Once Betrayed, Twice Shy

A surprising help

FARAH

By midday, I’ve cleaned exactly four rooms, and there are more doors in this place than I can count without losing my place twice. My arms ache from scrubbing, my knees are raw from kneeling on stone floors that seem to have been designed specifically to punish anyone forced to clean them, and every time I think I’ve finished a room, I find another layer of dust or another cabinet I somehow missed, as though the palace itself is conspiring against me.

I sink down against the wall of what I think is the seventh room, my chest heaving, sweat sticking my hair to my forehead despite the chill still clinging to the stone around me. There’s no possible way I finish this before sunset. Not at this pace. Not with legs that feel like they belong to someone else and lungs that refuse to fully expand no matter how deep I try to breathe.

I press the heel of my hand against my eyes, fighting back the sting of frustrated tears, because crying won’t clean a single surface in this place and I refuse to waste what little energy I have left on something so useless.

“You look like you’re about to pass out.”

I startle so hard I nearly knock over the bucket beside me, twisting to find Marcus leaning casually against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with an expression that’s equal parts amusement and something gentler underneath it.

“I’m fine,” I manage, though the words come out breathless and unconvincing even to my own ears.

“You’re gray,” he says, pushing off the frame and crossing the room toward me. “And you’re shaking. When’s the last time you drank anything?”

I open my mouth to answer, then realize I genuinely can’t remember, and the admission must show plainly on my face because Marcus mutters something under his breath that sounds distinctly like a curse aimed at Caspian rather than me.

“An entire palace,” he says, shaking his head. “Before sunset. That’s not a punishment, that’s a setup designed to make you fail.”

“I gathered that much myself,” I say, some of my exhaustion curdling into dry humor despite everything.

“He’s tested every prisoner who’s ever come through here with something impossible,” Marcus continues, crouching down to my level, his voice dropping into something quieter, more confidential. “It’s never really about whether you succeed. It’s about watching how you break.”

The words settle uncomfortably in my chest, confirming a suspicion I hadn’t quite let myself fully believe until now—that this was never a genuine test of my usefulness, just another exercise in cruelty dressed up as opportunity.

“So I’m already doomed,” I say, more to myself than to him.

“Not necessarily,” Marcus says, and something shifts in his expression, decisive and warm all at once. “Stay here. Rest for a few minutes. I’ll be back.”

He’s gone before I can ask what he means, and I sit there in the quiet, too tired to do anything but wait, wondering if I imagined the strange kindness in his voice or if it was actually real.

It isn’t long before he returns, and this time he’s not alone—two maids trail behind him, both carrying supplies of their own, both offering me small, careful smiles that feel like the first genuine warmth I’ve encountered since I fell into this nightmare.

“They’ll help you with the west wing,” Marcus says. “Quietly. Caspian doesn’t need to know exactly how the impossible became possible.”

I stare at him, something hot and unexpected rising in my throat, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s gratitude, foreign and overwhelming after days of nothing but suspicion and fear.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

“Let’s just say I find some pleasure messing with Caspian,” he says with a laugh. “His reaction is always worth it.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I simply nod, and the two maids get to work immediately, moving with the practiced efficiency of people who’ve clearly done far more of this than I ever have.

With their help, the impossible slowly, steadily starts becoming possible, room after room falling into order until, as the light outside finally starts turning gold with the approach of evening, I stand in the final corridor, breathless and disbelieving, staring at a palace that is, against every expectation, actually clean.

Caspian arrives just as the sun dips low enough to cast long shadows across the floor, and I watch his expression shift the moment he steps through the main hall—surprise, quick and unguarded, before he catches himself and smooths it back into that familiar, infuriating blankness.

“You actually did it,” he says, and there’s something almost accusatory in the way he says it, like my success is somehow an inconvenience rather than an accomplishment.

“Disappointed?” I ask, too tired and too irritated to bother with caution anymore. “Were you hoping I’d fail so you’d have an excuse to punish me?”

“I was hoping,” he says coolly, “that you’d understand your place.”

“My place,” I repeat, something sharp and reckless rising up in me now that the exhaustion has burned away my usual restraint. “What exactly do you hope to gain from this? Torturing me with impossible tasks, starving me, chaining me up like an animal—what’s the actual point of any of it?”

“The point,” he says, stepping closer, “is that you don’t get to simply exist here comfortably while I decide what to do with you.”

“So this is just cruelty for its own sake, then.”

I don’t back down, even as he keeps advancing, even as the space between us shrinks to almost nothing.

“Careful,” he says, low and warning.

“Or what?” I ask, though my back has already met the cold stone wall behind me, leaving nowhere left to retreat.

He stops directly in front of me, close enough now that I can feel the heat radiating off him, close enough that his breath brushes warm against my skin when he exhales.

His eyes have darkened, something shifting behind them that isn’t quite anger anymore, something hungrier and far more dangerous, and my heart slams hard against my ribs in response, confused and traitorous all at once.

I lick my lips without meaning to, some nervous, unconscious habit, and his gaze drops instantly, following the movement, lingering there a beat too long before dragging back up to meet my eyes.

Something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, or fury at his own reaction—before he steps back abruptly, putting distance between us with a suddenness that leaves me breathless in an entirely different way.

He doesn’t say another word.

He simply turns and walks away, leaving me standing there against the wall, flustered and shaking and utterly confused by everything that just passed between us.