“Pffft!No! He’s the main attraction on fighting nights. They just keep him locked up in solitary down at the hidden dungeons of the underground prison. Even make him wear a metal cage over his mouth and everything so he doesn’t try to outsmart the Guardians again.”
The right one snaps excitedly, tapping her head as she remembers another detail. “I hear sentinels aren’t even allowed down there too! A team of Guardians have to patrol his isolated confinement at all times.”
“And other than the fighting, Blue Eyes hasn’t had any real human contact, in what?” the curly-haired middle woman asks.
“A couple years, at least!”
“Oof, can you imagine?”
“Golly-giblets, no. My bits don’t do well in the dry months!”
“I’ll say! What do you—”
“Please.” I am a puddle of two emotions waging war against each other. “How do I get to him?”
One part of me is annihilated with grief over what I’ve done to this man, for he will never be the same again. The Niklaus I’ve grown up with is gone. The man I left behind has been alone in the dark, suffering and manipulated. Forced to fight other inmates as the sole purpose for his existence in this prison. A puppet for them to bring out when they get bored.
The other part of me is the annihilator. Imagining everyone who has hurt Niklaus and savoring a particular fantasy of sticking pins in their limbs and dissecting them slowly, watching them struggle to stay sane through the unmedicated surgery.
That includes me.
I have hurt Niklaus more than anyone here.
Because I left.
And it took me ten years to find him again.
“Dellilian!” I whisper into thenarrow, stone hall.
“Hi, Miss Sapphire!” Dellilian lies down beside me as I wait in a dark corner to enter the underground prison. Her damp snout prods my heel.
“I know you can’t interfere too much—but I need you by my side for what I’m about to do. You’ll look pretty terrifying behind me.”
“Dellilian scary?”
“Oh, yes. You arechilling, Dellilian.”
The onyx wolf chuffs, blowing a small cloud of dust up from the ground.
I’ve followed the instructions of the East Vexello Mountain women without getting caught. And now, I am at the entrance to the dungeon. The air down here is stale, and it tastes old. Like warm bodies have existed for centuries down here, unable to escape even through death.
“Very dark,” Dellilian comments nervously.
I nod, pulling my lips between my teeth.
And Niklaus has been locked down here for so many years.
The women told me that this dungeon is used sparingly. For the prisoners that are too aggressive to keep around the general public of the rest of the prison. Yet too valuable to kill as they are of a scrupulous interest to the Mazonist Brothers.
As the Guardian manning the entrance wanders off, I jog, light on my feet to enter the mouth of the place no one dares to go. The archway is low with claw marks, and I can picture those who have been thrown down here against their will, fingernails cutting into the stone doorway as they try to save themselves.
Slipping into the pitch blackness, the atmosphere becomes unnaturally thick, breathing in the air of someone else’s lungs. The walls were made with black bricks by someone who did not understand human proportions of architecture. At moments, it’s unsettling as claustrophobia chokes me—the walkway narrows like an unpredictable cave. I turn to the side, duck, and then suddenly have so much room around me, I’m not sure where the walls are.
“Mr. Niklaus won’t be without enemies,” Dellilian warns.
“I know,” I whisper over my shoulder. “I’m counting on that.”
As footsteps echo along with dripping water and long, ghostly moans—I break out into a sprint. The predictions of my sources theorize that Niklaus is in the very back. My instincts tell me that’s correct, like a magnet summoning me, I can feel it.
