Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
And I found Callum.
“You can eat or starve.” Millicent’s voice floated out, sharp and cutting like the crack of a whip. “I really don’t care.”
A soft, smooth chuckle answered. “Clearly, you do care.”
Eather swelled against my flesh at the sound of Callum’s voice. He sounded just like I remembered when he’d visited my cell. Good-natured. Friendly. Polite.
“If not,” Callum continued, “you wouldn’t be here making sure I eat.”
There was a beat of silence, and then the soft slide of the sole of Millicent’s boot against stone. “Don’t mistake basic decency for caring. You of all people should know better.”
“And you shouldn’t forget that I know you, Millicent.”
“You don’t know shit about me.” Her tone was flat, and the hard clack of her heels followed as she moved.
“I know you’re a liar.”
The sound of her moving ceased as a spike of hot, acidic anger radiated off Malik, while my interest sparked.
“You’re a good one. I’ll give you that. One of the best,” Callum went on. “Then again, you did learn from the best.”
Millicent huffed. “If you’re trying to get under my skin by insulting my mother, you truly don’t know me. I know what she was.”
I was relieved to hear that.
“Your mother loved you.”
“And?” she replied.
“That right there,” Callum responded. “It’s a facade. Everything about you is an act. You wear a mask that cannot be washed away.”
Millicent didn’t respond for several moments. “As if you don’t wear one yourself.”
Callum laughed again, the sound faintly indulgent, like my…father when he humored Malik or me when we behaved as if we understood the world. “I am who I am. I wear no mask.”
“Whatever,” she said. “You’re boring me.”
There was just the sound of her footsteps, then the heavy clang of bars sliding closed.
“Millicent?” Callum called out.
She let out a heavy sigh that could’ve been heard in Atlantia. “What, Callie?”
“Because I have no ill will toward you,” he said, “I’m going to give you a piece of advice.”
“Can’t wait to hear this.”
“You should let me go.” His words came slower, quieter. “If not, he will come for me. You do not want that.”
“He?” she exclaimed, her voice pitched unnaturally high. “As in the Big Bad Daddy of Death?”
I frowned.
“The big bad…?” He cleared his throat. “Yes, Kolis.”
“Oh. Him!” I heard hands clapping, and based on the staccato rap of her heels, I thought she might also be jumping. “That’s the plan, shit for brains.”
My brows lifted at the insult.
“Makes finding him easier if he comes to us,” she said.
“He will kill you, Millie.”
Malik’s anger nearly choked me, so I wasn’t surprised when I heard his footsteps move farther away from me and closer to them. He stopped, though.
And so did I. But for entirely different reasons.
Because Millicent laughed, and…
And…fuck, my chest caved in. It was so damn familiar. Sounded so much like hers.
My eyes closed.
“I’m not sure what I said that was so humorous,” he muttered, sounding thoroughly put out.
“You don’t know me at all if you think death is a threat,” she said. “It would be a relief.”
My jaw tightened as her footsteps rapped off stone again, carrying her toward the hall and the alcove I stood in.
“You can stop hiding.” Millicent’s hushed voice cut through the darkness, and I knew damn well she couldn’t be talking to me.
“I wasn’t hiding,” Malik muttered a second later. “And you shouldn’t be down here—”
“And why is that?” she drawled. “Actually, don’t bother answering. He needs to eat. Can’t get a skeleton to talk. Well, maybe you can if there’re still tendons, vocal cords, and shit. Huh. Now, I kind of want to find out.”
“If you had let me finish, I was attempting to say that you shouldn’t be down here by yourself,” Malik ground out, apparently accustomed enough to her random tangents that he didn’t get sidetracked. “He’s more dangerous than you realize.”
“He’s a whiny bitch boy, is what he is. Just like someone else I know,” she said. “And in case you’re wondering, that someone—”
“Is me. Whatever,” he interrupted. “I don’t want you coming here by yourself,” Malik bit out, their voices closer.
“I know.” She paused. “And I also know that you know I don’t give a fuck what you want.”
“And we both know that is a lie,” he snapped. “But keep telling yourself that, sweetness.”
“Gods, you’re annoying.”
“And you’re beautiful,” my brother replied, causing my brows to rise again. There was a gap of silence. “What you said back there about death?”
Her steps didn’t cease. “You do realize eavesdropping is creepy, right?”
“It’s not true,” Malik said—or perhaps begged. “Tell me it wasn’t true.”
Millicent didn’t answer as they passed me, but there wasn’t a single part of me that doubted she’d meant it. Only the gods knew what she’d been through, having spent most of her life under Isbeth’s thumb. But it wasn’t that. It was the way she’d said it. She’d said something so dark so lightly—almost lovingly—that I knew it was the truth.