Chapter 52 Generational Ties #2
The woman blocks the door, straightening her back and pushing out her impeccable, large breasts. “Good! My brother does not fuck scrawny short women. Only me. Understand?”
“Brother?!” Niklaus and I blurt out together.
“Let our new guests in, Glinorious.” A command from a soft-spoken male voice comes from the corner of the sitting room.
The woman, Glinorious, bows her head in routine submission, stepping aside for us to enter.
We follow our escort inside, quietly observing the room.
“Hello, nameless guests,” says a red-headed man, moving a heavy chess piece across a board. A Mazonist Brother
The room is a windowless tomb. It’s dim with a few sputtering flames of tallow candles and the orange spit of a hearth so bright, it makes the granite walls sweat.
There are heavy wool tapestries on the walls, and meat rafters on the ceilings blackened from the smoke of the poorly ventilated hearth.
The red-headed man waves his hand for us to pick a moth-eaten high-back chair to sit down in. I walk cautiously to a chair with a little more cushion, but as I lower myself, Glinorious tugs my chain and fastens it to the chair.
“They do look sick, don’t you think?” The other Mazonist brother moves a chess piece fashioned from tarnished brass. Some of the pawns appear to be replaced with tiny effigies of prisoners.
“Yes, quite.”
I make note of the massive guards taking their positions on either side of the room. The man holds his finger under an iron sconce in the shape of a maniacal jester face, dripping wax onto his skin like drool.
And I catch Niklaus scanning the weapons on their belt once more, probably mapping a way out of this in case it goes south.
“I don’t suppose you’ve ever met the esteemed warriors of the North Vexello Mountains, have you?” One of the brothers lowers his small, circular bifocals to direct his question to Niklaus.
“I have not,” Niklaus says.
“This is Glinorious Blood and Tycraniz Blood. A prestigious family of the most skilled fighters and swordsmen you’ve ever seen. And they are devoted to protecting the Mazonist legacy.”
My yawn is unintentionally loud.
“My point is that if either of you deem it fitting to assassinate me or my brother, the Bloods are worshipped like gods for what they do to traitors. Impaled, but not enough to kill immediately. Then skinned gradually, and dissected until their victim dies a slow, excruciating death. Remember that if you reach for a knife.”
“Point made,” Niklaus says flatly.
“We don’t want to assassinate you,” I note, meeting the lifeless eyes of the brother on the left. “We are here by mistake and want to be released.”
That brother doesn’t turn away from me. His stare is lifeless, pinning me to my chair as though he is weighing my value as livestock at a market.
I am not a person sitting in a chair. I am a noise in his sitting room that has caught a brief moment of his attention.
But I don’t avert my eyes. I wait until he understands that I am not here to cower.
“Did you know I have a reputation in this dear country I call home?”
That question is for me.
I shrug.
“My people call me superstitious. And it is true. I am.” This Mazonist brother speaks with tone that hangs on the urge to yawn or sigh. He bears a thick, raised scar on his jugular where his own mother tried to kill him when he still lived in Alkadonia.
I am speaking to Maxwell Mazonist.
“My scouts have reported that you are a witch,” Maxwell considers aloud.
I resist the reflex to meeting Niklaus’s eyes. Our conversations were being spied on? How could they know I just told Jack and Sophia this lie to keep our time travel escapades to myself.
“And you believe them?” I ask.
“Quick tongue, young lady…” Malcolm chuckles, moving another chess pieces with mild interest.
“I believe them.”
I have no idea whether or not it would be beneficial for me to confirm or deny. Will being a witch get me burned at a stake here? Will it save our lives and get us kicked out because Maxwell is superstitious?
“We’d like to be released,” I point out again.
“Oh, I bet you would. And why would I release prisoners who are so clearly from the prim and proper Chandelier City, who have magically appeared in my prison without so much as a trace of appropriate admittance?”
“Do we have a criminal record?” Niklaus interrupts. He waits mockingly. “Have we broken any laws? Guilty of any offenses against you?”
Malcolm’s hand tightens around his queen, hovering over the board.
“Tell us your names and perhaps we may be better suited to answer those questions for you.”
“My name is Ophelia Dredmoor, and this is my husband, Mortimer Dredmoor,” I announce.
Maxwell offers a faint nod to one of the guardians.
The doors open and shut to fact check. Aunt Marilynn read us a bedtime story once.
It was about Ophelia and Mortimer, a husband and wife who would walk the streets at night and find evil men to invite in for supper.
Mortimer carried a lantern with a black flame.
When that flame went out, it meant the Ophelia had cursed another evil soul with plagues unknown to man.
We used to ask for that creepy story every Hallow’s Eve.
Niklaus catches on quickly as he goes with it without objection.
“I take it you are aware we are at war with your country, Mrs. Ophelia Dredmoor?” Malcolm lowers his bifocals to inspect my immediate reaction.
“I’ve heard mentions of it, yes.”
“Hmm.” Malcolm signals to someone behind us with two fingers. “Drinks for our new guests. And, ah, Crow, I sent for you hours ago.”
“I was undergoing trials with a rather difficult subject.” A startlingly short man walks into the room, dropping into a crooked chair next to Malcolm.
He can’t weigh more than one hundred and ten pounds.
With a low ashy brown ponytail hanging at the base of his neck, and greasy slicked back hair, he reminds me of a ferret or maybe a gerbil.
“We’re having a drink with our newest guests. Undocumented, which is, well, anyway… They are in the cages next to two of your subjects! Don’t you find that interesting?” Maxwell clasps his hands together and sits up in his chair, making an animated face at the doctor.
Right on cue, a servant delivers two dull metal cups to Niklaus and I. The liquid has a potent smell. Stronger than alcohol, mixed with an earthy sweetness that smells just like…
My eyes snap over to Niklaus so quickly, I’m sure no one catches it.
Black rose of the well.
The same plant the Mazonist Brothers gave our parents to get the truth out of them.
When ingested, it’s impossible for anyone to resist spilling every ounce of the truth.
But not for us. Thankfully, our mother’s put black rose of the well in our food since we were small.
Amounts so light, we never even noticed.
It had no effect on us, and they made sure we knew it too.
Study that smell, Krimson. If you ever catch that earthy sweetness coming from your food or drink, someone is trying to wrongfully extract information from you. But you’ve all grown such a wonderful tolerance to it.
Guilt claws at my chest.
I used to call my mother paranoid to Krimson once we were let outside to play. I’d fuss, call her names, and laugh at how obsessive and distrustful she was for no reason.
I was wrong.
“Drink,” Malcome urges with an inviting smile.
I hold up my glass and tip my head forward in gratitude, chugging the drink, and resting assured that we are not being poisoned. That would be a colossal waste of black rose of the well.
“Thank you,” I say, handing the cup back to the servant.
“Certainly.” Malcolm rotates away from his game and steeples his fingers. “How did you say you found yourself in our prison again?”
I run my mouth as if it has a mind of its own. “A few soldiers from your breed were belligerently drunk. They arrested us by accident. I believe they were running after a few individuals who were caught stealing.”
“And they simply…threw you into a cage?”
“Yes. Like I said, they were obscenely drunk.”
Malcolm pinches his lips together. He knows I’m telling the truth, because the black rose of the well shouldn’t give me a choice. But the story is still puzzling him.
“What foul behavior. My Breed is usually very disciplined about drinking while on duty. The punishment is usually steep, ten days of isolation at the bottom of our prison well without any clothing at all.”
I give Crow Ivast a once-over. “Jack and Sophia are your test subjects?”
“Indeed.”
“Why? They are quite nice.”
“To you, I’m sure. They don’t particularly like me much after my procedures have effectively ended the lives of their twin siblings,” Crow remarks while reflecting on past mistakes the way a librarian would jot down slight imperfections to an old book.
I fall out of character. Twins? Siblings? I don’t think Mom knew about that. Grandfather Jack had a twin? So did Grandmother Sophia? And they were killed here? Being tested on by the infamous fucking Crow Ivast?!
“And was it random that the two of you were placed next to such valuable subjects of our esteemed doctor?” Maxwell interrupts.
“You should ask your drunk soldiers that. We were thrown in the cages because two of the soldiers had to stop and take a piss in an empty cage across from Sophia and Jack.” Niklaus follows my lead with ease.
Speaking at a relaxed, lethargic pace, as if we’re around a group of inquisitive friends and not the tyrants of Vexamen.
“And you’re from Dementia, judging from your accents and the devastated health of your wife.” Maxwell bores his condemnatory frown over my ribs and collarbone.
“Yes. We came here seeking refuge,” Niklaus answers.
The Mazonist brothers laugh, exchanging amused glances. Crow snickers into his hand.
“I do not think we have ever received a refugee.”
“We’ve had countless seeking refuge from us, in fact.”
They chuckle among themselves again.