Chapter 5
five
DANTE
After Ophelia was dressed in the prison's standard clothing—minus her bra, because she needed one that was built for winged immortals—we stepped out of the laundry room and joined the other prisoners in the dayroom.
Everyone else had gotten out of the cells when we left the solitary confinement room, so we all had a full day ahead of us.
Usually, the place was empty when the cells first opened. No one typically rushed to get up immediately. There was no point.
Today, it was packed with people who wanted to see Ophelia.
Chores hadn't started yet, and breakfast hadn't been cooked. I was on the laundry crew; it was the easiest to manage when I was starving, and every inmate had a cleaning duty of some kind.
A dozen different prisoners were already trying to flag me down to talk about the tiny angel who was holding my hand as if we were lovers, to sell the story.
Jazz and Shiv were near the front of the group. Shiv's light skin was paler than usual, his long brown hair a mess. Jazz's cheeks were tinted with red, the furrow between her brows deep enough to tell me that she was concerned.
They were striding toward us and the laundry room before I tipped my head to tell them to join us.
Placing Ophelia in front of me so I could protect her if she was right about Shiv wanting her dead was natural. I'd done the same with Jazz hundreds of times throughout our lives.
Jazz was in a power position in the prison, but she was still a siren. Her magic would draw people in, constantly.
She was average height and built strong, with light brown skin, hazel eyes, and cinnamon-colored hair that fell to her waist in waves. I'd known her too long to be personally attracted to her, but subjectively, I knew she was attractive.
My angel, on the other hand...
She was something else.
Something ethereal.
Tiny, pale, and covered with freckles, with her soft, bouncy brown hair cut in layers. The longest pieces reached her collarbone.
Her eyes were a striking shade of gray that looked slightly purple, and her bangs covered them at least half of the time.
She hadn't even seemed to notice that her hair fell out of the buns she'd had it in the night before.
I'd put her hairbands on my wrists after she fell asleep, so she would still have them later.
Shit like that was priceless in the penitentiary.
Now that I knew she'd been knotted before, my existing curiosity about her had turned into full-blown interest.
I needed to know who she was and what she had experienced. There was no explanation for it. I was just... fascinated.
But regardless of her plan, I wasn't letting myself genuinely consider that I might leave the prison. If I was set on it and it didn't work out, it would fucking break me.
Jazz shut the laundry room door, and the prison's enchantment popped it back open immediately.
She'd known that was coming, and leaned her back against it, holding it closed while she maintained her iron grip on Shiv's hand.
Holding the doors shut during the day was the only real workaround for that particular piece of magic.
Ophelia eyed the door with something between curiosity and suspicion. I was fairly sure she was just trying to distract herself from the other male in the room.
"What are you doing here, Lia?" Shiv asked, his voice lower than usual.
"One of the fae asked me to get the demon royals out." Ophelia gestured between me and Jazz. "I had no idea this place was being used to trap innocent people, or I would've done something about it sooner."
Shiv was quiet for a moment.
A long moment.
I watched him closely, ready to get involved if I needed to. I didn't know what had happened between them, but I didn't think she deserved to die.
"Jazz can't leave without me," Shiv finally said. "She'd starve."
"I don't have the power to get you out too," Ophelia said bluntly. "Almost all of my magic is wrapped up in here."
"If you don't have magic left, how are you getting them out at all? Your elevator's fucking insane. The power on that thing is layered so thickly that I can't even figure out what you wove into it," he countered.
"I spent months weaving the right spells into my pottery," she explained.
"Pottery?" Shiv asked.
"Yes. Making pottery helped me work through my childhood trauma, and I discovered a passion in the process. It happens to work well as a container for my magic, too."
Shiv's grimace said he knew what she meant by childhood trauma.
She'd said their relationship was familial, so I assumed he was either her brother or father. Knowing Shiv, brother was a hell of a lot more likely.
Someone knocked on the door.
"Just a second!" Jazz yelled.
Shiv lifted his hands, the way he did when he was using his magic. I'd never been able to see whatever he was doing with it, but something usually happened afterward.
"I'll get you a pen and paper. I need you to draw me a guide to what I'll need to weave to get myself into the elevator. Can you do that?" Shiv asked Ophelia. "Jazz needs to get out of here. Build another prison for me if you have to, but she deserves to leave."
"I can try," Ophelia said, but her grimace told me she wasn't hopeful.
"Worst case scenario, you might have to consider taking a mate to strengthen your magic. If you two disappear, Jazz and I won't survive. Everyone will be too suspicious. We all have to leave, or none of us can," he added bluntly.
Ophelia's entire face wrinkled as she basically shuddered at the idea. "I'm not taking a mate."
"Would you rather be trapped down here?" Shiv asked.
"I'd rather you learn how to weave my spells, or finally grow the balls and fall."
I cleared my throat. "We need to get out of here. All of us have to lay low for a few days, or Reaper's going to get suspicious. How long will you need to learn the spell?"
Shiv looked at Ophelia.
"To learn the elevator's magic? It'll take me an hour or two to sketch the whole thing out, and a few days for Shiv to memorize a weave that may or may not get him through it."
"Then we'll plan on seven days," I said.
"We'll leave first thing in the morning a week from now, after Ophelia and I get out of solitary.
Interest should cool enough by then. If it hasn't, we'll delay it by a few days.
If anyone asks, she and I spent the last twelve hours fucking, and we're obsessed with each other. "
Shiv grimaced deeply.
"If anyone asks, she's a pixie. She can pass as one," I added, looking at Ophelia for confirmation.
She nodded. "My magic can only do harm, but I can make it seem helpful."
"Alright. We'll meet you at the elevator that day. Be careful," Jazz warned.
"You too."
She stepped away from the door. Shiv lifted his hands again, ending whatever magic he must've started when he lifted them.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," he said quietly, his gaze meeting Ophelia's for a moment before she looked away.
They left us alone, and loud voices floated through the doorway until the door shut as much as the enchantment allowed it to.
I murmured, "Try to act like you're obsessed with me."
"Try to act like you're obsessed with me," she countered.
That… wouldn't be difficult.
I wrapped an arm around her waist and grabbed the door.