The metal operating table bit into my bare shoulders. Thick leather straps bound my wrists and ankles, pinning me flat against the freezing steel.
"Father! Mother!" I screamed, tearing at the bindings until my skin burned.
Duke Edward and Duchess Margaret stood in the far corner of the sterile, windowless room. They watched me like I was a stranger.
"I never hurt Rosalind," I sobbed. "Please believe me."
Neither of them moved. My mother smoothed the front of her silk dress, her gaze fixed entirely on the floor.
"Look at me!" I yelled. "Mother, tell them to stop!"
"Quiet," a voice snapped.
Alexander stepped out of the shadows and stopped beside the table. His jaw was a hard, unforgiving line. The man I had loved for three years stared down at me with absolute disgust.
"Alexander, tell them to unbuckle me," I begged. "This is a mistake."
He grabbed my chin, his fingers digging into my jawline. "The only mistake was letting you live in the same house as her."
"I didn't do anything to her!"
"Then why does she scream every time you walk into the manor?" he demanded.
I shook my head, fighting his grip. "I don't know! Maybe she's sick! Maybe someone else hurt her!"
"She shakes until she collapses," Alexander said. "She hasn't slept a full night in weeks. The physicians say her mind is fractured from severe trauma."
"And you automatically blame me?"
"We don't blame you. We know it was you." He released my face and turned toward the humming console nearby. "Doctor, explain the procedure. I want her to understand exactly what she brought upon herself."
A man in a white coat stepped into my line of sight. He held a tangle of wires ending in flat, silver discs.
"Lady Cecilia," the doctor began, his tone entirely clinical. "Your sister's trauma responses are triggered solely by your presence. To cure her, we must uncover the root of the abuse."
"There was no abuse!" I shrieked. "I love Rosalind! If I hurt her, why would I stay? Why wouldn't I run away?"
"Because you enjoy watching her suffer," Alexander spat. "You always were jealous of her."
"Jealous? I gave up my position at the academy for her! I stayed home to care for her when she first got sick! Alexander, remember the summer at the lake? I saved her when she fell out of the boat! Why would I save her just to torture her?"
"You saved her so you could play the hero," Alexander retorted. "You wanted us all to worship you."
"Lies!" I screamed.
"The memory extraction device will bypass your conscious fabrications," the doctor continued over my shouting. "It forcibly retrieves visual and auditory data directly from your hippocampus."
"It's illegal," I said, my chest heaving. "It's torture."
"It is necessary," my father finally spoke.
I twisted my neck to stare at the Duke. "Father? You cannot allow this."
Edward crossed his arms. "Rosalind is wasting away. If you will not confess, we will pull the truth from your mind."
"It could kill me! The extraction tears the neural pathways!"
"Only if you fight the probe," the doctor said. He wiped a sterile pad across my right temple. The cold alcohol stung my skin.
"Mother, say something!" I pleaded. "I am your daughter too! You taught us to love each other! You watched us grow up!"
Margaret turned her back to the table. "I watched you manipulate her for years. I was just too blind to see it until now."
Her words hit me harder than any physical blow. The woman who had sung me to sleep now ordered my execution.
"Start the machine, Doctor," Margaret added, her voice devoid of emotion.
Panic clawed up my throat. "Alexander, please. We grew up together. You know I would never hurt her."
Alexander watched the doctor apply the second silver disc to my left temple. "I don't know you at all. The woman I knew wouldn't shatter her own sister's mind."
"Strap her head down," the doctor ordered an assistant.
A thick band of canvas went across my forehead, locking my skull in place. I could only stare straight up at the glaring fluorescent lights.
"Wait!" I yelled. "Give me a trial! Let the magistrates question me! I'll take a truth serum!"
"Truth serums can be beaten," Alexander commanded. "Turn it on."
"No! I'll leave the estate! I'll go into exile! You will never see my face again!"
"Exile doesn't cure her night terrors," Alexander replied.
"Please—"
The doctor threw a heavy switch.
A blinding white light erupted behind my eyes.
Agony, sharp and absolute, drove a spike through my skull. My spine bowed off the metal table. The leather straps groaned under the sudden, violent spasm of my muscles.
A scream tore from my lungs, ragged and broken.
"Voltage is at thirty
