to keep her, just to control me,” I whisper, my cheeks wet with tears. He looks down at me, his eyebrows lowering over those magnificent eyes.

“No?” he asks. Quietly, almost tenderly. He reaches a hand to my face, brushing away my tears with gentle fingers.

I shake my head. “No. I would not go back to Father Derrik and Prince Henrick's if I have the choice. Keeping Amabel to stop me from running back to them… it just isn’t necessary.”

His mouth quirks up for just a moment. “But what will keep you with me?”

Ashamed, I look down. “Where would I run to? I… I have nowhere else to go. No one else to turn to, not even my sister.”

My voice breaks a little during the last few words.

He nods, pulling against his chest once more. “Nothing is so sharp as a blade honed by your sibling. I will think about releasing her, then.”

I nod, still miserable. But my tears have stopped flowing. And when he urges me to go up the stairs and to get in the car, I do. Drying my tears, I sit in the SUV, trying to be serene about what just happened.

When you only have one choice left, at least you can have the strength to make it your own choice.