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  “You’re confused, darling,” said her mother. “It wasn’t Risciter who did those terrible things. It was that awful man Transman that they arrested. And he’s going to pay for what he did, don’t worry about that.”

  “Keirth never hurt me,” said Ariana. “Keirth protected me.”

  Her father put a hand on her mother’s shoulder. “I’ve heard about this before, actually. Sometimes victims begin to sympathize with their kidnappers. You’re right. She has been warped.”

  “I’m not warped,” said Ariana. “Not because I want to show the truth instead of covering it all up in pretty lies.”

  “Perhaps she needs some time to relax. She needs a little spell away,” her mother said to her father.

  Ariana’s heart sank. Whenever people in the sector talked about having a “little spell away,” they almost always meant Winfield.

  “Winfield is on Risciter,” said her father. “It’s quite convenient.”

  Ariana swallowed. She sat back down in her chair. “I don’t need to go Winfield. I’m fine, really. I’m a little excited, but I’m sure that if you give me some time, I’ll be fine.” Winfield was a mental health hospital. It was worse than a jail. She’d never be able to help Keirth from inside there.

  “It will only be for your own good,” said her mother. “I’ll call and make the arrangements immediately.”

  They were going to do it. They were going to send her away. She couldn’t let this happen. Ariana leapt to her feet, gathering her skirts in one hand, and dashed for the door. She was out of the study and into the next room in seconds, paying no heed to her parents’ shouts from behind her.

  She careened into the parlor and made a beeline through it for the foyer, dodging furniture as she ran. The front door was just beyond the foyer.

  She skidded into the room, the front door in sight. Only a few feet left to go. She doubled her pace, clutching her skirts and pumping as hard as she could.

  And a valet stepped into her path. “I’m afraid we can’t let you do this, miss,” he said.

  She swerved to go around him, but another valet appeared.

  Ariana screamed in frustration, determined to barrel through them anyway.

  But they grabbed her arms and pulled her back, and she simply wasn’t as strong as they were.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Keirth didn’t sleep that night. He was exhausted, bone-weary, and every part of his body hurt, from the ache of his muscles to the sting of the cuts and wounds the police had inflicted on him. But a man doesn’t sleep when he knows that this is his last night on earth. That he’s going to die in the morning.

  Keirth wanted the night to stretch out long. He wanted it to drag by. But anticipation of bad things never works that way, and he felt each moment slipping away from him, going too quickly, gone.

  He wished he could see Ariana. He didn’t know where they’d taken her. She’d been fighting the last time he saw her, and they’d been threatening to arrest her. If she were in custody somewhere, holed up in a cell like his, he wouldn’t be able to bear it. He had to hope that, given her station, she’d been taken back to her family. He knew that was the last thing she’d wanted, but it was better than jail. He wanted her to be free, to be unharmed. He couldn’t bear it if he brought her trouble.

  Sitting up on his flimsy cot in the tiny room, resting his head against the stone wall, he decided he was glad he wasn’t dying a virgin. That was one thing to be grateful for, he supposed. Forcing himself to think along those lines, he decided he was glad that Risciter was gone as well. And he was glad that he’d been in love, and that he’d had a moment, only hours ago, really, when he thought that life was damned near perfect with Ariana in his arms, their bright future laid out in front of them.

  But that was all he could manage in gratitude. He wasn’t glad. He wasn’t pleased. He’d been captured, forced through a sham trial, and they were going to execute him for crimes he hadn’t committed. To think that the rest of the galaxy would think he’d killed Lilla, the closest thing he’d had to a mother after his own mother had died. It was cruel. Twisted. Keirth found he hated the idea of his name being sullied in that way.

  Deeply, most of all, he realized just how fiercely he wanted to live. His life could have been about so much more than revenge. But now...this was all he had. He bitterly considered that his plans, made when he was fifteen years old, had worked out exactly the way he’d imagined them. He’d killed Risciter, and now he would hang for it. Why had he ever dared to dream of anything more?

  And when he thought about it, he wasn’t actually grateful that he’d loved Ariana. If he hadn’t, this would be easier. There’d be no ache for what he was giving up, and he wouldn’t have to worry about her. No, it had all been a brutal joke, experiencing any of it. He’d had hope for a life only to have it snatched away from him as soon as he got close to having it.

  Keirth glared at the walls of his prison cell, and the night raced past him much too quickly.

  * * *

  Ariana groggily opened her eyes. Everything was dim in the room she was in. Where was she? The walls were gray. There was no furniture except the bed she lay on. The room was so small...

  That was right. Winfield. She’d woken up in this room before. How many times? Two? Three? How long had she been here? And was it too late to save Keirth?

  The last thing she remembered was being inside a doctor’s office. He’d had a kind voice, and he’d asked her to tell him what had happened to her. They had her so drugged. They were always forcing her to swallow pills, and the pills made everything so fuzzy. The doctor had seemed like a nice man. She’d hoped he might be able to help her. She wanted help, so she’d told him everything, the whole story. He’d been quiet, and when she was finished, she’d held her breath, hoping he’d tell her that there was some way to fix everything.

  But instead, he’d told her she had delusions, asked her why she was clinging to this version of her memory. Told her he wanted to help her uncover reality.

  She’d been angry. She remembered yelling. She remembered getting up out of her chair—

  Now she was back in the gray room. She hardly had the energy to try to get out of bed. They must have sedated her again. How long had she been here? She remembered waking up a few times, but she hadn’t been awake for whole days, had she? And how long had she slept? She had no news of the rest of the world. No news of Keirth.

  If the situations were reversed, Keirth would fight for her. He would rescue her from jail. He’d do it. She knew he would. She had to save him. She had to force herself to move. To think.

  She lifted one of her arms. It was as heavy as lead. She let it drop back against the bed. What was she going to do?

  The door to the gray room opened, and bright light streamed in. Ariana squinted, covering her eyes. Were they coming to give her more pills? She couldn’t take them, not this time. But they always looked inside her mouth, under her tongue. They always stroked her throat and forced her to swallow. What was she going to do?

  But instead a voice said, “You have a visitor.”

  And Ariana recognized the silhouette in the doorway as Aunt Tildy.

  Ariana did her best to sit up in bed. She managed to prop herself into a half-reclining, half-lying-down pose with some effort.

  The door closed behind Aunt Tildy and the two of them were alone. Aunt Tildy pulled up a gray chair and set it next to the bed. The she settled down in it. She rummaged through her purse for a flask. Unscrewing it, she offered it to Ariana. “Nip?”

  Ariana shook her head. What was Aunt Tildy doing here?

  Aunt Tildy shrugged. She took a long swig from her flask, considered it, took another swig, and then capped it and put it away. “You know that my maid Tira was having a fling with Risciter’s valet earlier this season, don’t you?”

  Ariana furrowed her brow. Aunt Tildy had come to gossip about the maids’ love lives? She felt muddled and confused. “No.”

  “Well, she was. S
he was really put out when you and Risciter disappeared, because we all had to leave Hallon, and she couldn’t see the valet again, and I think she fancied him quite a bit.”

  Ariana managed to roll her eyes. “I’m sorry that I put such a crimp in your maid’s lifestyle.”

  “No,” said Aunt Tildy. “That’s not important.”

  Wonderful. So what was the important part, then? It wasn’t that Ariana wasn’t grateful that Aunt Tildy was visiting. After all, no one else in her family had stopped by. But this was classic Aunt Tildy. She was half-drunk and talking about things that really had no bearing on the situation.

  “I didn’t say anything about it when you and Risciter were courting,” said Aunt Tildy. “You seemed quite taken with him, and you can’t really put stock in what the servants say anyway, you know? But Tira did tell me all kinds of things when she was doing my hair or helping me get dressed. Tira is quite a talker, let me tell you. I know that girl’s entire life story, from the moment she was born, I could swear it.”

  “Say anything about what?” Ariana sat up a little further on the bed.

  “Well, Tira said that Risciter’s valet... I can’t be sure of his name. I think it might be Herry or Henric or something. It’s definitely an ‘H’ name. I’m sure of that. Maybe Harild?”

  “Does it matter?” Ariana sat up completely.

  “We’ll call him Henric. I think that’s right. Henric told Tira about all of the strange things that Risciter did. He reported all kinds of sordid activity in Rilla Alley. Risciter apparently liked to visit prostitutes a good deal. Naturally, dear, you can see why I wouldn’t have wanted to bring that up to you. You seemed so happy, and your father thought it was such a good match, and no one listens to me anyway, because they think I’m bitter about not having a husband when the truth is that I simply never wanted one. Men are always hiding things, that’s what I say. And a good, honest man of noble birth in the sector? Why, you’ll never find one.”

  Ariana had to smile. She’d missed Aunt Tildy, she realized. “Why are you telling me this now?”

  “I’m not finished.”

  “Sorry.” Ariana tried to force her smile into a more serious expression.

  “Henric also told Tira that on more than one occasion, Risciter had come back from these trips to prostitutes with blood on his clothing. Not a lot, mind you, but some. Risciter would have Henric take the bloody clothes and incinerate them.” Aunt Tildy bit her lip. “I really should have told you about that. But honestly, Ariana, how would I have known that she wasn’t making it up for a little spot of entertainment? And it wasn’t as if Henric had seen him actually hurt anybody, you know? Tira can stretch the truth sometimes, and she babbles on about all kinds of nonsense.” Aunt Tildy put her hand on Ariana’s. “I’m sorry I never said anything. Maybe if I had you would have questioned him about it or broken it off with him. Maybe you wouldn’t have ended up following that bastard across the galaxy.”

  “It’s okay, Aunt Tildy. You couldn’t have known.” Ariana’s head was still full of drugs, so she realized that she was grasping the full meaning of this little confession a bit slowly, but it was coming to her. “You believe me. You don’t think Keirth did those things. You think it was Risciter.”

  Aunt Tildy nodded. “It all fits, doesn’t it? Going to see prostitutes, coming back covered in blood? And then a whole brothel dead? It’s a buzz amongst the servants, Ariana. All of them believe you too. And the whole sector’s been talking about what you said. It’s all over the nets. People are asking questions.”

  She’d managed to do something right then. “Good.”

  “Not that it’ll be any help to your boy, of course.” Aunt Tildy shook her head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, he went into trial the night they caught him,” she said. “He was sentenced for hanging the following morning.”

  Ariana felt as if an iron band had suddenly gripped her insides. “He’s dead?” she choked. No. It couldn’t be. While she’d been drugged and imprisoned, they’d already killed her Keirth?

  “No,” said Aunt Tildy. “The prince wants to see the execution himself, so they’ve issued a stay until the prince arrives tomorrow.”

  Ariana felt at once elated that Keirth was still alive and flooded with dread because he was still sentenced to die in a day. “I can’t let them kill him.”

  “You’re in Winfield,” said Aunt Tildy. “What are you going to do about it?”

  “Well, I have to get out,” said Ariana. “If you believe me, can’t you tell my parents that—”

  “They don’t listen to anything I say, and you know it.”

  The door to the gray room opened again, and a dour nurse in a gray uniform trundled inside, holding the paper cup containing Ariana’s pills.

  Aunt Tildy was on her feet in a second. “Oh, is that my niece’s medication?”

  The nurse looked a little confused. “Yes.”

  Aunt Tildy strode over to the nurse and put her hand over the top of the paper cup. “Could I give it to her, just this once? I do so want to do anything I can to make sure she starts feeling better soon.”

  The nurse looked even more confused. “Er...I suppose so. But I will need to witness it. Sometimes patients here don’t want to take their meds, even though that’s what’s good for them.”

  “Of course,” said Aunt Tildy, tugging the paper cup out of the nurse’s hands.

  Both the nurse and Aunt Tildy came over to her bed. Ariana watched as Aunt Tildy tipped the cup of pills into her hand. Aunt Tildy held her closed fist, containing the pills, up to Ariana’s mouth, but she only mimed releasing her fingers. None of the pills actually went into Ariana’s mouth.

  Aunt Tildy was a genius!

  The nurse handed Ariana a glass of water and made sure Ariana swallowed.

  Ariana noticed Aunt Tildy’s hand duck into her purse, where she was no doubt depositing the pills.

  “Open,” said the nurse.

  Obediently, Ariana opened her mouth and allowed the nurse to look under her tongue to make sure she’d actually swallowed the pills.

  Satisfied, the nurse thanked Aunt Tildy for helping and then left the room.

  After the door closed behind him, Ariana said, “Thank you so much. The pills make me foggy and confused.”

  Aunt Tildy shrugged. “Well, it’s the least I could do, since they’re treating you like you’re crazy when you’re not. I’ve been in Winfield before, you know. When I refused every suitor that tried to marry me because I didn’t want to get married, they sent me here. They said it was abnormal for a woman not to want to get married.” She squared her shoulders. “Abnormal it might be, but that doesn’t mean I’m mentally ill.”

  Ariana reached over and hugged her aunt. “No, it does not.”

  “I wish there was more I could do,” said Aunt Tildy, squeezing her. “I’d help you any way I could.”

  “You mean that?” Ariana asked, pulling away from the embrace.

  * * *

  The Duke of Tramet had arrived on the planet Risciter that morning, spurred to action by the strange things he was reading on the nets. There was hope after all. It might not be true that Keirth was really a crazed murderer. Apparently, the woman he’d been with, Miss Gilit, had made a scene at a dinner party, claiming that Risciter, not Keirth, had killed all those women, and that Keirth had protected her from the monster.

  Tramet knew he shouldn’t get false hope. The accepted public opinion was that the girl had been through some terrible trauma and couldn’t possibly be trusted to know what had happened. There were experts weighing in on the likelihood of victims beginning to sympathize with their kidnappers, citing cases throughout history where this very thing had happened. According to anyone who mattered, Miss Gilit needed the therapy she was getting at Winfield, and Keirth Transman needed his neck snapped, which was scheduled to happen as soon as the prince could get there to watch it.

  But Tramet wanted to believe in Keirth’s go
odness so badly. He didn’t want to think that this boy he’d been searching for was really a bad man. Deep inside, Tramet always hoped to find a man of courage and bravery who’d lived through the tragedy of his life and come out stronger. The story Miss Gilit told about him echoed Tramet’s deepest desires. Even though he cautioned himself that it was probably unfounded, he had to know for himself.

  He’d decided that he’d go to speak to Miss Gilit himself. He’d listen to her story, and if he thought that she wasn’t crazy, then he’d take action. Because it might not be too late to save Keirth Transman’s life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ariana was feeling quite alert. The drugs had worn off. She was, however, afflicted with an acute case of boredom. She’d positioned herself on the far wall, several feet down from the door to the gray room, and she’d dragged the chair that Aunt Tildy had been sitting on over with her. At first she’d stood behind the chair, but as hours began to drag by, she’d sat in it. She’d sat in this chair for what seemed like a few millennia, going over and over her plan, looking for weaknesses.

  She was beginning to think that no one might ever come back into her room ever again.

  It was at that point that the door finally opened, and a nurse entered, carrying another paper cup with pills.

  Ariana scrambled to her feet, seizing the chair by its legs. She leapt on the nurse and brought the chair crashing down on the woman’s head.

  The nurse made a strangled cry of surprise.

  Ariana lifted the chair and slammed it into the nurse again.

  The woman stopped making noise. She was unconscious. She lay flat faced on the floor, the pills rolling around from the spilled paper cup.

  Ariana didn’t waste any time. She hurriedly stripped the nurse out of her uniform and pulled off her own gown. She dressed herself in the nurse’s uniform and draped the gown over the woman’s unclothed body.

  The nurse’s uniform was too big for Ariana. She did her best to cinch it at the waist. She didn’t have a mirror in her room, so she couldn’t look at herself to see what the effect was. It would have to do.