Page 30 of The Court the Fae Forgot
I was sure of it.
Of course, it wasn’t a fox that had taken it, and it certainly wasn’t a fox that had brought it back. It was impossible.
Unless, of course, it wasn’t.
But that would mean she was telling the truth.
My father let out a roar, his eyes rolling in their sockets as he pointed another accusatory finger at me.
“See what you’ve done? You’ve made a liar out of your sister now, too.”
He began to pace, and somehow, it was even worse than when he stood over me, belt at the ready. He was the very picture of a man driven to the brink, each step bringing him ever closer to plunging over.
His words began tumbling over themselves, repeating the mantra my mother had tried to guilt me with earlier.
“After everything we’ve done for you. Feeding you. Clothing you. Putting a roof over your head. Years of worry. Years of hardship. Then we have one good turn, and this is how you repay us?”
He held up the purse again, so few coins compared to those now piled high in the trunk beneath his bed. A once considerable sum now made pitiful by comparison.
It was insulting, really, thinking I would steal that small purse and run away with it. The only thing more insulting was his reaction now, at having discovered it.
I’d worked for all those coins, for the baker’s purse and the fae’s.
He might have clothed me, fed me, endured me—but I’d more than earned my keep. I was no charity case.
Not that it should have mattered. All that should have mattered was that I was his daughter.
That alone should have been enough.
But it never, ever was.
I was finally unable to hold my tongue. I finally pushed myself away from the wall, and up onto my hands and knees.
“I don’t know how that purse found its way into my things, but if that was all it would take for me to get out of this hellhole, then I would have taken it a long time ago,” I snarled, starting to rise further. “You really think I’d take just that? You think I’d hide what, six, seven coins, when I could take ten times that? Fifteen times that, instead?”
It was a full admission of my guilt, or as close to one as I was ever going to give. I knew that. I just couldn’t bring myself to care.
Only then did my father’s footsteps halt. He turned to face me, so slowly it was as if he wasn’t moving at all at first. It was as if the very air around us stopped moving, too, the whole world holding its breath as it looked on, waiting for what was to come next.
I should have stopped there. I should have seen the look on his face and known the danger I was in.
But I didn’t—or if I did, I didn’t have the ability to stop myself, not when suddenly every pent-up emotion I’d held in over a lifetime of abuse was finally exploding out of me.
“What would it matter if I did steal that purse? What would it matter if I did try to run away?” It was my turn for my own voice to rise, even as I continued to rise too—first onto one foot, and then the other. I was tired of cowering to this man. He’d already sold me, a fate I wasn’t likely to avoid now that he’d discovered my plan to leave—whatever roundabout way he’d gone about figuring it out. What else did I have to lose?
“Can you really blame me?” I was shouting now, my voice sounding more and more foreign with every word reverberating through the rafters. “You sound so proud of what you’ve done for me. For feeding me, clothing me, housing me. You make it sound like you’ve been doing me a favor, begrudgingly giving me the bare minimum—and not even always that. I’m yourdaughter.What you’ve done for me is what youoweme.”
“We owe younothing.” My father’s lips curled back at that, spittle flying from his mouth with each word that rumbled next from his throat. His hand curled tighter around the end of his belt. “You’re no daughter of mine.”
No sooner had the words left his lips then he was upon me.
“I will not go and have you ruin everything again, Aurra. Not this time. I’ve finally had enough.”
It happened so quickly, I had no time to react.
One second, he was standing before me, the look of utter hatred burning so bright in his eyes that it cemented me to the spot. The next, he was grabbing hold of me, his hand crushing my throat again as he jerked me off my feet and threw me to the floor. I hit the ground with such force that my head flooded with a deafening ringing.
By the time I was able to fully comprehend what was happening to me, it was too late.
