“If she were really her, Mr. Grayson would have come—”
“Mr. Grayson can’t exactly leave at the moment…”
I lifted my head, heart skipping a thousand beats at word of Grayson, spinning to meet their eyes. “Grayson? Grayson Crowne? What did you hear?”
They shared a look.
“Shall we begin?”
Madame had returned, cutting our conversation off at the quick. She held a foot-long ruler in one hand. I eyed it warily—I really didn’t want to go through more measurements.
Madame stepped between the girls and they lowered their heads, taking their place behind her. They handed Madame the notebook, along with whatever they’d been writing inside it. I followed them with my eyes, wishing they could tell me something.
Mr. Grayson can’t exactly leave at the moment…
What the hell did that mean?
Madame slammed the notebook shut with a snap. “On your knees, Storybook.”
Her cement-colored eyes bore into mine, waiting.
I could do this.
If anything, I’d been training years for this.
Dignity in the face of indignity.
But for the first time…I didn’t want to give in.
There was a time when I wouldn’t think twice about asking someone like West to throw away my gum wrapper; now I don’t think twice about getting on my knees.
Thwack. The foot-long ruler crop she held landed with a sting between my shoulder blades. I sucked in a hollow breath at the radiating pain.
“What the hell?”
When had she walked around me?
Thwack.
“Don’t speak unless spoken to,” she said. “Knees.”
But he couldn’t save me from everything. From rituals dating back centuries.
Josephine’s words were a death knell, echoing somberly in my mind as I dropped to my knees.
Numb.
“You will never call him by his name, only his title, Mr. du Lac or sir.”
“That seems—”
Thwack.
“Don’t speak unless spoken to,” she repeated, eyes hard.
Josephine jumped into my head again. Had she gone through this? Been forced to her knees while some woman calling herself Madame drilled draconian rules into her head?
She said she did it for her children.