Screams are trapped in my throat. The bouquet trembles in my hands. With every step, I fray a little more around the edges.
Because my back is as raw as ground meat, the maid used an entire roll of gauze on me so I didn’t bleed through the silk, though now I think it would have been better if I had. More honest, anyway. Let everyone see exactly what Dimitri has made me. The open wound I am. The silly little bird who dared to fly free of her cage and wound up broken instead.
“You’re not broken. You’re just bent.”
Tabby said that to me a lifetime ago, and I never forgot it. I think she’d change her mind if she saw me now.
We round a corner, and the drawing room yawns open before us. The room is full to bursting with vases of fresh white Casablanca lilies, so full I almost swoon from thei
