Chapter 27
Six days later, Gwen woke to the usual screaming.
As she’d learned at Delphi, powerful oracles tended not to sleep well, even under the best of circumstances.
If fresh visions didn’t disturb their slumber, nightmares about previous upsetting visions roused them instead.
And these were far from the best of circumstances, since captivity, bright lights, and uncertain fates didn’t make for restful slumber.
By this point, most of her compatriots could only manage occasional restless naps.
Corey in particular had trouble dropping off.
When they did manage to doze, night terrors frequently woke them within minutes, and for good reason.
Most of the oracles had been stuck in the Realm Below for several weeks, but Corey—poor lamb—had been snatched from their top secret government workplace a month and a half ago.
They’d watched all the oracles kidnapped before them disappear, one by one, and now their own power was fading as well.
The same decline in prophetic ability had apparently happened to all the prisoners sooner or later.
Due to the extreme stress of the oracles’ circumstances, fatigue, or maybe their location in the Realm Below, where their connection to their prophetic Power might prove more tenuous than in the world aboveground—no one knew for sure.
But there was no avoiding the deterioration, and Corey’s ability had waned the most. Except for Gwen’s, of course, because the chalky protein bars she grudgingly consumed three times a day apparently didn’t contain the vitamins her own Power required.
Soon she and Corey might disappear too, and they knew it. Thus Corey’s night terrors.
Gwen threw off her blanket, drunk with fatigue. By the time she stumbled over to Corey’s cot, though, Matilda was already murmuring to them in a low, concerned voice.
Kneeling on the cot beside them, Gwen opened her arms. Corey, one of the more touch starved of her companions, threw themself into the embrace without hesitation, clinging as hard as their stick-thin arms could manage, their shoulders heaving with near-soundless sobs.
Matilda patted Gwen’s shoulder in silent gratitude, then rose to refill Corey’s water bottle at the sink before returning to her own cot.
“Need help, Gwen?” Timon whispered from the next cubicle over, his voice rough with exhaustion. “I could—I could hug them?”
He didn’t sound entirely certain about that offer, but he was trying, and Gwen appreciated the effort. “Thanks, Timon. I’m good.”
Gwen rubbed soothing circles between Corey’s shoulder blades until the other oracle calmed. With a murmured thank-you, they gave Gwen a final fierce squeeze, then let her go and lay down again, eyes peeled to the high ceiling above.
According to the analog clock on the wall, their mandated daily prophetic sessions with Josiah would begin soon. Gwen should rest while she still could, so she collapsed onto her thin cot once more.
Sleep wouldn’t come, though. Not with her stomach cramped by burgeoning nausea. Not when her brain insisted on buzzing with worry about today’s session.
In hopes that she and the other oracles might survive or even escape if they cooperated with one another—preferably before Josiah killed any of them—she’d spent the last six days trying to create a community among the captives.
The task had proven surprisingly easy. Under other circumstances, perhaps her fellow captives would have maintained old hierarchies and rebuffed her friendly overtures, but weeks of imprisonment had broken them down and rid them of any lingering haughtiness.
They were heartbreakingly glad for any kindness she offered them—and once they’d experienced its comfort, willing to offer it to others in turn.
The oracles who still experienced spontaneous visions required the most care from the group, but they were all scared.
They were all dirty. Any captives who couldn’t choke down endless protein bars sometimes went hungry.
One of those malnourished seers, Jing-Jing, had suffered an actual seizure after yesterday morning’s prophetic session, and the guards had only supplied a generic healing spell in response, because offering more substantive medical attention would have required bringing an outsider to the hidden encampment.
And Gwen kept vomiting and involuntarily falling asleep, although the nosebleeds and headaches had mostly disappeared after her own spontaneous visions had ceased.
Her efforts had made daily life in the cubicles a bit more bearable for everyone. No amount of cooperation could change their increasing physical and prophetic frailty, though, and no amount of cooperation could save them from Josiah—unless they escaped.
Too bad they still hadn’t come up with a single feasible plan for that.
As predicted, the usual guard appeared not long after Gwen had lain down. He halted at the foot of her cot, his masked face unreadable as he told her to follow him.
Apparently she would be Josiah’s first oracle for the day. Lovely.
Dizziness and exhaustion had her swaying in place, but she stumbled ahead of him while the other oracles worriedly watched from their own cots.
As always, the guard brought her through the makeshift prison’s lone door, past the other guard posted there, and into a small neighboring room, which contained a table, a bare wooden seat, and an athame.
Inside that cramped room, Josiah was already waiting, alongside a third guard and his masked truthseeker.
She halted just inside the doorway, terrified of what might happen next.
Once she’d sat, Goodling would demand whatever prophecies she could muster for him.
And after the visions ended, the interrogation would begin.
If she lied or refused to explain what she’d seen that morning—or what she’d witnessed in any visions that might have occurred outside the anteroom—she wouldn’t receive that night’s protein bars.
Unwilling to risk her unborn child and almost certain that her prophecies wouldn’t help the conspirators in any meaningful way, she’d dutifully recounted her visions every morning. Such as they were.
Her prophetic abilities had diminished daily, like the others’. Unlike the others’, though, that diminishment had been remarkably rapid. After a mere twenty-four hours without her supplements, her huge, mind-breaking prophecies had entirely disappeared.
For now, she could still summon smaller visions with a cut on her palm and the usual rituals.
But Josiah’s discontent with the piddling nature of her recent prophecies had been growing.
Yesterday, frustrated beyond bearing, he’d ordered the guard to immobilize her while he’d twisted her greasy braid around his wrist and yanked viciously hard, just like he had in her vision.
And just like in her vision, the pain had been excruciating. When she’d cried out in agony, he’d only yanked harder. So hard she’d eventually staggered back to her cubicle with a small clump of hair missing from her bloody scalp.
He’d smiled after her, content. For the moment.
But today was a new day, and who knew what he’d do to her this time?
Still, she sat when he ordered her to do so. Cut into the scabbed-over wound on her palm. Prophesized for him.
His favorite wing balm would be discontinued soon, so he should stock up in the meantime. That was the only guidance her waning power could offer.
She emerged from her fugue state to find him looming over her. His distinguished face had twisted into a petulant scowl. Nauseated and fatigued beyond words, she could only sit and stare back at him.
“My minions may do most of my work aboveground, but I still need to keep up appearances for the Council. I have no time to waste on your useless prophecies, human,” he told her, silky aggression in every hissed syllable.
“You have until tomorrow to prove your value to me. Otherwise, I have no further need of you.”
That threat—her knowledge of its inevitability—was why she hadn’t been able to sleep again that morning.
As Matilda had warned her earlier that week: Once Josiah began growing impatient with an oracle’s lack of power, that oracle tended not to return from their compulsory morning prophesizing session. Sooner rather than later.
And sooner, in her case, evidently meant tomorrow.
“I intend to rid myself of other liabilities then too.” Josiah turned to the guard. “Take this one back and bring in the next.”
Other liabilities? Did he mean Corey? Or even Matilda? Because a purge of weakened seers could doom nearly any of the captives—or all of them.
Trembling with urgency and terror, she shuffled behind the guard, back to the cubicles. And as soon as he and Matilda disappeared around the corner, en route to her own session, all the other oracles descended on Gwen to check on her. Including Harry, their latest addition.
If Josiah truly did cull the oracular herd, the elderly prophet who’d arrived only two days ago was the only one almost certain to survive. The rest of them…not so much. Which meant the time for dithering was done.
Before Josiah’s arrival early the next morning, they had to escape. Somehow.
While Gwen was still mentally sorting through various ill-fated ideas, Matilda arrived back from her session. Dashing a forearm under her bloody nose, she waited with barely leashed impatience while the guard summoned Harry.
That guard was hardly out of earshot when Matilda dropped down onto Gwen’s cot and urgently whispered, “In today’s visions, I saw you die, Gwen. Multiple times. Multiple ways.”
Briefly, Gwen closed her eyes and blew out a shaky breath.
It was one thing to know she was in mortal danger. Another to hear a firsthand account of her own death. Or rather, her own deaths.