And then she felt it, outlined in lines of vitæ: an empty space concealed beneath the surface of the plant. She reached into the petals just before her and commanded them to part.
The corpse flower hissed, its vines shivering. The petals before her slid over one another, making way. And beneath them, a staircase, descending into the dark.
She released the vine around her wrist, which slithered, subdued, back into its hiding place. There was no sign of Silas or his lantern below, but she still lifted the hem of her dress and stepped quietly down the stairs. For a moment, there was only darkness and the sound of her own breathing. Then her feet found dirt, and she was in some sort of tunnel. The air was damp and cool, and there was no light except for what came through the opening at the top of the stairs. The corpse flower began to close, its petals sliding back into place, and the moonlight vanished.
Elswyth set off down the corridor. Her hand traced on the dirtwall to her right. The tunnel angled downward, deeper into the earth. Eventually dirt gave way to stone, alternating between smooth and jagged, like cobblestones.
Elswyth’s foot caught. She tripped, landing on the dirt floor. Something crunched beneath her, but she made sure not to cry out lest Silas hear her.
She felt around until she found what she tripped on. It was smooth, like a stone, but light. Parts of it crumbled away in her hands.
Her eyes adjusted, slowly.
Two black sockets stared back at her, set in a crumbling human skull.
Elswyth dropped it, covering her mouth to stifle a scream. She pushed upward and back, bumping into the wall. Her hands felt the smooth surface of the cobblestones behind her—what she’d thought were cobblestones.
She summoned foxfire to her hand. The soft glow filled the tunnel, casting its light on an entire wall of skulls.
The catacombs,she thought.They extend under the Royal Gardens as well. This is how the Reaper has been moving around the city undetected. That’s why he disappeared into the sewers with Mrs. Rose.
She turned, raising her foxfire. Down the tunnel, the skulls led her deeper, toward that distant light.
She composed herself, steadying her breathing, and continued on. The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever. The deeper they went, the more roots seemed to twist between the skulls. Elderwood roots, glowing ghostlike against the bone. Eventually the light from the elderwood roots was enough to see by, and she extinguished her foxfire.
She came to a fork where the tunnel ended, going left and right,but not forward. She turned left, unsure what else to do. Rooms appeared on either side of her. Some empty, some with boxes and crates, or with workbenches covered in scientific equipment.
She came to another dead end. This one, however, opened into a large chamber. Bones and elderwood roots arched above her like a grim cathedral. An elderwood tree stood at the center, surviving, somehow, without light. To her left, a pair of bloodstained operating tables sat near the wall, leather restraints unbuckled. A few worktables were neatly lined up behind them.
She stepped inside, careful not to make a sound. To her right, built into the ground near the door, was something resembling a garden pool. Flowers floated on the surface of the water, the only spot of color among the bones.
A woman floated in the pool as if she were asleep. She had brown skin that seemed greenish in the strange light, and waist-length black hair that floated like seaweed around her body. She was naked, and the skin of her torso had been cut away, revealing the organs there: two lungs that sprouted water lilies, a heart speckled with hyacinths, a womb woven with lotus flowers. Roots grew from her skin, connecting her to the sides of the pool and holding her there.
Elswyth moved to inspect her more closely. The woman had an almost hypnotic beauty to her, like a painting of drowned Ophelia. Was this where the murdered prostitutes’ organs had gone? But why? Who—
A sound came from behind her. She jumped, running for cover by the elderwood tree, pressing her back to it. Around the corner of the tree, she watched the entrance to the main chamber, waiting.
No one came. She exhaled, fists unclenching.
Then a hand clamped over her shoulder.
She drew her blade, ready to scream, when from the trunk of the tree itself, she saw a face.
She hadn’t seen it at first. The pale white skin was almost indistinguishable from the elderwood bark. In fact, half of the face itself was covered in wood, unmoving. But she recognized her fair features and violet eyes right away. Asphodel grew with what remained of her silvery hair, surrounding a sickly, half-dead face.
Persephone stared down at her from within the tree.
Elswyth stumbled backward, falling to the floor. She saw the whole of her sister then, her naked body, fused with the trunk of the elderwood tree. Her left hand reached out to Elswyth, the tips of her fingers warping into branches. The other arm was totally lost in the wood, nothing more than a burl on the smooth trunk. Her right breast was exposed, and her right thigh, but her feet were stuck in the tree. Elswyth could see where they turned from flesh into wood, her toes becoming roots. She looked like an incomplete carving, like a sculptor had started a statue of a girl and left it unfinished.
Her face was the worst part. Her right eye had been replaced by one of the eyelike knots that formed on the trunks of elderwood trees, a small black spot like the thousands that covered the trunk. Wood had grown over her mouth, leaving her mute. And from her one human eye, a tear fell, shimmering like sap.
“Persephone?” Elswyth whispered. “What happened to you?”
Persephone tried to speak but it came out as a moan, a stifled sound of agony.
Elswyth began to panic. She scrambled to her feet and ran to the tree. She needed to free her. But how?
She placed a palm on Persephone’s chest and tried to extend her floromantic sense into her sister’s body. It bounced back, shooting into her with a shock. She tried again, forcing her vitæ into the wood… and then she saw the impossible. Persephone wasn’t merely trapped in the tree. Shewasthe tree. Her organs fused with the trunk to form terrible hybrids. Her arteries branched outward and wove together with the veins in the wood. Persephone wasn’t stuck. She was transformed.
