27. Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Do you think staring at dirty fountains will resolve all your problems?” Sapphire asked from behind. “Or is your silence a way of ignoring the truth behind Eero’s words?”
I scowled, twisting around to look at her. “Do you think chastising me will make me any more inclined to believe him?”
This was where she grinned before joining me on the bench. “Not at all, no.” She leaned forward, bracing her arms on her knees. “I stopped fighting his battles for him a long time ago.”
I chuckled dryly and returned my focus back to the fountain. “When I was a kid, I used to come here in the winter and help one of the elderly merchants clean the green algae off the sides of the fountain. I guess it’s a way for me to reminisce, considering I’m all but banished from this place.”
She sucked in a breath. “That’s so depressing.”
I turned my head at her in disbelief, but she was still grinning. “You are always so supportive.”
“I try,” she tittered. “I didn’t grow up in the fae realm, you know. When I was a kid, I used to go to the cobbler and steal leather boot shoelaces. Then I’d hop on a ship to the Venalian Empire every summer and try to sell them for a profit—it worked, too, until I got caught and was forced to clean his gutter for three months straight.”
“Why am I not surprised you had thieving habits?” I smirked.
“What else was I supposed to do? Home was always so boring.” She paused and continued quietly. “I ran away when I was a child after getting caught. I jumped on the next ship out and wound up in the Venalian Empire. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have ever met Yenira. I don’t quite remember how we found out we were related, but it was like a weight that lifted off my shoulders. I was meant to meet her.”
I smirked. I opened my mouth to continue reminiscing, but my ears perked at the distant sound of a raspy cough. I turned my head toward the alleyway, wondering if we were being spied on. There wasn’t anyone around except the tavern dwellers—and nobody had any business being in the muddy alleyway between buildings. Sapphire’s attention had been captured too. If they’d heard her, it’d be incriminating enough to warrant time in a dungeon cell.
I stood slowly, Sapphire soon following. We neared the alleyway. “Who goes there?” I hollered.
Silence.
“Yes, because all spies respond to quiet, insecure voices demanding their presence,” Sapphire muttered. She moved past me and inched further into the darkness. I moved after her, but we both froze when that wheezing cough returned. It wasn’t in any of the recessed alcoves, nor was it above on a balcony. It was down below. Our heads angled at wooden shutters that led to the basement. We could have kept on and hoped whoever was down there hadn’t retreated into the darkness after seeing our faces and hearing our stories, but that’d be putting too much faith in fate.
And, as luck would have it, fate was a vicious bitch, so I watched Sapphire tear the wooden doors open and descend the stairs after a silent nod. The metal lock that held them together from the outside clattered on the stone ground. That was when I realized this person hadn’t retreated—they’d been locked away.
Suddenly, I didn’t fear our identity being found out. I feared for whoever was down there, locked away like a caged animal. So, I chased after her. into the dank darkness, pinching my nose as the foul stench grew unbearable. There wasn’t an inch of natural light, and if it weren’t for the starlight bouncing between Sapphire’s fingers, we would have been at the mercy of shadows.
When we reached the largest part of the room, we found rows and rows of shelves full of cracked glassware and old books. There was mildew accompanying the stench, and as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I found skeletons strung along the wall. At least six, but I stopped counting as terror clouded my vision. Across the way was a woman with gray hair bound to the wall in silver chains. Even from here, I saw those pointed ears and knew this was so much messier than a woman imprisoned beneath somebody’s home.
This was a malnourished, tortured fae woman who’d aged well beyond the point a grandmother would before taking her last breath. Sapphire was already rushing over to her by the time the ringing in my ears stopped and the terror faded to the back of my mind. I joined just as Sapphire was hissing out curses, her skin sizzling as she tried to touch the silver chains. She took one look at me, and her crimson eyes glowed with uncertainty.
I flicked my focus to the woman just as she lifted her head, lips so chapped that blood stained them like rouge makeup. “W…Water,” she rasped, her voice no louder than the cracking winds of a storm. I gulped and took a step back. I was about to turn and run to fetch water from the tavern, but Sapphire whistled for me to stop.
“We don’t know who put her here,” she said so quietly, I almost didn’t hear her. “But they’re likely nearby so they can keep an eye on her. This is the sort of prisoner you don’t want getting out.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, my heart cracking in half when her lips curved into the most desperate frown. Hope fluttered from her stare as she let her dip forward yet again. How long would a fae need to be neglected to make a plea for water? They were all but immortal—not much killed them, and I was almost confident starvation was one of the most ineffective ways. Yet, the skeletons behind us told a different story.
Whoever did this had killed before—and something told me they weren’t human. Not in heart, at least.
“What do we do?”
Sapphire chewed on her lips and spun around. “Look for something that can help break her free, something to cover our hands or break through the chains.”
I let out a shallow breath and lunged at the nearest shelf, trying to drown out the broken cries that wheezed out of the old woman. She’d been defeated for years. How did somebody survive something so cruel? Tormenting? I had few enemies, but even those I loathed most did not deserve such inhumane torture.
Even Sólkon.
After pushing so many glasses aside, some shattered at my feet. There was no telling who would stumble across those doors broken and forced opened—and if it wasn’t the person responsible for her chained imprisonment, it would be somebody disgusted at the sight of a fae woman in the mortal realm. It’d be a call for war.
One they wouldn’t survive.
I’d made it to the shelf closest to the end of the wall when I pushed aside some books and saw an opening between two bricks. It was a dark hole without mortar holding it together. I blinked, peering through it to find nothing but darkness. There was no door, no sign that there should be something on the other side, no end in sight. I breathed out and looked over my shoulder, watching Sapphire trying to tear a piece of material from a flag. Then, I glanced at my hands and wondered if my training would serve me well…or if I would cry for somebody’s help because of my own incompetence.
I frowned and rubbed my fingers together. After closing my eyes, I searched within myself for that familiar warm feeling. When I was angry, it suffocated me in the chest. When I was in agony, it swarmed across my brain like a bunch of insects. In neutrality, though, it was absent—distant, cold, hollow.
But I kept digging. I kept searching. And, as I snapped my fingers over and over, something within me sparked. It was weak and fleeting, but when I opened my eyes, I caught sight of starlight dancing overtop my forefinger. I would have gasped or cried out in joy, but I feared it’d vanish. So, I held my breath and lifted my hand to look through the hole. The darkness turned to light, and I saw what looked like a passageway carved of clay and brick and nothing more. There was water dripping from the ceiling, and when I breathed out in disbelief, the starlight fluttered from my hands and danced further into the darkness.
On and on and on it went, until light was swallowed by shadow and nothing was left of it. The tunnels. I’d just found—
But as the revelation settled into me, I felt something pierce me in the chest. I reached for it, as if expecting a blade to be driven through me, but there was nothing. My gasp cracked out of me like a shard of lightning, clapping through the silent room. I was unharmed, but it felt like something was just ripped from my chest.
“Aurelie!”
I twisted around just before a large knife came flying at my face, the bartender glowering from the other side of the room. At his feet was Eero, bleeding, with a silver dagger plunged into his back.