Chapter Seventeen - Evie #2
Mara saw it too. Her fingers dug into my arm. “Evie,” she whispered, her voice gone thin with terror. “What the hell was that?”
The seam opened just wide enough for us to slip through. The darkness behind us stayed dark.
I grabbed Mara’s wrist and pulled her with me, more stumble than grace, the two of us spilling back into my room in a rush of fear. The wall sealed behind us. But I could feel it now, unmistakable, like it was waiting. Something in the walls had seen us, and I don’t think it was Him.
We both froze and listened. But there was nothing. No voices. No pounding on the wall. No honeyed warmth flooding the room. Just silence.
Mara yanked her hand from mine and spun toward the wall as if she expected it to open again on its own. “Close it,” she hissed.
“It’s closed.”
“Close it more.”
I stared at her. Her chest was heaving. Her face had drained of color, her eyes were huge and glassy in the false light.
“Mara.”
“What was that?” she whispered, then louder, “What the hell was that?”
I turned to look at the wall, too, just to make sure. It was smooth marble again, seamless and perfect, but I could still feel it. That thing in the dark. It’s awareness. A sense, sharp and sickening, that something had felt us looking back.
“I don’t know,” I said. “No one was in there when I did this last time.”
Mara laughed once, breathless and panicked. “That’s not comforting.”
“Good, because I’m not feeling especially comforting right now.”
She dragged both hands through her hair and started pacing, short, violent laps between the bed and the table.
“We shouldn’t have gone in. We shouldn’t have gone that far.
We shouldn’t have kept going after the first room.
I knew it, I knew it, and I still followed you because apparently I’ve lost my mind. ”
“You can leave, you know.”
She stopped dead and stared at me. I regretted it immediately, but not because I didn’t mean it. But because I did, and the hurt on her face hit fast enough to make me flinch.
“Mara,” I said, softer.
“No.” She shook her head hard. “No, don’t do that. Don’t say something like that because you’re scared and then try to smooth it over.”
“I’m not trying to smooth it over.”
“Then what are you doing?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing useful came out. Because I didn’t know. Because my heart was still hammering from that thing in the dark and from the girl curled in the other room, and because every second I spent breathing in this room without doing something felt obscene.
Mara saw something shift in my face, and her expression changed. She came closer, slower this time, as if approaching a spooked animal.
“Evie,” she said quietly. “Look at me.”
I did. Her breathing was starting to steady, but mine wasn’t.
“We found something,” she said. “That matters. But if we panic now, we’re dead. Or worse.”
“Worse?”
“You’ve seen this place. Use your imagination.”
I turned away and pressed both hands to the edge of the table, bowing my head for a second.
The gold had faded from beneath my skin, but not entirely.
There was still a faint warmth in my fingertips, a vibration I could feel in my wrists, like the power had curled up there to rest instead of disappearing.
I looked at the tray, the half-eaten bread, the empty cup, proof of too many things I didn’t want to think about.
“There are more,” I said.
Mara was quiet behind me. “I know.”
I looked back at her. “She looked so young. We can’t just ignore that.”
“I know,” she said. “We can’t.”
Hope rose so fast in me it hurt.
Then she ruined it. “But we also can’t go crawling through the walls every time you get mad.”
I stared at her. “Every time I get mad?”
She lifted both hands. “You know what I mean.”
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“Evie.” Her voice thinned with exasperation. “You were one bad thought away from charging deeper into that hidden labyrinth with no plan and legs that only stopped shaking ten minutes ago.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s exactly fair.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. She glared right back, and the silence stretched. Then, traitorous and absurd, a laugh escaped me, and Mara blinked.
I clapped a hand over my mouth, but it was too late. The laugh turned into another, scraped raw from somewhere hysterical and exhausted and still a little drunk on adrenaline.
Mara stared at me for half a second more. Then she cracked, but not all at once. First, a grin she clearly didn’t mean to let happen, then a breath of laughter, then the real thing, breaking out of her in soft, startled bursts that sounded completely feral in a room this quiet and perfect.
By the end of it, my ribs hurt, and her eyes were wet, and the panic had burned off just enough to leave a little clarity behind.
I wiped under my eyes and let out a shaky breath. “We have to do something,” I said. “We have to tell someone.”
Mara’s laughter died instantly. “Who?”
I looked toward the veil stirring softly at the edge of the alcove. “Someone in charge. Someone besides Him. Someone who doesn’t know what He’s doing here.”
Mara just stared at me. Then she said, very quietly, “Evie.”
“What?”
“There isn’t anyone.”
I frowned. “That can’t be true.”
“It is.”
“No.” I shook my head. “There has to be someone above the attendants. The guards. Whoever tends this place when He’s not here.”
Her face changed then, not cruel, just sad in a way I didn’t want from her. “He is what’s in charge.”
The words landed ugly, and I looked away.
“And if you told anyone,” she went on, softer now, “who exactly would you be telling? That The First Light built a secret prison inside Heaven and filled it with beings He wanted to keep for Himself?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. Because she was right, and I hated it.
Mara stepped closer, not touching me this time, but near enough that I could feel the heat of her body. “No one is coming to save them, Evie.”
That sat between us for a second as I stared at the wall where I knew that invisible seam was.
Then I said, quietly, “Well.”
Mara frowned. “Well, what?”
I turned to look at her. “If no one is coming to save them,” I said, “Then maybe no one is coming to stop us either.”
Mara stared at me. Then her eyes narrowed. “Okay? You’re going to reopen that corridor and then what? Run straight into whatever the hell that thing was in there?”
I looked back at the wall. “No,” I said.
Her brow lifted. “Hidden passages don’t mean rescue.”
Mara glanced toward the wall. “Tell them about the corridors, fine. But tell them what? That there’s a way to escape?” She shook her head. “How are they supposed to get there?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You can open them,” she said. “You can feel them. You can walk through them.”
The answer came a second before she said it. “But… no one else here can.”
I looked down at my hands again.
Mara followed my gaze. “You’re the only one with magic here,” she said quietly. “Besides Him.”
I sucked my lips and looked at the wall again, at the place that had opened for me as it knew me, now pretending to be nothing.
Mara’s voice gentled. “I’m not saying we do nothing.”
I looked at her.
“I’m saying don’t give people hope you can’t fulfill.”
That was worse somehow because it was careful and thoughtful and true, and I was so hellbent on saving people and getting out of here, I hadn’t even considered it.
I dragged a hand over my face. “So what,” I muttered, “I’ll just become a one-woman jailbreak?”
Mara’s mouth twitched. “I mean… that does sound quite like you.”
I gave her a flat look.
She lifted one shoulder. “You’re the one opening walls like you were made for it.”
I looked at the marble again. Maybe I had. The thought should’ve felt insane. Instead, it felt possible. So I stepped toward it again.
Mara’s voice sharpened immediately. “Evie.”
I stopped, but only barely.
“You’re not seriously thinking about opening it again.”
I put my palm flat against the wall. The faintest pulse answered.
Gold breathed once beneath my skin.
Mara made a quiet, disbelieving sound. “We were just there five minutes ago.”
I kept my hand where it was, eyes on the smooth marble, feeling the hidden shape of it shift somewhere underneath, not opening yet, just listening.
“Mara—”
“No.” She came closer, her voice lower now, tighter. “No, absolutely not, not until you answer one question.”
I glanced at her, and her face had lost all trace of humor.
“Are you sure you want to risk running into that thing again?”
That slowed me. Because I knew exactly what she meant. That shape in the dark. It had been too tall, too still. And that horrible moment when I felt it looking back.
My fingers flexed against the marble. The wall pulsed once beneath my palm like a second heartbeat. Did I want to run into whatever that was in the dark? Alone?
Mara followed the movement of my hand and shook her head. “You saw it. I saw it. We don’t know what that was.” Her voice dropped even further. “So, unless your big, brilliant plan is to walk straight back into the dark and hope it’s friendly, maybe stop for one second.”
I looked at her, then back at the marble, at my own warped reflection in its polished surface. And I smiled anyway. It was small and mean, and probably a little unhinged.
Mara saw it and groaned. “Oh no.”
I didn’t look at her.
“If I’m going to find us a way out, I’d better get started figuring out what kind of nightmare lives in these walls,” I said softly.