Chapter Thirty-Seven
The feeling of unease intensified, but not gradually. It flared up like a needle being jammed into the sole of my foot. My eyes were drawn to the windowsill again, where I could just barely make out the dead insects in the still flickering light.
Then, a beautiful female voice cut through the darkness.
“Ene, mene miste,
Er Kroch aus seiner kiste?
Ene, mene, muh
Und tot bist du!”
Rounding the stairs from below, I saw a woman, tall and beautiful.
She had raven hair brushed out so straight it shimmered, and her lips were very red.
She had a beautiful smile and the sharpest eyes.
There was nothing even remotely human in her gaze.
She scared me. She scared me like the witch had scared me. The other witch.
Elias dug his fingers into my arm. It hurt, but it didn’t matter.
The woman came up to the landing where the insects had died, and with unnatural clarity, I understood that she had killed them, had brought them here to collect them. What she planned to do with them, I didn't know. Perhaps she was simply proud of having gathered death.
“Hello,” she said, her accent mild as spoiled wine being dumped into a river.
“You are pretty little morsels, are you not?” She was right in front of me suddenly, and reached for my cheek, running her sickly warm palm over my skin.
I shivered and gagged. “To think that something has come of my little pet. I can see you would make a good pet.”
Thaeros had sunk to the floor on the stairs at some point, he was crouching there and hugging his knees to his chest.
An awareness inside me stirred, the feeling of disgust at this woman’s touch making me remember something that was important, very important. Something I wasn’t supposed to forget. Heat moved on my back, and it felt as if feathers were touching me.
The watch. Soyer had given me the watch for a reason.
Elias was clinging to my upper arm and shoulder, and that was lucky. It gave me just enough movement to raise my wrist, letting it face her.
“Can you tell me the time?”
She glanced at the watch, and her smile faltered.
Her sharp teeth—I’d not even noticed them, but she bared them once more, screeched, and pulled her arm back.
I felt her scratch my cheek in the process, but the oppressive feeling, that thing that had made us freeze here, it vanished as she took several steps back, hissing and screaming at the watch.
I didn’t even think. I kept my arm up, grabbed Thaeros by his jacket, and dragged him up the stairs with me. He had to be able to move somewhat, because I wouldn’t have been able to do that otherwise, and Elias, thankfully, also moved with me.
We made it up the stairs to the fire exit.
I lowered my watch arm to pull it open, and once we were through, we ran.
Well, it was more a stumbling along, and we weren’t all that fast. Elias moved with me, like a baby elephant holding on to an adult, and Thaeros was breathing heavily as if he’d run a mile or more.
I looked around, trying to find an exit.
Then I remembered that we’d come up through the exit, and that the elevator might not be safe if the witch went downstairs.
I also remembered that the witch was out to hurt Soyer, and that helped me shake off the last bit of whatever she had done to me, whatever she’d done to scare Elias and Thaeros out of their senses.
“We have to find the others,” I said, not sure whether Elias or Thaeros were in any shape to be of help at all.
“Amory…I…I really want to go home,” Elias said.
“Yeah, but we can’t right now. Just hold on to me.”
Thaeros was looking over his shoulder. I didn’t have to; I heard the door to the staircase open behind us. We didn’t have too many options. I went for the nearest door to us, and luckily it was open, spilling us out on the other side. It was very red here. So red.