“… Got a question for you… Who was brave when she was in the power of the wicked king?”
For a moment, Charlotte looks baffled, blinking rapidly as she pants, then her eyes widen.
Her gaze rises, and as we watch, the light switches on behind her eyes. She looks directly at the camera; looks at me, looks at Michael, looks at Klempner and her mother.
The fear and the exhaustion dissolve from her face, replaced by that feral expression she has.
“Scheherazade,” she says. Then she flops forward, her mouth widening in a groan and her back arching.
The door closes with the clang of metal. Charlotte looks below the camera and then up at it again. She speaks silently, mouthing the words.
Master… Michael... I love you.
Then her gaze drops, and she returns to her rearrangement of her fetid card
