Her white hair jars as she shakes her head back and forth even harder.
“You won’t?”
“I can’t.”
A feeling presses into my chest, the cold crawling across my skin like a spider now. I can do nothing but stare at the woman’s strange behavior. I don’t know what to say or do, and something feels monumentally off right now.
A sigh exhales from Kain, and he leans past me, his hand slipping between the bars. His fingers grip the end of the blanket, but when he tugs, it doesn’t move. It bunches stiffly beneath his hand, and he pulls harder, and even as it starts to move, the blanket holds the solid shape of the bodies. A slick sort of tearing sound comes unnaturally from the blanket and the figures beneath it.
“Stop. You’re hurting them.” The woman races over and shoves Kain’s hand out of her cell. “Don’t disturb the dead, boy.”
Don’t disturb the dead.
A sick, twisting sensation wraps around my stomach.
“They’re dead?” I whisper, the air knocking from my lungs so fast it’s hard to even speak.
She starts to nod, and it then seems impossible for her to stop the sporadic gesture.
“When…” My voice is so breathless it’s impossible to hear. “When did they die?” I ask a bit louder.
“Just before you got here. Maybe a day before. First Milly and then Sal.”
One day.They died down here, rotting and forgotten because no one came for them. Society turned their back on them, and their only friend had to sit back and watch them die. And wait and wonder when she would be next.
The light in my hand flickers distractedly. I turn on my heels, needing to look away from her for a single second, and I force myself to take a deep breath. It shakes into my lungs, and when I exhale, it shakes out even harder. Kain pushes his hand down the length of my spine, slowly rubbing circles along my back until the emotions pressing into my chest dissolve enough for me catch my breath.
“What’s your name?” I look at the woman, memorizing every wrinkle on her worn face. She’s strong. Resilient. Heartbreakingly so.
“Patricia.”
“Last name? What’s your full name?” Someone will remember the eldest remaining mage who’s suffered far more than anyone ever should.
Even if none of us make it out of this alive.
“Patricia Angela Maria Lincella Roswell.”
Okay. That’s a bit more than I anticipated. I should probably write all that down.
“Patricia, I’m gathering all the mages in the world to stop Ellise. If we do that, if we show that not all mages are like her, I think things will be different. I think”—I fucking hope—“it’ll change our lives. If we’re willing to try.”
“How many is that? How did you get so many mages here without her knowing?”
“Well…” I clear my throat, and it’s suddenly hard for me to look at the woman I was so adamant at memorizing just seconds ago. “Counting me and you, it’s fiffffeah.”
Her head tilts, and she comes a little closer with total confusion pulling at her brow. “How many? You trailed off there at the end.”
“Fiffffeah…” I mumble again.
“Fuck, Arlow. It’s five. There are only five mages left in the world aside from Ellise,” Kain says so harshly I flinch from his brutal honesty. “And one isn’t even here yet.”
“Five?” She backs away from me as if she might take her place cowering in her favorite corner again.
“Yes. That’s a good little number. It’s far more than three.” I fold my arms defensively.
“It’s far less than we need!” The woman’s voice grates when she yells, as if she hasn’t spoken more than a whisper in years.
She shakes her head back and forth, her eyes searching the darkness while her hands tremble so much she has to hold them tightly in front of her.
