“Yes,” Silas says.
I hand him back the cell phone. “But humans didn’t believe in it?”
“Humans were full of hubris, believing they were the all-powerful species. But magic had existed on Earth for thousands of years before the apocalypse. It used to be accepted as normal, but as time went on, humans chose to pretend it wasn’t there, that these forces weren’t around. When they destroyed their habitat, we monsters, along with many mages and witches, managed to survive the pollution, with the help of ancient purifying spells and runes.”
“After we were free, we helped the few humans that were left to survive. Some could breathe just enough to keep living on Earth, but not enough to prosper, so we taught them basic survival skills. We helped them to build the domes. Our mages and witches generously shared their magic to make the air inside the domes healthy, and we mined under the ground to provide raw materials for them. We even taught them how to grow food.”
“So why would they turn on you, when you helped them so much?”
“They didn’t like that we were adaptable to the conditions on Earth. That some of us could fly. That we could make fire and hunt and dig out precious metals from the ground. That we could procreate and have younglings with ease. Above all the hated that we could breathe the Earth’s air. I think they weredeeply ashamed that they’d destroyed their habitat, but were just too arrogant to admit it.”
“We humans had tickets on ourselves, right,” I say, my lip curling. “Nothing’s changed there.”
“Not all of you,” Otis adds quietly. I glance up to see his red eyes on me, soft and warm.
My heart does a little hiccup in my chest.
“A few of us were okay, you reckon.” I pinch my finger and thumb together. “Like this many?”
He laughs, mellow and deep. “Yeah, about that.”
For some reason, I add flirtatiously, “Do I qualify?”
“Yeah, you qualify,” he rumbles, then quickly drops his gaze.
“Right, well that’s a relief.” I swing back to Silas with a ninny grin on my face. “What’s this?” I look at a big book, laid open in a cabinet.
“These are the lines of the Covenant we are forced to adhere to.”
I read the script out loud.
“BLESSED FREEDOM BELOW
IS GIFTED FROM ABOVE”
“That’s what the humans made us recite after our rebellion was crushed,” Silas explains.
“Gross.” I pull a face. “This is making me really,reallydislike my own species.”
“Sammy felt the same,” Otis says softly. “It’s a lot to take in.”
I shake my head. “You must hate all of us.”
“We don’t hold on to hate. We simply want to mix freely and peacefully with humans,” Silas says.
“Which would make all of our lives so much better, so much richer.” I move on to the next cabinet, where another book lays open. “And this, what’s this about?”
“This is a copy of our constitution. We leave it open on the page where we made this promise to all species:
Monsters will roam freely through the Labyrinth until the light finds us.”
I cock my head at Otis. “It’s our guiding prophecy,” he says softly.
“The light?” I ask.
“Earth light,” Silas adds.
“The process has already started,” Otis says, “with Sammy and Arlo. With them expecting a youngling together, we believe we are being led toward Earth’s light.”
