I look at the door where Ceela is still frozen—scared shitless, I guess, and unable to move. But there’s someone behind her.
She is pushed out of the way and Mitchell Davies appears. He’s looking right at me when he speaks. “Save her? He’s not gonna save her, Gemna. I mean, come on.” He looks at Gemna now. “Finn didn’t even have the balls to save Clara. You think he’s gonna stand up for this tramp? Listen.” He walks over to Gemna, his eyes gleaming with degeneracy. “Just give in now. For fuck’s sake, everyone is sick of your blathering. Show some fucking grace. What happened to ‘poised, proper, polite?’ There’s no way out of this. In fact, this is what you signed up for. You should be proud that you can give your life for all these others.”
Gemna towers above him on that circle, but this height difference in no way diminishes Mitchell. If anything, it makes him look more powerful, more in control, since she is a prisoner tied to a ring and he is not.
But at the same time, Gemna is no teenage girl. She’s a Spark Maiden. She might be number ten, but she is, by far, the most powerful person in this whole room.
Maybe the Matrons have more power. I mean, it stands to reason that they do. But no one ever talks about them. No one pays any attention to them at all. Which, in hindsight, feels like a big blind spot on the people’s part.
Gemna stops her screaming and makes a menacing growl when she speaks. “You’re sick. All of you are sick! You’re going to kill us to turn him into something”—she glances at Donal—“inhuman. An abomination.You’re not a god, Donal!” Gemna’s calm fades with these words. They are piercing and I suddenly have a headache.
“Fuck off,” Donal says. Then he’s got me by the arm and he’s dragging me over to the circle on the other side of Gemna.
At the same time, Ceela starts protesting, finally coming to her senses. “Forget it! I don’t want to do this. I take it back.”
But it’s too late. Mitchell Davies has her by the arm and is dragging her to the circle on the near side of Gemna.
By the time I refocus my attention on myself, the cuffs are already going on. I resist, and my feet are still on the floor, so I even try and run, but Donal is pulling on a chain now and I am yanked backward, falling so hard on the glossy stone floor, I hit my head and everything goes blurry for a moment. Then I’m being hoisted up by my arms, the strain on my shoulder joints too great to resist. I stand, getting in position in the center of the circle, which allows Donal to put cuffs on my ankles.
The next thing I know my legs are yanked open and my feet are secured to the radiating star.
I’m caught. I’m trapped. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
This is really happening. They are going to drain all the spark out of us so they can… what?
I look around, desperate for answers.
Even if I can’t escape, I’d rather die knowing what is happening than being completely left in the dark.
It’s a Looking Glass, I know that.
But what are they doing?
I don’t understand.
Donal finishes with me, Gemna is still screaming like a wind from the Great Sweep, and Ceela is demanding—demanding—that she be let go as Mitch finishes cuffing her ankles to the radiating star inside her circle.
Donal is done too and both he and Mitch walk to the door, open it up, and leave us.
But it’s what happens next that starts to unravel the mystery of this ritual.
For the first time I notice a chair in front of the glass room. But it’s not any kind of chair I’ve ever seen before. And when Donal sits in it, Matrons appear with a crown of some sort with all kinds of metal wires attached. They place the crown on his head and plug the wires into the glass wall. On this side there is a metal panel and more wires, each leading to one of the circles.
This is how they will drain us.
Our power will be sucked out, sent through those wires, and delivered to the crown on his head.
When all but Matron Lightly back away from Donal’s chair, I brace for it. They are going to… flip some switch, or something, and that will be it. We will be ended.
But that’s not what happens.
There is no way to hear what’s being said on the other side of the glass—even if Gemna wasn’t still screaming her fucking head off—because the glass is too thick.
But I can see just fine. And all the Little Sisters are starting to panic. This panic lasts for several minutes while Matrons, and that fucking degenerate Mitchell Davies, all try and calm them down.
Maybe the girls are OK with this, or maybe they are just being threatened. Regardless, they calm down. And then one approaches the center of the room. I don’t know this girl’s name, but she’s from up-city. She is directed to stand in a certain spot marked by a pattern inlaid into the stone floor and then Mitchell puts another crown on her head, just like the one Donal is wearing.
I don’t mean to scream when the process starts, but the cyan-blue lights that comes out of her in a long, pulsating line scares the hell out of me and it’s just an instinct. Her body goes rigid and for a moment, I think she will fall to the floor. I think she needs a chair.
