The Mistress

As Nora studied the titles of the books, a memory stirred of a long-ago conversation between two people who’d not yet become lovers.

You’ll need a safe word, Eleanor.

I trust you.

That’s all well and good but I don’t entirely trust myself with you. Choose a word and I’ll carve it onto my heart and when you say it, I’ll know I have to stop. Otherwise, there is a very good chance I won’t, not even if you struggle, especially if you struggle.

She’d remembered the first poem she ever memorized as a child. The words had been all nonsense and yet they tripped easily off her tongue. “Twas brillig and the slithy toves...”

Jabberwocky, Nora, age eighteen, had answered on the day Søren started training her. I always loved that monster.

He was always my favorite monster, Søren had said.

And Nora, then still just Eleanor, remembered smiling at him, kissing him...

You’re my favorite monster, she said against his lips.

Ignoring all the other books on the shelves, Nora carefully removed a gilt-edged hardbound copy of Through the Looking-Glass from the shelf and held it in her lap.

I’ll carve it into my heart...

Nora closed her eyes and let the book fall open.

As she looked down into the book, a tear fell from her eyes and landed onto the paper monster.

“Oh, Søren,” she whispered, love and anguish warring for possession of her heart. Love for the man and anguish for the boy. “You poor little boy, thank you.”

The book had fallen open right to the Jabberwocky. And that reason was the razor blade a child had secreted between the pages thirty-six years ago. Nora took the blade from the book and held it into the light. The acid-free paper had kept it perfectly preserved—no rust, no decay. It was as sharp now as the day Søren had hidden it inside the book, hidden it away after using it on his sister...or perhaps, even worse, on himself.

She put the book back where she found it. Had she possessed a brick of solid gold it would feel less precious than this sliver of steel that could possibly cut her free from the ropes that would bind her to Marie-Laure’s bed tonight, or perhaps even save her from an attack on her own body. Aimed just right she could slice the jugular artery wide open with it, the femoral vein in the thigh. If Fat Man or Little Boy got any ideas, she could slice their balls off and shove them in their mouths. That vision gave her a dark smile. No more defeatist thinking. She would survive this to see her kidnappers pay for their crimes. She would live to watch them die.

A new and precious hope had burrowed a hole into her heart. She tucked it in, let it get comfortable. Thirty-six years ago, a troubled little boy had hidden a razor blade inside this book and thirty-six years later the woman who’d grow up to love him would find it the moment she needed it most. The razor blade in her hand felt like a miracle, like a sign, like salvation. She tucked the blade into her back pocket where she could reach it even with her hands tied.

“Thank you, God,” she prayed with the deepest, most profound gratitude she’d ever experienced in her life. Even the night her father had been killed and she’d realized she was free of him and his kind forever, she hadn’t felt this unfathomably infinite gratefulness. “Thank you for making him like this...thank you.”

How could she not thank God right now? Søren had confessed there were times as a child and teenager that he wondered why God had made him this way, made him so that he took the deepest of pleasures in causing the most brutal pain. Now she knew the reason why and she couldn’t wait to see him again, couldn’t wait to tell him.

God made Søren what he was so that he would leave this precious gift for her three years before she’d even been born.

Part Three

QUEEN’S GAMBIT

20

THE PAWN

Evening came and Laila knew she would go mad from waiting. Her uncle and Kingsley had something planned but whatever their scheme, she wouldn’t be allowed to take any part in it. She wandered the house they’d been brought to and found little in it to distract her. A beautiful house, well-decorated and clearly loved. She’d found one stray pink sock in the hallway outside the bedroom she’d been given. A little girl’s sock... Laila had stared at it until finally picking it up and putting it in the laundry room. She felt like an intruder in this private home. She didn’t belong here in these rooms and halls. Children did. Love should fill every room. Instead, Laila found only fear.

Knowing he’d discourage her from leaving the house, Laila didn’t even tell her uncle she decided to go on a short walk. She left a note on her bed in case he came looking for her and set out on her own. But she hadn’t made it to the end of the drive before she heard footsteps behind her.

“Your legs are too long.” Wes jogged a little to catch up with her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling at him as he met her at the end of the long driveway. “I’ll try to shorten them.”

“I’m used to walking with Nora. I’d forgotten not every woman on the planet is a shrimp.”

“She can walk really fast when she wants to.” Laila set out again down the tree-lined road. “But don’t ever ask her to—”

“Run. I know. Hates running. Told me she’s allergic to it. She has a long list of allergies.”

“Yes. Let’s see, there’s...cooking.”

Wes nodded. “She’s definitely allergic to cooking. Anything that required more than two ingredients—or, as she called them, the hard stuff and the chaser—she’d give up and order takeout.”