T he coins falling onto the marble floor sounded like bells. There were so many of them piled on the mahogany desk that they slid down the sides

like dirt off the side of a mountain.

One thousand pieces of gold.

I had danced, I had cleaned, I had sang, I had flirted, I had opened my body to strangers. I had given away so much of myself in exchange for those little metal pieces. And in turn, those little metal pieces would give me my freedom.

I wanted him to be proud of me for fulfilling his demand. But instead, Esmaris looked at me like I had betrayed him.

You know this story, don’t you, little butterfly?

I knew the way Esmaris’s voice sounded as he spat, “I don’t need your money.”

I knew the way the marble felt beneath my knees when I hit the ground hard.

And yet the whip was worse than I even remembered—sharper, deeper.

He would not stop until I was in pieces. “Look at me,” I demanded.

But this time, when I turned around, Esmaris didn’t stop. When he smiled, droplets of my blood smeared in the creases of his expression.

“What if I have been looking?” he said. “What if you have always been exactly what I saw in you? A whore, a killer, a slave?”

I shook my head. But here, locked in this dreamlike reality, it seemed undeniably true. There was no door. No Serel to save me. No magic at my hands.

“I killed you.” My voice wavered. It came out more like a question.

“Have I taught you nothing? My flesh has so little to do with my life. I have left my legacy.” He caressed my bare back, tugging at the fresh gashes.

“I have marked you,” he murmured in my ear, tender as a lover. “I marked your body, and I marked your soul. Do you think I don’t know how often you think of me? Do you think I don’t feel it, when you fear that I shaped you more than your own mother did?”

The wounds hurt. But those words hurt more, because they were true. I knew every angle of Esmaris’s face, but no longer remembered the shape of my mother’s eyes.

“I killed you,” I said, like a prayer. “I killed you. I killed you.”

I wanted to hear his neck snap, see his face rot. But my magic was gone.

I was helpless.

I pushed myself to my hands and knees. My gaze settled on the closet. My clothing had hung there once—a twisted sign of Esmaris’s ownership and affection. There had been weapons stored there, too.

Behind me, Esmaris laugh as I dragged myself across the room. “You think there is freedom for you there?”

I killed you. I killed you. I killed you.

I could barely move. I struggled to turn the knob. Blood slicked my palms, making it slippery around the metal. When the door at last opened, I let out a horrified cry.

Max hung there, a rope around his throat. His eyes were wide open, sightless. There was a single cerulean flower in his hands. He smelled not of ash and lilac, but of rot.

I fell backwards onto my decimated back. I was shaking. Esmaris stepped in front of the closet. He looked down at me with such affection— the same way he used to look at me when I would awaken in the middle of the night with nightmares.

He knelt before me, caressing my cheek. “You never had a future, my little butterfly. It was only a dream.”

“I killed you,” I said, over and over again. “I killed you. I killed you.” “No.” He pressed his lips to my forehead. “I am right here.”

Wake up, Tisaanah. Wake up. This is not real.

But suddenly it was difficult to discern what was real and what wasn’t. Perhaps I dreamed of a cottage with endless flowers, and a smile that

started on the left side first. Perhaps I dreamed of a life of freedom.

“Come back to bed.” Esmaris rose, his hand reaching for me. “I forgive you.”

Tears ran down my cheeks. I felt ashamed, silly.

All of this, and I had been the lucky one. I lived a life of comfort while so many people like me were disposable labor in the mines or the fields or between gears of machinery. And I had a master who loved me, at least as much as he knew how to love anything.

I placed my hand in Esmaris’s.

He gave me the smile reserved for when he was pleased with me.

But something nagged at me. I didn’t move. I touched my throat and felt metal. Butterfly wings.

I folded my fingers around the necklace. The pad of my thumb pressed to the flat back of the design—to the ridges of the Stratagram engraved there.

Home.

I had a home.

It hadn’t been a dream. This was real. I’d fought for it, bled for it, killed for it.

Esmaris’s face had gone cold and hard, as if he could hear my thoughts. “Who let you believe you could have that?” he hissed. “You are

nothing.”

Butterflies came from nothing. I wasn’t afraid of being nothing—of being pieces of so many incomplete things.

I knew who I was.

I rose to my feet. I no longer felt the wounds on my back.

“I killed you,” I ground out. “And I destroyed your empire. And I don’t need to think about you again. Not even in a nightmare.”

He lunged for me.

None of this was real. I pressed my hand to the Stratagram on that necklace, and I shattered the dream.

 

 

I OPENED my eyes to an expanse of white stone. It was chillingly silent. The light consumed all shadows, making the ivory seem unnaturally flat. I

didn’t know if I was imagining the carvings on the ceiling moving, like leaves in the wind.

I sat up.

I was in a long hallway. No doors or windows. No torches, no sound. Only light. Behind me was a dead end. Ahead, a long stretch of nothing, and a turn to the left.

I looked down at my hand. The gold was so bright, and it moved up the length of my palm in fits and starts.

I stood. I clutched Il’Sahaj, even though I knew that it would do me little good against the things I encountered in here—a place that played tricks on your mind.

I needed to find Max, and quickly. I braced myself, and began to walk.