Darkness swallowed everything.
Where am I?
I lifted my hands, expecting to see the slender wrists that belonged to Lily—but the fingers glimmering in the gloom were unmistakably mine, the ones I had been born with. My heart lurched. Had I—somehow—returned to my original body?
"No."
The single word cut through the void like the scrape of flint. I knew that voice. I turned—and there I was. My own body stood a few paces away, gazing at the velvet-black sky. Beside her lounged the silver-haired stranger from the bookshop, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat as though rooftops after midnight were his favored drawing room.
"That's a shame," he murmured.
"Why?" my body asked with a low, curious laugh.
"Nothing," he lied, turning for the exit. My body watched him go, then tilted its head to admire the stars as though they might share their riddles.
That isn't what happened, I wanted to scream. I'd said yes, taken the bargain that imprisoned me in Lily's skin. Yet in this-whatever-this-is, I had refused. If I could reach her—reach me—perhaps I could pry open the hinge of fate and slip back into the life that was stolen.
The scene jerked forward as though someone had pressed fast-forward. My body blurred and vanished, leaving only darkness and the sound of a man's ragged sobs.
"I'm sorry, Eve," he whispered, voice tremulous. "I was too slow. Please, forgive me."
I drifted, bodiless, through the sound of his grief.
"I thought we'd grow old together," he choked, words soaked in tears. "I never imagined I'd see you like this—so… so ruined."
His sorrow was a raw, keening thing, deeper than any wound I'd borne. No one had ever wept for me, not in the world I left behind. Did my parents even know I'd died? Would they shed a single tear, or merely mourn the chance to apologize?
Grief crushed my chest. I cried with the unseen man until the dream snapped like brittle glass.
I jerked awake.
A single candle sputtered weakly on the rough wooden table, its flickering light clawing desperately at the shadows that crowded the corners of the derelict cabin. Cold water dripped from my tangled hair, soaking the dress that clung to my skin like a second wound. Coarse rope bit into my wrists, binding me tightly to the leg of the table. Behind me, a barrel overflowed with stagnant water, the heavy scent of mildew thick in the stale, windowless air.
Three men filled the cramped room. The knight—the very one who had once offered me aid—sat calmly in a chair, gnawing on an apple as if we were sharing a quiet picnic instead of a nightmare.
"Look who's conscious, boss," one thug sneered, lifting a knife that gleamed like a wicked smile in the candlelight.
The knight's smirk deepened. "Well, well. I was beginning to think we'd need to drown you just to wake you."
"What do you want from me?" My voice cracked. "Do you know who my brother is?"
The thug barked, "Quiet, brat!"
The knight rose, letting the apple core drop to the dirt floor. "Do you know what your beloved parents did before they died?"
Lily's parents. Ice rushed through my veins. "Yes," I whispered.
"A clever girl. What did they do?"
"They… kidnapped children. To sell them."
"Correct," he hissed, stepping close enough that I tasted his breath—cider and rot. He drew a sword and leveled its point beneath my chin. "Do you know what they stole from me?"
"M-mon—"
"MY YOUNGER SISTER!" His roar shook dust from the rafters. "Death was too merciful for those monsters. They never felt the terror of a vanished child. But now—" his smile was a blade "—their daughter falls into my hands. How could I waste such a gift?"
He nodded, and the two brutes hauled me upright, dragging me to the barrel. A calloused hand shoved my head under the water. Panic exploded in my lungs. I thrashed, but the rope bit deeper. At last, they yanked me up, air scalding my throat.
"Dying would be easy," the knight said pleasantly. "I want you to learn helplessness—exactly as I did."
Again, the water. Again, the terrible ascent into stinging air. My screams dissolved into hoarse gasps. They beat my hands and feet until swelling turned my skin grotesque, then upended the barrel, plunging my battered body into the icy flood. Fresh wounds erupted in agony.
The men seized the candle and every scrap of warmth, leaving only a guttering stub of kindling near my prone form.
"I hope you survive the night," the knight called out, shutting the door behind him with a click that echoed like fate locking itself into place.
Silence fell.
I lay motionless on the sodden floor, blood trickling from torn skin, mingling with the freezing puddles around me. Each breath felt like drawing in shards of glass. The wind outside wailed through the cracks in the wood, haunting, hollow, like a mother mourning a child she'd never hold again.
I wanted to die.
I had already died once, hadn't I? In another world, in another body. Wasn't that enough for one soul?
But the hours dragged on. I didn't move. I couldn't. My limbs were too heavy, my spirit too raw. I simply waited for morning, for anything, for death—or something worse.
But morning came, and I was still breathing.
They returned. No food. No water. Only pain.
Another day. Another night. Still, I endured.
On the third day, my body was a map of torment—swollen, bleeding, broken. Every inch of me ached, screamed, begged for release. My voice had long since gone hoarse from crying, from silence, from drowning.
I didn't know if I would survive another day.
I wasn't sure if I even wanted to.
But I was still here.
And that, somehow, felt like defiance.