Not a single fucking one.
I hold on to that sliver of optimism until the cellar fades again, but this time it’s full dark and there’s no Bronwen.
Twenty-Seven
Although Cato leaves to rest, he’s never gone for more than a handful of hours. I’ve yet to figure out if it’s me he distrusts or his fellow soldiers.
“I’d like to bathe,” I say after yet another guard rotation.
“I’m not authorized to let you out of your cage.” Cato reclines against the black wall as he peels an orange with a pocket knife, the segments of which he surreptitiously ferries into my cage on a magic-made breeze.
“Why?” I know why but I want to hear him say it.
He says nothing.
“Where’s Dante?” Not that I want the Faerie King to visit but Iamcurious as to what he’s up to. “How’s his eye?” When Cato still does not answer, I ask, “What of Justus? Where has he gone off to?”
My guard stares squarely at his fruit in order to avoid my probing stare.
“Ugh, Cato. What exactly do you think I’m going to do with the information? I’m a fucking prisoner.”
His silence stretches on and on.
“Who knew you were a man of so few words?”
“You can communicate telepathically with the Sky King, Fallon, and you wonder why I cannot share sensitive information?”
“Not surrounded by—” When his eyebrows begin to peak, I say, “All right, fine. Yes. I can.” Obviously, he cannot know what really happened when I spaced out the other day. “You got me.”
“So we can talk, but not about Lucin politics.”
“All right.” I blow a strand of grimy hair off my face. “How’s Meriam?”
“Don’t you think your king would’ve come to see you had anything happened to her?”
“Myking is dreadfully allergic to obsidian, so unless Meriam can crumble this cozy basement, I doubt he’d be able to pay me a visit.”
Cato lowers his gray eyes to the perfect swirl of his rind, jaw ticking in exasperation.
Well, I’m exasperated too. I’m tired of doing nothing but laying on my mattress, which is so scrappy each bar feels like a bone, and pacing the tiny perimeter like a wildcat. As I’m doing at this very moment.
I suddenly halt my mad loops because, what if a sigil exists that could crack stone and crumble this underground fort?
A second thought catapults over the first one: if such a sigil existed, wouldn’t Meriam have used it already? After all, who, in their right mind, wants to stay locked in prison? Then again, it is possible that Meriam’s no longer of sound mind. After all, she’s been held captive—on and off—for over five centuries. That would fritter away at even the sturdiest brains.
But . . .what if? Me and my intractable optimism. But if I shed my optimism, then I’d be left with despair, and I will not become that woman who bemoans her fate.
“That creature you call a king is murdering thousands of innocents. We’ve had to set up curfews to protect our people, for Crows are virtually invisible at night, especially when they shift to fucking air.” I do believe it may be the first time I’ve heard a curse word slip past Cato’s lips. “Soldiers are now posted oneverybridge andeverystreet! I understand you hate it down here, but understand that you’re in the safest place in the whole land.”
I watch his chest rise and fall ten times before allowing myself to reply. “Cato, I love and respect you because you’ve always been a friend to me, but please,pleasetake off your fucking blinders.”
His face, which went soft at the beginning of my sentence, pinches by the end, and the peeled orange drops to his feet, spraying droplets of sweet juice that fragrance the stale air.
“Have you ever even met a Crow? Spoken to one?” I ask.
His mouth tightens like his gaze. “Like those creatures would ever let me speak . . . They tear off necks for sport.”
Though I understand the concept of brainwashing, I’m nevertheless taken aback by his closed-mindedness. I’m tempted to drop the subject entirely, but since I have his attention and no one else is around, I ask, “The night I was taken, so was the Crow who flew me down from the Sky Kingdom. Is she being kept here?”
