Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
No. It’s not what any of us signed up for.
And even though Finn was… perhaps correct in his conclusion that I was doing my best to make this night as miserable for everyone else as it was for me—I do not wish this moment on any of those young girls. Not even the haughty Jasina Bell.
So I raise a timid hand back. Which makes her smile. Then she mouths, The dress… but I miss the rest, because a hand touches my shoulder and my attention is immediately pulled to the man attached to it. Finn.
“Should we head over to the ballroom?”
“It’s part of the ritual, so—” But I stop here, mid-sentence. Because I’m doing it again. Taking my misfortune out on everyone around me.
And that’s not how I will go out tonight. I will not be a shining example of cowardice for Gemna or the Little Sisters who will be watching me for any sign of weakness.
I will be poised, and proper, and polite.
My chair slides back, I stand up, and then I look Finn in the eyes as I take his offered hand. “It would be my pleasure.”
I hate him. I will never get over this betrayal. I will carry my resentment of Finn Scott into the tower with me and hold on to it as I take my last dying breath.
But I will clutch at this bitterness with grace.
Typically, the Extraction Master is the last to leave the feast so that all the people are waiting for him in the ballroom when he enters. But nothing about this night is typical.
Everyone stays seated as we make our way into the next room and then there is a furious sound of scraping chairs and the swishing of gowns as the rest of the guests follow us.
Finn leads me right into the center of the ballroom, then—while everyone else is still filing in—he raises a hand, signaling for the music to start.
We dance as the room around us gets more and more chaotic, both of us stiff at first, not looking each other in the eyes. But then, once the room is settled—just as my fate is settled—I put my head on his shoulder and he holds me tight. Our feet shuffling, barely leaving the small circle we make in the center of the room.
We dance like this for many songs, and many minutes, until finally everyone decides that we will stay dancing like this until we are forced to leave and make our way over to the tower stage, and so they join us.
Bodies crowd around us and the sounds of swishing dresses and soft conversation fill the enormous room. It’s all very cautious and hushed, at first. But things get more relaxed and soon it’s a party.
Still, Finn and I cling to each other.
I can’t decide if I should stay mad or make up with him.
The only thing I can settle on is the fact that it doesn’t matter.
I will go into the tower and my life will be over.
He will stay out here and his will start again.
He will live again.
I don’t want to hate him. I don’t. I want to love him. I want to be a brave woman in the most challenging moment of my life. I want to be a shining example of what it means to be a Maiden. And I want to go into that tower with as much grace as the women who came before me.
But I can’t help the hate, and I don’t feel the love, and yes, I do want to be brave, but I do not want to be a shining example of a sacrifice to anyone, let alone those Little Sisters who are all watching me right now. And while I do agree that it would be nice to live up to the standards of courage and grace set by the Spark Maidens who went before me, none of them were sent into this tower by a man who claimed to love her.
It’s completely different. Because he is betraying me. I am in distress, I am in danger, and he refuses to step in and stop it.
He didn’t even try.
All this time I imagined Finn Scott was an honorable, intelligent, capable man. And I believed him when he said he loved me.
How could he love me when he didn’t come up with a single plan?
He did promise revenge. And it sounded so genuine at the time. It touched me, it did.
But there was no brainstorming with his friends to concoct a harebrained save-the-girl scheme. Even if it would’ve never worked, a token gesture along that line would’ve been a tiny bit comforting. I would, at the very least, feel… valued? I guess?
I don’t like feeling this way. I had never thought of myself as small, and petty, and selfish.