18
CORA
Sometime during dinner, someone delivered all of the clothes I bought this afternoon to my room. I shuffle through the hangers and don’t recognize anything. I’m sure I tried it all on, but it was a blur. Even now, the dresses might as well be identical prison jumpsuits for as different as they look to me.
I slam my closet closed and flop down on the bed.
Dinner was slightly more bearable than breakfast, but only because no one spoke. Not a single word. Alexander and my mother ate in stony silence. I wanted to probe them to see if they were in a fight. I’m finding weaknesses between Alexander and Mikhail already, so maybe finding a few between Mother and Daddy Dearest could be useful, too.
But the silence was nice.
At first, I thought being locked away in a room by myself was torture. Now, it’s preferable. There are no mind games when I’m alone. No one tries to bend me to their will. It’s peaceful.
So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that fate says, Oops, never mind, and my bedroom door swings open.
I go from relaxed to a ready position in record time. My heart slams against my ribs, adrenaline pumps through my veins.
But it’s only a maid. She’s young. No more than twenty-five. Her blonde hair is twisted into a braid on the top of her head. She’s wearing a black dress that covers her from neck to knee just like Alexander orders.
“Excuse me, miss,” she says, inclining her head slightly. “I’m just here to change the sheets.”
“Someone was in my room earlier today.” I gesture to the closet. “If my sheets needed changing, they would have done it then.”
“It’s a normal part of the schedule. Just a blanket refresh.”
She takes a step into my room, but I move towards her, blocking her path. “I’m fine. I don’t need new blankets.”
What I need is five minutes to myself without any surprises.
“It will only take a moment.”
All at once, my annoyance shifts to awareness.
Something is wrong.
She isn’t supposed to be here. Did Alexander send her? Mikhail? Francia? Someone worse?
I throw out an arm so she can’t pass. “Who are you and what do you want?”
Her cheeks flush and she speaks even more quietly. “I want to help you…with your blankets. That’s all.”
The way she says it sets off even more alarm bells. “No.”
“Miss Cora,” she says so softly I can barely hear her, “if you’d just let me in, then I’ll—”
“I’m not letting you anywhere,” I bark. “I don’t know who you are or what you want, but if you don’t leave then I’ll—”
I’ll… what? Yell for Alexander? If this woman is here, it’s probably at his bidding. She’s probably going to slip some kind of powdered drug on my pillow to knock me out so he can do God-knows-what to me.
Before I can finish the thought, the woman reaches into her pocket.
I take a step towards my bookshelf so I can snatch my letter opener out of its hiding place, but then I stop.
The maid pulls a phone out of her pocket. She taps a single button and presses the phone to her ear. “Here is Cora, sir.”
Cora. Not Cordelia. Cora.
Then she holds the phone out to me.
I stare at it like it might be radioactive. In the end, curiosity gets the best of me. Gingerly, I press it to my ear. “Hello?”
There’s a single beat of silence before three little words crack my heart wide open.
“Cora.” The deep rumble of his voice is as familiar to me as my own. “It’s me.”
Ivan.
I drop to my knees.