Seraphina's voice was frigid.
"Gabriel has a frail constitution. That the creature's pelt could keep him warm was its good fortune. If you harbor resentment over this, it only proves your heart is corrupt."
Then came the manic thoughts, bleeding into my ears.
Cry. Go on, cry.
The moment a single tear falls, I can collect it in the Jade Reliquary. A blood-tear from you.
The pelt of your beloved companion is right here. Surely it hurts?
Kneel and beg me. Once you're sobbing so hard you can't breathe, I'll reward you with a few pills and stroke your head.
Her fingers rubbed something hidden inside her sleeve. I knew what it was: a scrap of bloodstained fabric torn from my shirt yesterday when it snagged on the doorframe of the servants' wing.
Deranged.
Seraphina leaned forward, eyes locked on me.
She was waiting for me to break. Waiting for me to grab her sleeve and weep.
I picked up the push broom from the corner, bent down, and swept the crushed vials and medicinal dregs out the door.
"If it pleases my junior associate, then so be it."
My voice was flat.
"I wouldn't want to offend the Donna's sight. I'll have this cleaned up right away."
Seraphina's expression froze. Something ignited behind her eyes.
No pleading. No tears.
She flicked her wrist, and two of her soldiers stepped forward and snapped the broom handle across their knees. The splintered wood drove into my palms. Blood welled up between my fingers.
I didn't flinch.
Seraphina closed the distance. The two soldiers retreated without being told, pressing themselves against the corridor wall. The silence in the compound was absolute. Even the wind outside the servants' quarters seemed to hold its breath.
"Insolent wretch! It seems the servants' quarters have made you too comfortable. You haven't shown a shred of remorse!"
I kept my gaze on the tips of my boots.
"I acknowledge my fault."
"Acknowledge your fault?"
Seraphina let out a cold laugh.
"If you truly know your fault, then go kneel beneath the falls at the north ridge of the compound. You will remain there until you've reflected properly. Only then may you crawl back."
The north ridge falls were where the Falcone Syndicate punished its gravest offenders. The cascade hammered down from the cliffside behind the old estate, ice-cold even in summer, and the stone basin at its base was open to the mountain wind with no shelter for a hundred yards in any direction.
Before, I could have endured it. I had been the heir-apparent, with resources and men and the Donna's protection wrapped around me like armor. But my first operation had been dismantled, my standing in the family reduced to nothing. Going there now was a death sentence in all but name.
I raised my head and looked at Seraphina the way one looks at a stranger.
"Yes, Donna."
I turned and walked away.
Behind me came the ragged sound of her breathing, then the sharp crack of a porcelain cup crushed to powder in her grip.
The wind on the north ridge cut like a blade.
The waterfall plunged from the high cliff and hammered into my back.
Cold bored through every crack in my bones. I knelt on the stone at the center of the pool, my knees long since numb.
The pain in my body was excruciating.
Three years ago, Seraphina had faced a federal investigation that nearly brought the entire syndicate down. Her network of intermediaries collapsed, and I threw myself into the breach, taking on the exposure myself to shield her.
It had nearly destroyed me. The damage to my body from those months of sleepless extraction work, the beatings I'd taken when a deal went wrong on the docks, the cracked ribs that never healed right. Cold made them flare, every time.
Now the freezing water hammered the old wounds wide open.
My vision blurred white with pain, but I made no sound.
Seraphina was watching through the compound's surveillance feeds.
She was waiting for me to cry out, waiting for me to beg her for mercy.
She would be waiting a long time.
Countdown: 5 days.
Gabriel strolled over carrying a white ceramic bowl, steam curling from its rim.
It was a warming tonic. A single sip would have been enough to ward off the cold.
He stopped at the bank, polished shoes crunching through the frost. He laughed, half a beat after he'd already surveyed my face for a reaction.
"Senior brother. How does it feel?"
Gabriel looked me up and down. "The Donna says all you have to do is bow your head, and this bowl is yours."
I closed my eyes and focused on what little strength remained inside me. I didn't acknowledge him.
Gabriel turned his wrist. The dark medicinal broth spilled across the frozen ground, seeping into an ugly stain.
"Oops. Butterfingers."
The grin slid off his face, replaced by open satisfaction. "Take a good look at yourself. You're lower than a dog. You used to be the heir-apparent. And now?"
I opened my eyes. "You're done pouring. Leave. You're blocking the light."
Gabriel's expression curdled.
A crushing pressure descended from above. Seraphina appeared at the ridge with a grim face and swept Gabriel behind her. Two soldiers flanked her at a distance, hands resting inside their coats.
Her gaze fixed on me.
"Incorrigible."
She stepped forward and pressed two fingers against my chest, then my neck, then the base of my spine. Each point she touched went dead. Without warmth to resist, the cold tore through my organs in an instant. I coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the wet stone.
"Since you refuse to learn, you can go to the Serpent Abyss."
It was the syndicate's forbidden ground. The chasm below the eastern wall of the compound, where the mountain split open into darkness. It was writhing with venomous snakes.
