EMMALINE
I turn the small vial over in my hand, the strange green liquid catching the faint light as it sloshes from one end to the other. It looks vile, murky like stagnant pond water, and the smell that drifts up from the cork is even worse. This is what the doctor expects me to drink? And Alexander, has he no shame handing me something that looks like poison?
My lip curls before I can stop it. I don’t want this. I don’t want any of this. I thought—naively, maybe, that things would be different in Paris. A place with a name that whispered love at every corner, a place where masks could slip and even tyrants might soften. I thought it would give me room to breathe, room to push the edges of his restraint until something cracked.
But no. He announced we were going back home before I had
