were a thunderclap.
He panted, the gnat’s body shaking from
wingtip to wingtip. One press of her finger
and he’d be gone.
He braced himself, waiting for it.
But Maeve kept her palm open. And as she
began to walk down the hall, away from the
sealed chamber, she said, “What you felt in
there—that is why I left their world.” She
gazed ahead, a shadow darkening her face.
“Every day, that was what I felt.”
Kneeling on the floor in a corner of Maeve’s
chamber, Dorian hurled the contents of his
stomach into the wooden bucket.
Maeve watched from the chair by the fire,
cruel amusement on her red lips.
“You saw the horrors of the dungeons and
did not fall ill,” she said when he vomited
again. The unspoken question shone in her