Blake didn't move for a long time. He just stared at the dead scorpion near Imogene's feet, his chest heaving. The blade in his hand was still warm from the strike. He looked at the girl, then at the sword, and felt a wave of pure, unfiltered hate. Not because she was a threat, but because she made him feel like he was losing his grip on his own world.
He didn't hand the sword back. He kept it, the tip resting on the stone floor as he turned his back on her. He went to the far corner of the cell, as far away from her as the small space allowed, and leaned against the wall.
"Don't think that changed anything," Blake said, his voice like grinding stones. "The only reason you aren't in pieces is because I don't want your blood on my boots. It's a waste of good leather."
Imogene slid down the wall and hit the floor with a heavy thud. She didn't feel grateful. She felt sick. Her stomach was cramping from the key, and the corset was digging into her ribs so hard she thought a bone might snap.
"Yeah, well, thanks for the save, Mr. Hero," Imogene spat, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her glove. "Next time, let the bug bite. It's probably less poisonous than the company in here."
Blake cut a look at her over his shoulder. His eyes were narrow and cold. "You speak like a gutter rat. Where did the girl go? The one who spent years learning how to bow and shut her mouth?"
"She's gone, Blakey," Imogene said, leaning her head back against the damp stone. She closed her eyes, trying to picture a rooftop in her own time, the cold beer, the smell of city air...anything but this. "I told you. I'm not who you think I am. I don't know your history, I don't know your mother, and I definitely don't know how to be a 'lady.' In my world, we don't marry guys who look like they want to skin us for sport."
Blake let out a short, ugly laugh. "In your world. You keep talking about this 'world' as if you aren't sitting in my dirt, under my palace, wearing a dress that costs more than a village."
"I'd trade the dress for a cheeseburger and a gun right now," she muttered. She looked at her hands. They were so pale. Too small. "Look at this. I had scars on my knuckles. I had a tattoo on my wrist. Now I've got... soft skin and a husband who's a total psycho. This is a nightmare."
"A gun?" Blake repeated the word, tasting it. "You said that at the wedding. What is it? Some kind of cannon for a coward?"
Imogene opened one eye and looked at him. He looked genuinely confused. Right. 1815. They had muskets, maybe, but the word 'gun' probably sounded like gibberish to a guy used to swinging a piece of sharpened steel.
"It's a shortcut to hell," she said. "Fast. Loud. Better than being choked by an Emperor with daddy issues."
Blake's face went white with rage. He took two steps toward her, the sword dragging on the floor with a screeching sound that made Imogene's teeth ache. He stopped just inches from her knees.
"You have no idea who you are talking to," he hissed.
"I know exactly who I'm talking to," Imogene said, not moving an inch. She'd dealt with loan sharks and mob bosses in her past life who were twice as scary because they didn't have a crown to hide behind. "You're a guy who's trapped in a room with a woman he can't kill because his mommy told him not to. You're not a king right now. You're just a roommate. And you're a crappy one."
Blake looked like he was going to explode. He raised the sword, but instead of swinging it at her, he slammed the hilt into the wooden door.
"RAMSEY!" he roared.
"Yes, Sire?" the butler's voice came back, muffled and terrified.
"How much longer?"
"The blacksmiths are... they are trying, your majesty! One says he can pick the lock, but it's a complex mechanism..."
"If that door isn't open in ten minutes, I will have every man in that hallway hanged!"
Imogene rolled her eyes. "Oh, classic. Kill the help. That'll definitely make the lock turn faster. You're a genius, Blake."
Blake turned on her, his eyes bloodshot. "Shut your mouth. I mean it. Not another word until we are out of here."
"Or what? You'll lock me up? Too late. Kill me? You're too scared of your mother." Imogene smirked, though her stomach gave another painful twist. "You're stuck with me. And the best part? I'm the one with the key inside me. I'm the one in control here."
Blake didn't answer. He just stood there, staring at the door, his hand white-knuckled around the sword grip.
The minutes crawled by. Imogene tried to sleep, but the cold was seeping into her bones. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw her old boss pulling the trigger. She felt the phantom pain of three bullets that weren't there anymore. She was thirty-two years old in her head, but her body felt like a fragile, twenty-one-year-old cage.
She wasn't adapting. She hated the smell of the air. She hated the way the light from the peephole hit the floor. She wanted her life back, even if it meant being dead.
Suddenly, there was a loud crack from the door. The sound of metal snapping.
The door groaned and swung open. A group of guards and a sweaty, trembling blacksmith stood there, staring into the dark cell. Ramsey was at the front, holding a torch high.
Blake didn't wait. He pushed past the guards, nearly knocking the blacksmith over. He didn't look back at Imogene. He didn't offer her a hand. He just marched out into the hallway, his cape snapping behind him like a whip.
"Take her to the North Tower," Blake's voice echoed down the stone corridor. "Lock the door from the outside. No maids. No food. No water. If she wants to act like a prisoner, she can rot like one until that key is in my hand."
Ramsey looked at Imogene, pity in his eyes. He reached out to help her up, but a guard stepped in front of him.
"The Emperor gave an order, Mr. Ramsey," the guard said.
Imogene stood up on her own, her legs shaking. She wiped the dirt from her wedding dress and looked down the hallway where Blake had disappeared.
"Fine with me!" she yelled after him. "At least the tower won't smell like your ego!"
But as the guards grabbed her arms and started dragging her toward the stairs, Imogene's bravado faded. She was alone in a century that wanted her quiet, owned by a man who wanted her dead, and her only way out was currently sitting in her stomach.
The tower door slammed shut a few minutes later. The sound of the bolt sliding home was final.
Imogene sat on the edge of a hard, straw-filled bed and put her face in her hands.
"Great job, Kate," she whispered to the empty stone room, using her real name just to hear it. "You really know how to pick 'em."