The guard shoved her into a new cell. It was smaller than the last, and colder, the stone slick with a perpetual, weeping dampness. The sound of the bolt shooting home was the sound of a coffin nail being driven in.
Nightingale.
The word echoed in the hollow space where her heart used to be. Rulien's prized songbird. Destined for the bed of a Prince.
Isadora slid down the slimy wall, her body a single, trembling ache. She had found Clara. The desperate, driving purpose that had kept her sane, that had fueled her through every horror, had been fulfilled. And the fulfillment was an agony a thousand times worse than the not-knowing.
Clara was alive, but the girl she had seen—the serene, empty doll in the procession—was a stranger. They had taken her sister, the quiet, fierce soul of their family, and were polishing her into a beautiful, soulless jewel for some monster's collection. And Clara hadn't even recognized her. The name Isadora had called out had meant nothing.
