“Meridan—”
“I think it’s rather foolish for you to question him.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You question all of this, too. Every day. Same as me.”
Her head swiveled toward me again, her lips stretching into an unfamiliar grin that was far too wide for her face.
“Do I?”
It is not her,the voice said, a marriage of female and male tones. I shook my head, turning to face away from her when I realized my mind was starting to bend and warp the world around me.
“Stop,” I muttered, screwing my eyes shut.
“Dahlia?” Meridan said… or perhaps it wasn’t her.
Kill her…
The voice was no longer strange to me. It was my mother’s. Reyna’s.
Rid yourself of these creatures feigning familiarity. They will drive you mad.
“No.”
I took in a deep breath of the stagnant air and focused my eyes on the walls again.
There had to be answers in that place. Knowledge. I just needed to find it.
But Meridan was disinclined to let me concentrate. Her hand swept down my arm to get my attention. I pulled away from her touch with a start only to see that sneer still deforming her lips.
That could not be real.
Or perhaps my tired eyes were playing cruel tricks on me.
Kill her,my mother whispered.
I closed my eyes again and turned from Meridan to see Mullins wandering the far wall, his torch raised above his head as he studiedsomething high. The way the shadows engulfed him as he did so made my skin crawl. Nearby, David was also cloaked in shadows that robbed him of distinguishing details.
I could not deafen the voice in my head telling me that it was all part of a plan that was not ours. That we had trapped ourselves someplace we were never meant to be. That everything I’d done and thought about the past few weeks was all part of the design. I was a thread being woven through a tapestry, but I was not theneedle. I never had been.
We eat, we eat, the meat’s so sweet
We swallow and swallow not to feel so hollow
~ “Monsters”
I could hardly make sense of the carvings and paintings that littered the walls of that place. Every image seemed more abstract than telling. I moved to stand next to Mullins, who was wiping a finger across the wall as if to see if the paint was still wet, his mouth open like he’d never seen a mural in his life.
“Ehem… cap’n,” he greeted, straightening his posture.
“Can you decipher any of this?” I sighed.
“Not a lick of it. If I were pretending to be smart, I’d confidently say that there is a giant octopus.” He pointed toward a cluster of black tentacles with no particular end or beginning. “And… well… that’s all I know.”
I pressed my lips together, giving him a pat on the shoulder. “Well done.”
“What about you? Any theories about what this all means?”
I surveyed the room, taking in the entire picture as best I could, but they were scribbles by a madman for all I knew.
