Chapter 62
Jane
“Tell me what you see,” Madden ordered, his gaze following the red tear slipping down from the inner corner of my eyes.
The helmet gripped my head so tightly that a distant part of me wondered if it had pierced my skin. The hard surface inside scraped over the bruised hollows of my forehead, needling every tender spot.
The vision came in a rush after that. Madden’s thread brought me along tunnels and shadow figures. I made sure to describe their faces and directions almost correctly, altering a few details that I thought wouldn’t raise suspicion.
The Chantress didn’t give me much to work with. The visions were unfocused, impressions layered over one another without order or time to sort through them.
I was drained, still hungry despite the soup that they’d provided before this, exhausted after walking beside the thread for so long. Yet I forced myself to sift through the half-formed images.
Dim corridors were flooded by the echo of boots striking marble, spells humming and crackling through the air. There was a bed. There was Madden’s silver hair.
I forced myself not to react, not to give away why my pulse quickened.
“You have to give me something,” I said, standing upon the marble floor in the vision, though I knew he could hear me perfectly well from the chamber of his mansion where my body lay. “I cannot focus.”
From the back of my mind, I saw him lean closer over the gurney, invading my space until the ghost of tobacco settled on my tongue.
“Tell me what you see,” he murmured. “Or you’re not useful.”
He’d said as much the day before, after hours of wrenching the visions from me once we returned from human territory.
Despite the threat, I’d woken alone in the padded room, unable to recall how I’d been brought back. I assumed he had drained me until I lost consciousness, which was a problem.
My plans with Reagan wouldn’t work if Madden didn’t let me stay awake.
But the Sight was giving me nothing new about him, which meant Madden kept me there. I wanted to give him something, anything, so he would be satisfied and leave me alone for a few precious hours with just enough strength.
I’d already counted the humans moving through the mansion, noted how many Scions frequented the place, listening to the corridors as I was dragged back here once more.
At least, the choker was gone, removed by Cahir, and I looked like myself again.
Madden shoved his bleeding forearm towards my mouth. I recoiled instinctively, then forced myself still. His blood filled my mouth, and I swallowed.
It had to work today.
With the essence from his blood, it became easier to focus on the thread.
“They’re outside a stone building,” I said. “Holding pickaxes.”
It was true. I could feel it branching outward into other places, other captives with reddened hands and laboured breaths. I told him about tunnels and gutters thick with the scent of rust and damp earth.
His attention fixed on the tunnels, on what lay buried within them. “What did they find? Tell me what they’re saying.”
I strained, pushing deeper. “The ones with pickaxes aren’t speaking.”
A curse spilled from him. “Look at the masters and what they are saying.”
The tunnel darkened, soil packed beneath my palms as I tapped along the wooden supports bracing the walls.
I didn’t tell him about the other visions in his thread, his fate. And if what I saw was true, he wouldn’t like what came next.
◆◆◆
“Sleep now,” Cahir told me as I dragged myself along behind him in the corridor. “I’ll come back later with your food.”
“I need the washroom,” I said.
I had only been allowed to use it a handful of times. They barely gave me enough water to drink, and rationed food even less. But since yesterday, every visit to the washroom had been immensely helpful.
He stopped, turning to glower at me, as though annoyed I had waited until now to say it. “You might as well wash yourself,” he muttered, his gaze leering far too long on my rumpled clothes. “Follow me.”
He strode ahead and, for a moment, my vision doubled from exhaustion. Or maybe from the powder in my pockets. Looking around, I noticed there were no vents in this hallway and inhaled a lung full of air.
“Do you think,” I began, exhaustion weighing on me, “I could have some food now?”
I couldn’t afford to be this depleted. I would collapse in the padded room if I tried to follow the plan. The Sight had taken too much from me, and the bloodbane on my fingers made it that much worse.
A chill traced my spine at the thought of one more night there. It rallied alarm into my body.
It had to be today. It had to.
My steps faltered, and I pitched sideways. Cahir caught me with an arm around my waist, hauling me against him. I clenched my jaw and shoved at his chest.
Pain exploded across my cheek an instant later, and I hit the floor hard, swearing against the sting. Anger flared, lending me just enough strength to lift my head and glare up at him.
Cahir smiled. “Push me again, and you won’t eat for a week,” he said pleasantly. “On your feet, half-breed.”
I dragged myself upright and followed him to the washroom. It was a white-tiled space with two stalls and two bathing areas partitioned by thin curtains.
Cahir shoved a towel into my chest. “Soap’s in the wall,” he said, his hand rising to my throat as his influence washed over me, numbing and invasive. “Don’t try to be clever. Wash, and I’m going to have your food brought to your room.”
I nodded, mimicking a compelled state. He wouldn’t go far. Likely only down the hall.
The moment he left, I slipped into the nearest stall and closed myself inside. I dropped the toilet lid and climbed onto it.
Alone in the white room, I had ripped new holes in the padding behind the bed, scraping it wider until I could fill my pockets with bloodbane powder.
Most of it was already gone, smeared along doorknobs, dusting the rugs on the upper floors where the Scions tended to linger. There was only a small amount left now.
I lowered my trousers and opened the air vent just above the stall. Holding my breath, I shook the fabric inside the opening, covering my nose as the powder vanished into the vents.
My gaze flicked to the door. My handler would not be gone for long.
Only after sealing the vent again did I slip into the shower stall and fully undress. I turned the water on and flinched at the icy cascade. It was a hurried wash that I used to scrub every trace of bloodbane from my hands, my hair, my skin.
My clothes hung along the lower ledge. I eyed the shirt, inspecting the seams of the sleeve. Stretching the fabric taut, I bit down and tore a strip free.
I rolled the cloth tight and tucked it near the soap.
When the door opened again, I was already wrapped in the towel, dropping the discarded clothes to the floor in front of him.
Cahir’s eyes leered over me before he tossed a bundle of clean clothes my way.
“You have two minutes,” he said.
I returned to the stall and dressed quickly, pulling on the bra I’d kept and the fresh clothes he had brought: a plain white shirt and trousers meant to help me blend into the interior of that dreadful box. I kept the folded sleeve concealed in my underwear and stepped out of the stall.
He escorted me towards my cell just as another Scion appeared.
“Her soup’s inside,” the man said.
Cahir nodded and unlocked the door by turning the lever. No key. The mechanism clicked, and he stepped aside just enough to let me pass.
Inside, my gaze snagged on the tray of yellow soup waiting on the floor. No water. I turned back towards him, leaning close to the threshold.
“Can I sleep after?” I asked. “I’m drained.”
“Eat the soup,” he replied, ignoring me.
“If you exhaust me completely, I won’t be able to see anything for him,” I said, keeping my tone as level as I could. “I won’t be useful.”
He let out a long, irritated breath. “Eat the soup.”
The door began to close.
My pulse hammered as I retrieved the damp strip of fabric from my underwear, counting heartbeats. Just before the door sealed shut, I wedged it into the hinge, nearly losing a finger.
The lock clicked.
I held my breath. But Cahir didn’t return.
Relief shuddered through me, and I sagged forward, hands braced on my knees as my strength faltered again. My gaze swivelled to the small bloodstain smeared against the wall, the single mark missed by whoever had scrubbed the room after the human attacked me.
The same mark that had sparked the idea.
I crossed to the tray, finding an apple set beside the soup. My stomach cramped in protest. I chewed slowly, forcing steady breaths between mouthfuls.
As I ate, a faint surge of energy started to fill me.
I didn’t want to let myself question whether this would work. Yet my mind had a strange habit of conjuring dreadful thoughts at the worst possible moments.
It reminded me of being attacked in a cabin. Of watching my father forget us. The weight of the helmet. The blood I was forced to swallow.
But I chose to let those bad memories fuel me, thicken my skin, and reminded myself of the good ones.
Of dancing beneath an oak tree, seeing aurora ribbons cut across the sky, and eating a rather earthy elven cake.
I remembered laughter over a dinner table, and ice-blue eyes that warmed my entire body.
I remembered a turquoise spring and steady arms keeping me afloat.
There were horrible things here, and there might always be, but there was incredible love too. There was happiness. And there would be a home. Our home, Caedmon had said. For me. For Joy. And for the captives upstairs. I would make sure of it.
The shirt came off over my head and was set aside within reach, in case I needed to correct my work. My arm was bare to me, the freckles stark against the red bra strap.
I took one deep breath. Then my teeth sank into my arm. A muffled grunt left me as pain burst, red and needed.