It was disconcertingto be surrounded by a blob of heavy-shouldered men moving with catlike grace through sunlit, stone-floored halls.She was never, ever going to get used to anything like this, even if Erik was always in the same place just behind her right shoulder, jaw set and dark gaze flickering everywhere.
At least they let her out of her cell daily, and said cell had way more walls than the last one.Sitting room, two bathrooms, walk-in closet she would never be able to fill, bedroom—did the closet count as a room?Depending on whether it did, there were sixteen or twenty, and she wasn’t sure if a wall counted if it possessed a door.
She spent a lot of time thinking about the definition of a prison in the wide navy-blue bed, which was curtained kind of like Sara’s, though not nearly as heavily.She didn’t like the grey linen furniture in the sitting room, but when they asked, she enthused about it until Erik shot her a perplexed look.
Which was gratifying.
“Cheer up.”Daniel spread his arms and danced sideways down the stairs, his shiny red and white high-tops tapping like a Fred Astaire remix.Today he wore a soft, well-washed Batman T-shirt, the yellow logo glowing cheerfully.“We’re not going to throw you in the Flame again; that part’s done.”
“Color me excited.”What Liv really wanted was to break the shell of big-shouldered men, run down the stairs, lose herself in the crisscrossing passages, and maybe find a way outside.
Not that it would do much good.The temperature had dropped and heavy snow was covered with a slippery, murderous layer of freezing rain.Beautiful, certainly—the view from the mullioned windows sparkled fit to blind her when she stared at the hillocks and humps that might be green in a few months but were merely featureless and sterile now.
Even if she did manage to get to the outer wall, stepping outside was another proposition entirely.
You had earplugs, Daniel had explained, gravely.Now they’re out and won’t go back in.You’ll need a trio, probably two, to keep everyone around you from shouting their most intimate secrets through a bullhorn straight into your skull.Scrambles your brain, that does.
It was a relief to get some questions answered, even if the answers were complete nutbar.
“It takes a while to settle.”Not much sobered Daniel for long.If Sara was depressive, he was on the manic end; the aggressive cheerfulness was almost as bad as Sara’s eternal, glassy calm and slow, somnolent movements.Despite wanting girl talk, the femaleliraididn’t seem too inclined to reach out and get some.“Be gentle with yourself, Liv.”
Like there’s any other choice.“If I wasn’t, they’d stop me, right?”
“Alirai’s too precious to be risked.I tried suicide four separate times my first year.”Daniel’s expression didn’t change, as if killing yourself was a natural, unavoidable consequence of learning there were monsters and monster-fighters hanging around most large cities at night, not to mention being dunked in rainbow fire from the bowels of the earth.
Liv couldn’t really disagree.She wished she could grab the banister; unfortunately, Dakshi was in the way.He was a lot quieter than Jake, but smiled all the time like him.The old guy— Robert—looked a little like Ignatius, and had a habit of wearing suspenders.That comprised her “regular trio,” and there was a rotating cast of other brawny guys filtering through daily on “guard duty.”
She couldn’t possibly remember all their goddamn faces.All told, there were rarely less than a half-dozen men crowding her.She could barely visit the bathroom alone, and consequently she’d taken to long hot baths.
It was the only time she got any peace at all.
“Then I sealed Eddie, and River.”Daniel sobered, but only partly.He still danced sideways down the curving staircase, and Liv thought it was possible he’d practiced a lot, a prancing extra in Depression-era musical extravaganzas.
Maybe he knew he wouldn’t fall, or that they wouldn’t let him.
“Another thing they wouldn’t tell me about.”Liv preferred watching her own feet—she’d remarked that she liked Erik’s boots, and within a few hours a pair in her size, albeit with cushier insoles, had showed up in a plain white box.
The Sons apparently had all sorts of money, though she was pretty hazy on where it came from and there wasn’t a good way to ask with everyone listening.With all the cash, why did they still have all these stairs?The place could have used an elevator or two.
Maybe the steps were to keep everyone in shape.God knew her glutes were getting a workout.
“It’s not polite dinner conversation, that’s for sure.”Daniel finally stopped soft-shoeing and turned to descend backwards, with enviable grace.“It’s very personal.Even Sara doesn’t talk about it much, and she seals even her far-guards.She can’t stand to see them suffer.”
Maybe he was showing off?Liv’s stomach lurched; Erik’s hand closed around her elbow.The touch, warm and unsettlingly familiar, steadied her.
Daniel was watching when she glanced up, his young face solemn for once.It was eerie to see him moving backward, weight transferred with easy regularity, dropping from stair to stair with barely a sound.He’d probably been taking lessons from the Sons.
When he was sure he had her attention, he continued.“Someliraido that, you know, seal up their entire—a flight’s a group of trios, naturally.”
“Naturally.”I got that,she wanted to say, irritably, but there was no use in being nasty.When a man wanted to lecture, he’d do so despite any impediment.
“It makes it easier on them, sort of inoculates—that’s a great word,inoculate—it makes ’em immune tohim.”Daniel didn’t shudder, but his expression soured for a moment.“They don’t sayhisname, ever.”
“Then how do they know it?”At least she could ask a few the questions she wanted, and they were getting a lot better about actually answering.
At least, theliraianswered.The Sons barely spoke, except for Erik.Even he wasn’t a championship chatter.
“Oh, they know.Same way you know how to breathe, or how to pulse through a trio and flambé the shadow-fucks.”Daniel’s lips pursed slightly as his eyes danced too, a little boy caught making swears.The end of the staircase arrived; the otherliraidid a tolerable Motown-esque twirl, grinned at her, and set off at an angle across parquet flooring, his trios closing around him.
