“You weren’t,” I accused.
Ellowyn stiffened, ire and protectiveness flashing in her eyes as she stared me down.
“No, I wasn’t,” she admitted simply, and godsdammit, I may not have liked the answer, but I surely appreciated the backbone she grew.
“So you were going to, what? Let them rot down there and let me think your ex-husband had them killed?”
“More or less.”
I fought a smile at her blasé attitude.
“Since when do you hate our parents so deeply?” I teased, though needing the answer all the same.
Ellowyn’s expression darkened, magic dancing at her fingertips that she quickly reeled in before she spoke in a tone that was deceptively even. “I feel no kinship with those people, least of all a woman who was never my mother in the first place.”
Our footsteps echoedin synchrony as Ellowyn led me down never-ending obsidian staircases to seldom-used levels far beneath the Academy. The air was colder here and damper, a heaviness clinging to it like the last vestiges of a particularly frightening nightmare.
“I didn’t realize this existed,” I mumbled, surprised that my breath didn’t puff in front of my face.
Ellowyn gave me a thin-lipped smile as she unlocked a series of doors on one of the lowest levels. The stairs still led downward, and I shuddered to think what horrors were kept so far beneath the ground.
I had at least part of my answer when the second door opened with a soft click, the aroma of death wafting through the crack. Gagging, I held my shirt above my nose and mouth. Ellowyn grimaced slightly, her already pale skin whitening even further, before she pushed open the door fully.
“You get used to it,” she mumbled, breathing solely through her mouth. Though the idea of tasting decay was nearly as unappealing as smelling it.
Water dripped from the ceiling, pooling in random spots on the stone floor. There was no light here, apart from what small glow the Mage Orbs on the wall cast, and I hugged tightly to Ellowyn’s side, afraid to step too far to the left.
My boots splashed through a puddle, and I grimaced as the wetness spread up my pant leg, hoping that it wasjustwater and not anything more.
“You have nothing to fear from that side,” she said, her voice echoing eerily in the dark space. “They have all . . . passed on.”
“Who were they?”
“Rapists and murderers, child molesters and sex traffickers. The worst of the worst in Vespera.” She detailed everything without a hint of remorse, and I felt a pang of pride for my sister—the girl who was once so wrapped up in her own trivial issues she could barely see past her own nose now refused to flinch when discussing the vile acts of criminals.
I hummed, my nose adjusting to the smell the farther we walked.
“Those prisoners at the front were for threats inside the walls of Vespera. Those over here”—she gestured ahead and to the left as she lit a few larger Mage Orbs—“are for threatsoutsideof Vespera.”
“Is it just them down here?” I asked quietly enough that I hoped our conversation was private until we reached their cell.
“Not anymore,” a thin, reedy voice rasped from somewhere to my left in the permeating darkness. Ellowyn’s eyes flew wide, and I jumped before scampering behind her. Skin rasped against metal as the prisoner gripped the bars, their skeletal-like hands visible in the straining blue light.
“Who are you?” I asked, leaning over my sister’s shoulder.
“Evidently, someone placed here by Rohak and Fay,” she said, speaking over the man’s pleas. “And, consequently, not anyone we want to see.”
She started walking immediately, forcing me to jog in order to keep pace. Intrigue about the unknown prisoner still lingered as we approached a second set of bars, Ellowyn slowing and eventually stopping.
But it was banished as soon as the Mage light illuminated the cells, exposing the skeletons within.
I’d been prepared for my parents not to look like I remembered, but this was almost too much. Shaggy, threadbare clothing hung on emaciated frames, bones poking through paper-thin, nearly translucent skin. Their hair hung in stringy, greasy clumps, some of it missing. Any exposed skin was red and raw, infected bite marks apparent on wrists and ankles as if the rats down here tried to eat them while they were still alive.
“Mother? Father?” I asked. Dull eyes once so full of life, but now nearly as dead as the prisoners at the front of the dungeon, blinked slowly back at me.
“Peytor?” The sound of metal on metal rasped from the vocal box of my father, something sparking in his eyes when he saw me standing just outside the cages. “You came for us.”
I winced outwardly, and my father recoiled slightly.
