Chapter Sixteen

When Aimee showed me the map of Red City, she told me about the suburban mansions, which acted as a buffer between the city and the walls.

Though she had told me about their opulence and the importance of the demons that occupied them, I hadn’t understood what that meant at the time.

I was from Portland. My idea of wealth, as a teenager, was being able to visit Starbucks without worrying about the cost of your order. As an adult, I’d spent the majority of my time behind bars—where wealth meant being able to use tampons instead of pads.

Without the SUV, we’d had to hire a taxi, and the driver wouldn’t go past the fancy iron gates at the edge of the property. The gates were wide open, but the demonic sigils on the gate had left my skin covered in gooseflesh and the eerie feeling of being watched.

Sprawling, luscious lawns, peacocks in full plumage, and rolling hills greeted us, with a single paved road twisting and turning to the house in the distance.

None of us spoke as we walked to the house. The sprinklers activated several times, soaking my jeans. Caim tried to fight a peacock for dominance, and we had to run the final stretch to the house. All in all, it took close to an hour and made me feel even more ill at ease.

A quick escape wouldn’t be possible. Not unless Murmur could carry me across the lawn—and based on the wingspan of his vulture, if I had weighed less, it might have been an option.

The mansion was much bigger up close. A perfectly symmetrical behemoth of a building, with two boxy towers on either side, like arms stretched out on a lazy-E-boy chair. A rounded tower sat in the middle of the building, undoubtedly housing a fancy spiral staircase. However, it made the entire property look like it had been built around a lighthouse. Uniform stone and rows of windows smaller than the ones in prison.

The mansion didn’t scream Gluttony or luxury. It was just there .

With every step closer to the mansion, Murmur hung back, standing behind me and Malphas. I didn’t know if it was from fear or the expectation of being attacked from behind.

Caim strutted forward, wearing his signature confidence like a cape, hopping up the stairs like Willy Wonka with horns. He didn’t bother knocking or ringing the doorbell before he tried the handle and found the front door unlocked. Caim held it open and ushered us through.

A wave of music and the smell of unwashed bodies and rotten food hit me as I stepped over the threshold. I took a moment to remind myself that I had begged to come along on the rescue mission, though the odor made running away all too appealing.

Murmur put his hand on my shoulder. “Caim, Malphas, search the lower levels. Behem spends most of his time in the pool, so avoid the courtyard. Maddie and I will search upstairs.” Murmur commanded.

“ Shouldn’t we check the basement ?” I signed, but Caim and Malphas had already left our group.

Besides his silence and ability to see the truth, I didn’t know Murmur well. Neither of which made for a good conversation starter.

My eyes burned as we strode further into the mansion, and it became harder to walk as the sea of fast food wrappers and other garbage grew around our feet.

Aside from the occasional demon staggering past, the mansion seemed almost empty. It was as if the party had ended long ago, and no one had bothered to clean up.

As we walked up the stairs, I couldn’t help but side-eye Murmur. I had no idea why he wanted to team up with me. I couldn’t fight a demon, and based on what I had observed with Caim and the others, their time in Lucifer’s statue garden had left them little more than human.

I was virtually powerless unless someone died. My decision to come appeared more foolish by the minute, and the wild-hair thought about gaining freedom by joining up with the Flock was growing more unlikely by the second.

I thought it was fear at first. Freezing my heart in my chest. Murmur nudged me forward, but I couldn’t walk.

My senses hammered against my body, begging me to run away.

Though the mansion was more giant than I’d ever imagined, Murmur and I were faced with a single door. My hand itched to open it as much as my feet screamed to run.

Murmur took the decision from me, pushing down the handle with a silenced, practiced motion, and he pulled me through, out of the open.

Darkness claimed my sight for a moment until my eyes adjusted.

The door led to another corridor around a bend, with a dim glow of light around the corner. Whimpering sobs echoed through the hallway.

If I was watching a horror movie, this would have been the moment I threw popcorn at the screen and told the heroine not to be an idiot.

Murmur’s lips pursed, and he stopped walking, his hand resting on the door. “I don’t want you to see it.” His voice was strained. “But there are Sídhe in that room. They need help. That is why I brought you here when I really shouldn’t have.”

“ Sídhe ?” I signed. “ Here ?”

Sídhe were rare. I had never encountered another, save for my mother. There were many types of Fae, from the Durrach to the Wild Fae, but Sídhe were rare , especially in the Human Realities.

I steeled myself. I had to see it. I had to help them.

I’d done lots of wrong things in my life, but I would have never forgiven myself if I didn’t try. My mother had died alone, and my foster parents had died in pain.

I’d seen so much death.

The grass verge at the edge of the prison was filled with unmarked graves; several I had seen happen in person at the mercy of Sugar—the drug. Some suicides. Some murders. But they had been easy to ignore in a way. I’d shut myself off in prison. I’d left my body behind and coasted, waiting until the day I would be free. If that ever came.

Now, I was walking around without chains and had a chance to help .

Murmur and I crept around the bend of the room. The Fae magic was thick but tainted in a way that made me feel sick to my stomach, like unending corruption, something familiar that had been twisted beyond recognition.

Demon magic smelled like ozone, but Fae magic smelled like the forest.

This magic stank of rot. Of blight on the land and blood on the ground.

It looked like a dining room at first. A long table extended the room's length, with chairs pushed haphazardly aside as if everyone had left in a hurry. The table legs yawned with the weight of the food piled high on silver platters. Much fresher than the offerings smeared around the rest of the mansion.

Two large platters on the table, one after the other, sat in the center of the monstrous display of gluttony. At first it looked like piles of fresh meat, an animal that had been torn into with bare hands, uncooked, as the main dishes of the feast. Each platter boasted a different shape of meat, but I didn’t recognize the animal. Beef? Too small. Pork? The limbs were too long, bent, and twisted until they sat flush with the bulk of the animal.

Then I smelled it. The copper patina of Sídhe blood.

As I approached the table, the meat opened its eyes. White in a sea of red. Their face was missing most of its skin, taken in strips like jerky.

I recognized those eyes. The prisoner at the gauntlet, the one given special treatment and taken away before we had gone to auction. She opened her mouth and let out a groan, her throat torn to strips.

I stepped away, falling over a chair as I bent over at the waist and emptied the contents of my stomach to the floor. I wiped my tears with my hand, struggling to breathe.

I’d been in prison with another Sídhe and had never even known. I recognized the scent of her blood but not her creed. She had no skin. Pieces of her stomach and her buttocks were missing. One leg was gone completely.

The other platter. I staggered down the table. This one was dead but less… molested. Her eyes were open, cloudy, and staring. Her lips parted, and the skin on her face was bloody but intact.

I remembered her. The one that had taken my place, with a smug smirk. Stealing whatever special treatment she had expected me to receive. Inmate Peck. I didn’t even know her first name.

I turned to Murmur. “This is what you wanted to show me?” I didn’t bother signing. I couldn’t summon the energy to even lift my hands. “You could have saved them. They are fresh . If you found them last night, you should have saved them.”

Murmur stood rigidly, his eyes fixed on the table. “I tried.”

“You tried?” I sneered. “These women came from the same prison I did! They came to the Red City on the same bus. How many more have died, just like this, because of the demons?”

“Careful, Maddie.” Murmur narrowed his eyes.

“We need to get them out here.” I rubbed my hand over my mouth, swallowing back the excess saliva.

“They’re gone,” Murmur told me.

“She’s human , not Sídhe.” I waved a hand to Inmate Peck. “The other one over there is still alive .”

“Alive?” Murmur echoed in horror. He approached the table, and the mangled Sídhe released a pained gurgle. “Fuck. You’re right. We have to get her out of here.”

“Can you do anything for her pain?” My eyes burned with tears as the Sídhe met my eyes again. She tried to shake her head, but she couldn’t move. I stepped forward, reaching out for her hand. Her fingers were gone, leaving bloody stumps at her knuckles. I felt the whisper of her death as it came. I felt it built in my throat—the scream.

I couldn’t warn Murmur without letting go of her hand. I didn’t want to do that.

Another side of my magic. One that I couldn’t escape. I was as drawn to death as much as I wanted to run away. I had to help usher her soul to the other side.

I felt the moment her soul left.

I couldn’t contain the scream.