48 - JASINA

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

G emna's eyes are wild with fear, her screams echoing through my head, as Donal practically throws me into the room. I skid across the glossy floor, slip, and fall on my hip. A sharp pain shoots up my thigh, and when I don't get up right away, Donal kicks me until I scramble out of his way on hands and knees, then get back up and limp away from him.

When I turn and look back at the door, Ceela is outlined in it. She's wide-eyed and finally starting to realize that whatever is happening here, it's not gonna end well for any of us with spark.

"Get me down! Get me down! I demand that you get me down right now!" Gemna's screams are hoarse and high-pitched. It hurts my throat just to hear them. But she doesn't stop. It's like she doesn't get it. Or she's just in a blind panic and can no longer control her fear.

Her eyes race, back and forth, like they are unable to focus, and then… bam. They lock on mine. She squints at me. Then her eyes go wide. "You! You're the one Finn took to dinner last night! You're the favorite! He likes you! Tell him! Tell him to save us!"

Then there is laughter. And it's not Donal.

I look at the door where Ceela is still frozen—scared shitless, I guess, and unable to move. But there's someone behind her.

She is pushed out of the way and Mitchell Davies appears. He's looking right at me when he speaks. " Save her ? He's not gonna save her, Gemna. I mean, come on." He looks at Gemna now. "Finn didn't even have the balls to save Clara. You think he's gonna stand up for this tramp? Listen." He walks over to Gemna, his eyes gleaming with degeneracy. "Just give in now. For fuck's sake, everyone is sick of your blathering. Show some fucking grace. What happened to ‘poised, proper, polite?' There's no way out of this. In fact, this is what you signed up for. You should be proud that you can give your life for all these others."

Gemna towers above him on that circle, but this height difference in no way diminishes Mitchell. If anything, it makes him look more powerful, more in control, since she is a prisoner tied to a ring and he is not.

But at the same time, Gemna is no teenage girl. She's a Spark Maiden. She might be number ten, but she is, by far, the most powerful person in this whole room.

Maybe the Matrons have more power. I mean, it stands to reason that they do. But no one ever talks about them. No one pays any attention to them at all. Which, in hindsight, feels like a big blind spot on the people's part.

Gemna stops her screaming and makes a menacing growl when she speaks. "You're sick. All of you are sick! You're going to kill us to turn him into something"—she glances at Donal—"inhuman. An abomination. You're not a god, Donal !" Gemna's calm fades with these words. They are piercing and I suddenly have a headache.

"Fuck off," Donal says. Then he's got me by the arm and he's dragging me over to the circle on the other side of Gemna.

At the same time, Ceela starts protesting, finally coming to her senses. "Forget it! I don't want to do this. I take it back."

But it's too late. Mitchell Davies has her by the arm and is dragging her to the circle on the near side of Gemna.

By the time I refocus my attention on myself, the cuffs are already going on. I resist, and my feet are still on the floor, so I even try and run, but Donal is pulling on a chain now and I am yanked backward, falling so hard on the glossy stone floor, I hit my head and everything goes blurry for a moment. Then I'm being hoisted up by my arms, the strain on my shoulder joints too great to resist. I stand, getting in position in the center of the circle, which allows Donal to put cuffs on my ankles.

The next thing I know my legs are yanked open and my feet are secured to the radiating star.

I'm caught. I'm trapped. And there's nothing I can do about it.

This is really happening. They are going to drain all the spark out of us so they can… what?

I look around, desperate for answers.

Even if I can't escape, I'd rather die knowing what is happening than being completely left in the dark.

It's a Looking Glass, I know that.

But what are they doing?

I don't understand.

Donal finishes with me, Gemna is still screaming like a wind from the Great Sweep, and Ceela is demanding— demanding —that she be let go as Mitch finishes cuffing her ankles to the radiating star inside her circle.

Donal is done too and both he and Mitch walk to the door, open it up, and leave us.

But it's what happens next that starts to unravel the mystery of this ritual.

For the first time I notice a chair in front of the glass room. But it's not any kind of chair I've ever seen before. And when Donal sits in it, Matrons appear with a crown of some sort with all kinds of metal wires attached. They place the crown on his head and plug the wires into the glass wall. On this side there is a metal panel and more wires, each leading to one of the circles.

This is how they will drain us.

Our power will be sucked out, sent through those wires, and delivered to the crown on his head.

When all but Matron Lightly back away from Donal's chair, I brace for it. They are going to… flip some switch, or something, and that will be it. We will be ended.

But that's not what happens.

There is no way to hear what's being said on the other side of the glass—even if Gemna wasn't still screaming her fucking head off—because the glass is too thick.

But I can see just fine. And all the Little Sisters are starting to panic. This panic lasts for several minutes while Matrons, and that fucking degenerate Mitchell Davies, all try and calm them down.

Maybe the girls are OK with this, or maybe they are just being threatened. Regardless, they calm down. And then one approaches the center of the room. I don't know this girl's name, but she's from up-city. She is directed to stand in a certain spot marked by a pattern inlaid into the stone floor and then Mitchell puts another crown on her head, just like the one Donal is wearing.

I don't mean to scream when the process starts, but the cyan-blue lights that comes out of her in a long, pulsating line scares the hell out of me and it's just an instinct. Her body goes rigid and for a moment, I think she will fall to the floor. I think she needs a chair.

But I'm wrong. The spark is holding her up as it is drained. And it's not until she is empty, and pale, and lifeless that she finally crumples like a used-up piece of paper and slams face first onto the floor.

I know the girls are screaming. Hell, even Ceela is screaming now.

But then the girl stirs. Her cheek is bloody when she finally lifts up her head and her nose might be broken, but she's alive.

And I can almost hear the sigh of relief in all the Little Sisters out there.

Something terrible is happening to them.

Something evil and gross.

But they're not going to die.

Not like us.

And so they form up in a line. Waiting their turn to feed the new god.

No one is coming to save me.

That is what I say in my head, over and over, as the seconds, and minutes, and hours tick off as each girl gives her spark in the name of Donal Oslin.

No one is coming to save me.

It takes a little while before I snap out of the hopeless stupor. But eventually, when the line of Little Sisters is half as long as it was when we started, I finally understand what they're doing.

They're not opening a Looking Glass.

Whatever they needed the one up in the Extraction Tower for, that's over now. And anyway, it's been rigged to blow up by Aldo. They couldn't use it even if they wanted to.

This room is also some kind of Looking Glass, but it's more than that.

That's when I finally get the answer I was seeking.

This is a door .

This is a door that leads to… wherever it is that Spark Maidens go when they walk into the tower.

They are going to destroy Tau City by draining it of all its spark and then they are going to leave. They are gonna walk through the tower doors and leave tau City to die.

Does Donal know?

Or does he really think they're trying to turn him into a god?