My Husband Gave My Mother’s House to His Mistress

Three days left. The numbers burn behind my eyelids every time I blink. Three days until the Pierre Hotel. Three days until I marry a ghost or dissolve into foam.

The ballroom blazes with light. Crystal chandeliers throw prisms across marble floors, and everywhere I look, there are men in expensive suits with guns hidden under their jackets. Ivan's associates. The kind of people who smile while they break your fingers.

Kira holds court at the center of it all, draped in red silk that probably cost more than my mother's funeral. Her bandages are gone now, revealing the nose I gave her—delicate, perfect, someone else's face. She catches my eye across the room and her smile sharpens.

"Ladies and gentlemen." Ivan's voice cuts through the champagne chatter. "My beautiful Kira has requested a special performance. My wife will honor us with a traditional dance from her... heritage."

The way he says heritage makes it sound like a disease.

Marcus appears at my elbow, his jaw tight. He presses the sea-glass gauze into my hands without meeting my eyes. "I'm sorry," he mouths.

I want to tell him it's not his fault. That none of this is anyone's fault except the man who saved me and then decided saving wasn't enough—he needed to own me too.

But I can't speak. I never could.

The crowd parts. Someone dims the lights. I stand in the center of the ballroom in my thin gauze while a hundred predators watch and wait for me to entertain them.

The Pearl in my chest throbs. It's been burning since the curse activated, a constant reminder that I'm running out of time. Three days. Seventy-two hours. Then either salvation or dissolution.

I close my eyes and find the rhythm.

My feet move across marble instead of sand, but the magic doesn't care. It rises from some deep place inside me, older than Ivan's cruelty, older than my silence. My arms trace patterns in the air—spirals and waves, the language of tides.

The chandeliers flicker.

I spin faster. The Pearl burns hotter. Blue light bleeds through my skin, illuminating the veins in my arms, my throat, spreading like bioluminescent algae. The magic is too strong tonight. Too close to the surface. Three days from the deadline and my body knows it's dying.

Glass shatters.

One chandelier explodes, then another. Crystal rains down like frozen tears. Someone screams. The lights strobe—on, off, on, off—and in the flashing darkness I see my mother's face, her mouth forming words I can't hear over the chaos.

My knees buckle. The marble rushes up to meet me, and then there's nothing but black.

I wake to Ivan's hand in my hair, dragging me across the floor. My scalp screams. The ballroom is empty now except for shattered glass and Kira, still in her red dress, her new nose wrinkled in disgust.

"You ruined it." Ivan's breath is hot against my ear. "You ruined her night. You staged that whole scene to embarrass me in front of my associates."

I try to shake my head. Try to sign that I didn't, that I couldn't control it, that the magic is killing me from the inside out. But he's not looking at my hands.

"She's pathetic." Kira's heels click against marble as she approaches. "She can't even perform a simple dance without causing a scene."

Ivan releases my hair. I collapse, tasting blood where I bit my tongue during the fall.

"Lock her up," he says to Marcus. "I'll deal with her tomorrow."

But Kira's hand on his arm stops him. "Wait. I'm not feeling well. That soup at dinner—my stomach is killing me."

She doubles over, retching. Ivan catches her, his face going white.

"What did you eat?" His voice is sharp now, dangerous.

"Just the soup. The soup Talia served me."

No. No, I didn't—

"Search her room," Ivan snaps at Marcus. "Now."

I try to stand, to follow, to somehow make them understand. But my legs won't hold me. I watch Marcus disappear up the stairs, watch Kira lean into Ivan's chest with a small smile playing at her perfect new lips.

Marcus returns five minutes later. In his hand is a small glass vial, the kind used for concentrated poisons. His eyes meet mine, and I see the apology there before he speaks.

"Found it in her nightstand, boss. Hidden under some papers."

I sign frantically—I didn't, I wouldn't, someone planted it—but Ivan isn't watching my hands. He's watching Kira retch again, watching her play the victim with an expertise that makes my skin crawl.

"Basement," he says. "No heat. No blankets. And Marcus—bring me her sketchbook."

That breaks something in me. The sketchbook is all I have left. The only way I can communicate beyond basic signs, the only place I can draw out the words trapped in my silent throat.

Marcus won't look at me as he carries me down the stairs. Won't look at me as he locks the door. Through the small window, I watch him walk away with my sketchbook tucked under his arm.

Then I'm alone in the dark, in the cold, with three days left to live and no way to tell anyone I'm innocent.