Cold water splashes me awake. I’m bound and gagged in a dark, dank room made of brick cobblestone. A cellar. Mice squeak all around me.

I look up at the face of a tall, lean man holding a dim lantern in one hand and a bucket in the other. His face is quite well-shaven, exposing his high cheekbones and angular jaw. If he wasn’t a bad guy I might have taken him for a model of some sort. “So you’re finally awake, Little Miss?” he says in a deep, smooth voice. “Why are you looking at me with such eyes? I’m just doing my job.”

I’m trembling, and it’s not just from the cold.

“Don’t worry. As long as you don’t do anything, your life will be guaranteed.” He drops the bucket and moves to sit at a table in the corner. Placing down the lantern next to an empty glass jar the size of a cup and a bottle of whiskey, he unsheathes a dagger and begins sharpening it against a whetstone. “You know, when I was your age, I was in the streets selling flowers for a living. If I were to die some day, the most care I would get is being thrown into a pit for dead homeless people.”

He tries the blade against the table. Grimacing, he continues to sharpen the blade. “You, on the other hand, because you were born the daughter of the House of Duke Allandis, no matter what you do, no one will blame you, go against you, find fault with you. Well, I guess even you wouldn’t be exempt if you offended royalty.

“Your parents, however, would defend you. I heard that the Duchess is no longer fertile. She gave up her ability as a woman in order to have you, or so the rumors say. Therefore, considering the person she is, she should be the type to spoil you rotten.

“Don’t worry. After this, you won’t remember much of what happened here. After all, you're still young. Such an incident shouldn't have too much of an effect on you.”

Testing the blade again, he smiles in satisfaction and opens up the whiskey. After dousing the blade in the alcohol, he moves next to me and drenches my arm. Then he takes the jar, opens it, and places it under my arm. I flinch away from the blade but he holds my arm still and makes a shallow cut.

The taste of salt enters my mouth and my own screams echo in my ears as my blood drips into the jar.

It’s the same man that I put into the memory stone.

The next thing I know, I’m being shaken gently as voices call out to me. My hands are tightly gripping a bigger, warm hand. I flail wildly as I wake up to my parents’ concerned faces.