Chapter 13

Isit with my back to the bars, legs spread, the laces of my boots so loose they’re gaping. A blazing lantern rests between my thighs, as well as a bottle of whiskey. On a sigh, I raise the bottle and tip it to my lips, drawing a deep gulp that does nothing to warm my insides or smooth my pebbled skin.

The thick, dark-blue cloak Graves lent me is heavy upon my shoulders but appreciated here, where the cold bores all the way to your bones.

Shafts of sunlight shoot down through holes in the ceiling, failing to reach the back corners of the small cell. I steal nervous glances at the pockets of dark, making sure they’re not shifting.

Slithering out to smother me.

Flipping open a fold-up shaving blade, I snap it back into place. Repeat the process again, and again, drawing another glug of whiskey, marinating in the reek of dust, death, and fear steeped within the stone. The lumpy, shit-stained mattress. The single sheet half-eaten by moths.

This place used to feel so fucking big.

Now the walls feel tight, like they’re crowding me.

Choking me.

I flip the blade again, scouring my prisoner with a virulent gaze.

His hands are tied to the armrests of a worn, wooden chair, the ample folds of his gray robe concealing a very dense body. He may live in a shit part of town, but he’s certainly not eating like a pauper—wearing bricks of muscle that almost broke my back lugging him all the way down here.

I’m nothing if not dedicated.

Deep breaths saw through his gaping mouth that’s leaking a string of drool. A snort, then a gravelly moan. He lifts that big, bare, bulbous head off his shoulder, bloodshot eyes landing on me, squinting. The welt on his temple from when I snuck up behind him and knocked him out cold is raised and angry looking.

“Morning, beautiful.”

His eyes widen, gaze dropping to the blade, breathing patterns rallying into a fierce, panicked rhythm as he takes in our cramped confines—no doubt coming to terms with his prickly predicament. Stare digging between the bars at my back, he makes a choked sound as he takes in the sights across the hall. The long-forgotten corpse still clinging to the bars, mouth caught in an eternal scream.

I draw another glug, the chair scraping and bumping against the ground in his effort to wrestle free of his restraints.

“Help!” He screams, shrill and desperate.

Again.

Again.

“It’s no use,” I mutter once he stops to gulp air, his head dappled with beads of sweat. “Nobody can hear you.”

“W-who are you?” he croaks. “What do you want from me?”

Snapping the shaving blade back into place, I roll the jar of thorns across the filthy cobbled floor. It comes to a halt by his feet, and though he pales, a glimmer of hope ignites his eyes.

“You w-want candy?” he rasps. “I-I can get you some! My cousin organized a meeting for me and Madame Strings. Tomorrow. I’m to be her new runner for the city’s west.”

“So I’ve heard,” I mutter, sweeping my hair off my face and pushing to my feet. Wobbling toward the wall, my boots scuff against the chalky sheen that coats the ground. Powdered remnants of the burrow’s ancient inhabitants.

I drag my finger down a groove etched into the stone, one for each person who was carried out dead. “And how did you prove yourself worthy of this meeting?”

“Th-there are many young children about the city in need of direction and stability. In need of hope that the world will not end in shadows. I-I purchased a jar of Candescence I used to bring over twenty children to the temple doors—each with minds opened by their first taste.”

My gut knots, and I swallow the bitter spill of disgust rising in my throat.

“And what happens to these children?” I ask, running my finger through another jagged groove.

Another.

“They’re brought into the open arms of the Shulák, of course. Some are taken to the land without shadow. To the great Glass Temple,” he proclaims, and I whip my head around, eyes narrowed. His are glazed, expression wistful. “A place many of us only dream of seeing.”

Glass …

Without shadow …

This place—it must be in Arrin.

I clear my throat, casting my gaze through the bars to the beams of light piercing down from above. Even now, they look so beautiful—so transcendent—that the backs of my eyes sting.

There was once a time when those beams of light were so, so far away. When a dimness seeped through me, little by little, day by day.

When those shadows drew closer.

Closer.

“It’s bright here in the middle of the day. But at night … the shadows dance.” I spin, flipping the blade open, then shut again, making him jump. “They creep and crawl and slither along. They sing—a rattling tune that makes you quiver.”

I pocket my blade and approach, stopping close enough that his rancid breath stains the back of my throat. Lips pulled into a feral sneer, I squeeze my hand into a ball, force myself to release it, heart racing as I grip my ring and nudge it past my knuckle.

Let it clatter to the ground.

A heaviness settles upon my shoulders, like my feet are suddenly nailed to the stone. My spine wants to curl, my limbs want to fold. It’s an effort not to tuck into a ball and shuffle to the brightest part of the room as my fake skin loosens its barbed-wire grip on my true self.

His mouth drops open, eyes widen with unbridled fear. The hair hanging before my eyes goes from auburn to iridescent, and the air ripens with the reek of his piss.

This place seems to do that to people.

“You … You’re—”

“Unfortunate, I know. We both are, I guess, given your current predicament.”

He pales.

I pinch one of the thorns lining my right ear, drawing a tight breath before I rip it free. The side of my face ignites in a deep, tear-inducing pain that seeps into my jaw, making even my teeth ache with the relentless blaze. A warm wetness slips down the side of my neck, and I blink, freeing the tears that had gathered in my eyes.

Sniffing, I weigh the bloody thorn in my palm; so fine and delicate at the tip, stumpy at the base, the long, pronged roots making up its majority.

I lift my gaze, stabbing him with a hard stare. “Did you know that every time one of these is ripped free, it feels like the entire ear is torn off?”

He shakes his head with vigor, like he thinks that’ll absolve him. “N-no. I— I had n-no idea!”

Such a terrible lie. There’s no way he thought it felt good.

“Shocking, right?” I set the thorn down and kneel at his side, reach into my pocket, and pull out a pair of pliers. His eyes bulge, fingers twitching to bunch despite his binds as I pinch his right thumbnail between the metal jaws and clamp down. I flash him a smile. “It feels a bit like this.”

Jerking my arm back, I yank.

He screams so loud his voice cracks, hand trembling, blood splattering across the floor. His face crumbles, chest heaving, guttural sobs bubbling past his lips.

“Thankfully, our thorns grow back faster than fingernails,” I say through a twisted laugh that holds no humor, tossing the bloody pliers aside.

Much, much faster.

Perhaps I would feel bad about that, but the drugging numb of alcohol softens every sharp edge.

The world seems to rock beneath me, and I stumble onto my arse, landing so heavily my brain rattles. Deciding this is rather a decent spot to sit, I reach back and grip my dwindling bottle of whiskey.

“I’ll let you in on a little secret.” I drag a long glug, then tip the bottle toward the man, raising my brows as I swallow. “I know the one you seek,” I say on a hissed breath. “The one you believe will bring about the world’s end.”

His jagged moans whittle, eyes almost popping out of his head, and I note the deep shade of blue wrapped around the inky pupils. Far from the perfect match to mine, but beggars can’t be choosers.

“The one you use to justify this sick behavior,” I spit, flicking my thorn in his face.

He flinches.

“She might do it, too.” I bank my head to the side, trying to narrow my double vision. “She might just end us all. But perhaps that’s exactly what we deserve.”

Again, his face crumbles, more sobs erupting from his twisted mouth, like he thinks the sound will save him. He’ll quickly learn it’s a waste of air. Waste of tears.

Waste of hope.

Perhaps I’d deal in mercy if it’d ever lined my pockets. But all they’ve done is take, take, fucking take.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I mutter, leaning so I can dig through my pocket for the shaving blade, snapping it open. I lift it, sliding the honed edge across my scalp, severing clumps of iridescent hair that rain upon my shoulders and tumble to the floor. “You’ll tell me where you’re set to meet this Madame Strings …”

Another shave.

“What’s expected of you …”

Another.

“Anything else you can possibly think up. And with each tidbit of information, I’ll give you one of those,” I say, gesturing to the basket beside me brimming with tall, plain candles and a shard of flint. “Precious flame you’ll need when the sun sinks and those shadows start to sing.”