An empty room, exactly like the one I was still standing in. Except, on a visual sweep, I realized it wasn't exactly the same. On the floor lay a body. Melanie's body.
I stifled the urge to rush to her side and slid carefully through the door. Then I walked the few steps to the next door. It didn't budge, and when I looked through the crack, I could see a latch.
As I turned back to Melanie, I noticed metal embedded in the wall. Manacles, hanging on the ends of short chains. Leg irons rested on the floor below. I walked over and touched a manacle. My fingers tingled. Cold iron.
The room flickered. A man's voice said, "You don't like your bed, whore? Try these accommodations." Muffled scream as he snapped on cold-iron manacles. Another snap, the leg irons presumably following. The lamia kept trying to scream, as if from behind a gag. The man laughed and said, "I'll give you a day to wear yourself out. Then I'll bring you some company. There's a fancy man from the city who doesn't like our beds, either. He pays very well for this particular arrangement."
The man laughed, and the voices faded, and I fell back into the room, with Melanie at my feet. I crouched and checked her vital signs. She was breathing fine. When I squeezed her shoulder, she leapt up, eyes wild as she looked around the tiny room, saying, "No, please, no." Then she saw me and clutched my arm.
"We need to get Pepper," she said.
"The door's barred."
"No, you don't understand. We need to get Pepper."
"Because it's all about her. Everything is about her."
She blinked at my calm tone. "Are you all right, Liv?"
"Earlier, you said this was all about Pepper. You said Damara told us that. Except we didn't say that at all. Gabriel told Pepper that Damara said goodbye because it's what Pepper needed to hear, but the truth is that Damara only said Pepper's name."
Melanie's face screwed up. "Wh-what? All right. I got confused. But it is about her. Obviously. She's the one he took."
I hunkered down. "You're right. It's about Pepper. It's about her needing sanctuary and healing, and Cainsville refusing to provide it."
"What?"
"Cainsville wouldn't offer sanctuary, and Pepper was deteriorating. That's when you heard about me--the new Matilda, who used to work at women's shelters, who spearheaded fundraisers for girls on the street. Then there was Lucy, a samhail who refused to give the lamiae what you thought was your due. And Rina and Steph, two lamiae who'd been causing trouble with other fae. Put all those things together and a plan was hatched to get Pepper--and the rest of your sisterhood--into Cainsville. Through me."
"No! I would never--"
I grabbed her throat and pinned her to the floor.
"I'm bigger than you, Melanie. I'm stronger than you. Either you shut up and listen or I put you in those manacles and leg irons."
She hissed at that, her eyes slitting, glamour rippling.
"You hired the rogue Huntsman to help," I said. "He wouldn't kill, though. So you murdered Lucy yourself, maybe with the help of one of your sisters. You told yourself Lucy deserved it, for daring to want a life beyond service to the lamiae. Then the Huntsman made his fake deal with Ciro, and Rina and Steph died. And that, you hoped, would be enough to bring me running. You encouraged Aunika to get the police and the press involved, so I'd see the story. But without bo
dies, no one cared. To catch my attention, you had the Huntsman frame Ricky. You didn't dare take it too far. Ricky is the Cwn Annwn's champion, and while your Huntsman must have delighted in tweaking them, he wouldn't risk bringing them to his doorstep. But having Ricky questioned was enough to bring the case to my attention."
I looked down at Melanie. She'd gone still, and it was only when she noticed I'd stopped talking that she reacted, her eyes going wide, head shaking vehemently. Too little, too late, and I squelched that part of me that hoped I'd been wrong, that this wasn't the betrayal Rose meant. But I'd known better. The pieces fit too well.
"You had the Huntsman menace Aunika, possibly to keep her from investigating. But it wasn't enough, so he captured her. You're keeping her, both to make sure she doesn't interfere and in case you need a scapegoat, because while she'd been a loyal samhail, as far as you're concerned she exists to serve you. Erin served you, too, and that didn't matter. When you needed to spur us to action, to convince us to help you get into Cainsville, you tortured and murdered her."
"No! I--" She stopped and clamped her mouth closed with a quick glance toward the manacles.
"Erin died. You got into Cainsville. But then somehow you found out Ciro was dead, which meant the elders might kick you out. So Damara died. Another expendable lamia, one who insisted on having a human boyfriend, meaning you could tell yourself she was a threat, like Rina and Steph. But the lamia you sent to do the job screwed up. She left her target alive, and you had no idea what Damara told us. Time to step up your game by having Pepper disappear. Bring me running and have the Huntsman take us both captive. What happens now? Oh, wait. Let me guess. Together we free Pepper and...Do I die in the process? No, if I die helping lamiae, the elders would never let you set foot in Cainsville again. Do we free Pepper? Kill the Huntsman and Aunika together? And then, bonded by this terrible experience, I convince the elders that the lamiae deserve permanent sanctuary in Cainsville?"
She said nothing.
"Oh, come on," I said. "Humor me, Melanie. How close am I? Eighty percent? Ninety?"
Her eyes narrowed. "This is a game to you, isn't it? Our lives are a game to you."
"No, I was the one who was trying to save them. You were the one ending them."
"I was protecting us. All of us. Rina and Steph were turning fae against us at the very time I was trying to persuade Cainsville we weren't a threat. Damara insisted on that human boyfriend even when I begged her to end it. If their deaths could get us into Cainsville? Could cure Pepper? Then yes, it was worth it, as hard as it was for me to kill my own sisters. They betrayed us first. And Erin? That was an accident. She caught me breaking into Aunika's apartment--getting things to make her comfortable. We fought, and Erin fell down the stairs, hit her head, and died. I decided to make use of the tragedy. The torture was done after her death."