Darius didn’t call for her again. He hadn’t done so since he’d summoned her below the fortress. He was hardly at meals in the Great Hall, so she was spared interaction there as well. Lyra was grateful for the renewed neglect, although terrified of the clock ticking to end it. The box he’d given her lay under rags, clothes, and her other meager possessions at the bottom of the chest in her room. Sometimes she imagined the lace decaying and turning to dust, almost praying for it to be so. Not that she truly prayed. She hadn’t since she’d arrived.
“He cannot change fate,” Iris reminded her. “He can only demand.”
“And force,” Lyra bit back.
Noise replaced hunger one evening. A sudden burst of voices in the Great Hall made the infirmary walls vibrate with sound. Lyra looked up sharply. Mara
