Things got worse before they got better.

Once the flow of blood slowed to a stop, the full extent of the damage was clear. In some places, Regan had been slashed to the bone. In others, her flesh hung as if she were a wrapped gift torn open by an over-zealous child. While the prince worked diligently, Regan drifted into a cold place of semi-consciousness. She swam through nightmares—both real and imagined—murmuring requests for Cassian (and once or twice one for Othello).

But after a time, as her body started to clumsily knit itself back together, Regan stilled to sleep with the calming stone in her hand. Her nightmares became more like shadows and less like prowling monsters, and so she sank into the blackness.

It wasn’t until dawn that she crossed back into the waking world again.

Regan groaned, asking for the king, not fully arriving at the where and why of the place she found herself in.

It was a lot to process.

Regan did try to rise but found she really couldn’t. So instead she sank back into the cot, turning her hazy eyes toward Akagi as he knelt down beside her. She started to smile back, but the smile quickly faded. Something felt different in the way her face moved. Regan’s brow furrowed.

“What do you mean outcomes?” She reached her hand up to touch her face. Her fingertips dragged along the roughly scarred skin, and her heart dropped.

Regan felt dizzy. Frantically she ran her hands over her face, following the jagged landscape of her skin down to her chest—which was worse yet. She looked at Akagi, equally pained and burning with shame.

“I want to see.” It was an anguished whisper of a request.

It seemed as if Akagi were gone a lifetime. Regan felt along her chest, up her face again, before she was so lightheaded she had to drop back down again for a moment. When Akagi returned, Regan pulled herself back up again, swinging her legs around to the side of the cot with a groan.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she took the mirror. She had to resist the temptation to snatch it from his hands. To see what had become of her. She angled the mirror, blinking so that her double vision might clear.

Regan froze, staring at the unfamiliar face that looked back.

She wondered if she would have cared had it not been for Lady La’May—the woman who had outfitted her for the ball. She wondered if she hadn’t had a taste of finery, of beauty, of glamour if she would have felt the lump in her throat and the sinking dread that seemed enough to drag her through the floor.

Regan was certain it could have been worse. Was equally certain that Akagi had gone above and beyond; had done everything he could. But the damage was still starling. Angry, dark purple scars twisted across one side of her face; down her cheek, across her lip to her chin, and deeply across the bridge of her nose so that there was a divot cut out of the bridge. One slash started on her forehead, splitting her eyebrow like a trench and continuing down to the other side. All of it made the scar she’d worn under her eye all these years nearly invisible by comparison.

Regan’s eyes dropped down to her chest, pulling the collar of the tunic she’d been redressed in down and to the side so she could see it properly. It was an island of rippled and mountain ranges and depressed rivers from where the chunk of skin had been torn away. There were deeper slashes that could be seen—the same dark purple that lined her face.

Regan was silent for a long time. For how long she wasn’t sure. Her lips wouldn’t move, as if her tongue too had been ripped out. Eventually, she forced them to speak, watching them in the mirror as if to confirm that they were her own.

“You saved my life,” Regan tore her eyes away from the image, dropping the mirror to the cot, “And for that I’m grateful. Really. You’ve done…more than enough.” Her words, though she meant them, sounded hollow.

Regan was only half listening. The rusted gears of her mind were starting to unstick, the events of the ball coming back. The words of the Dresmondi, Ber’s defense, Alys’s hand on her arm, and then—

Octavius. The witch. And somewhere, distantly, she could hear Alys’s roar.

“The king—” Regan said, not acknowledging Akagi’s suggestions for she barely heard them, “Have you heard from him? Is he…I need to get back.” She tried to rise.

And Regan believed him. Sitting up so fast had been a bad idea. Regan fell back down to her cot as she winced. There was still damage she couldn’t see. Seemed apropos given the circumstances.

“No, that’s alright,” Regan said with a groan, “He’ll send for me when he’s ready, I’m sure.” She chuckled. “I take orders, don’t give them.” She was somewhere between tickled to death and ready to burst into tears.

She let her head fall to the side so she could look at the prince more clearly. “When I thought about my next visit to Arynn Frey, this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.” Regan wanted a distraction. Something. Anything.

Regan didn’t fight it. Selfishly she hoped Cassian would come. She could feel his absence like a tug in her chest. She was also selfishly glad to hear that Cassian was concerned about her. Even under the circumstances, it made her lip twitch into a smile. It was validation that she meant something to Cassian—and she’d take that wherever she could get it.

“Me too,” Regan whispered, though it didn’t have the same energy or warmth behind it that it probably should. “I’m just tired, I think.” Regan said, “Feels like I’ve been dragged up a mountain by my ankles facedown.”