The name hit me like a jolt to the chest.
Evie.
A woman had escaped the Cauterium with the mark. Refusing to speak. Asking for Evie.
It was a long shot… but could it be—?
No.
Ellen was on Darius's side. She'd framed Eve, painted her as the person that tried to murder her, fed the lies that almost tore everything apart. Fueled the conspiracies that send Eve to a cell and put her through torture
. I'd heard of her loyalty shift like a blade slipping between ribs, and I'd felt the sting of it personally through Eve's pain.
But the possibility, that it had been the mark of Malrik all along, that maybe she hadn't been entirely free in her choices, slithered through my mind before I could stop it.
No.
What she had done was unforgivable. And what if this wasn't even Ellen at all? What if this woman wasn't calling for my Eve, but for some other 'Evie' altogether?
