“Yes, my dear?”
“Please don't tell anyone.”
“Tell anyone what?”
“That I dreamed of him—that…that I cared for him.”
“I wouldn't even consider it, Princess. Our conversations—all our conversations—remain private.”
“Thank you,” I said in a quiet whisper against his shoulder.
When the tears finally settled, exhausted from all the things in my head, I laid back on the grass, with Arthur beside me, and we watched the clouds move slowly across the blue sky. The simplicity of the moment brought a kind of ease to my soul I’d not felt since I was human.
Petey eventually came back from his all-important crow-chasing activities and laid beside me—my last connection to a man I wished I’d admitted I cared for when he could have heard me say it.
Yesterday afternoon’s training left me exhausted. By the time I finally fell into bed, after a long dinner—entertainment being the heated political debate between Arthur and the Lilithians—I pretty much passed out. Didn't even have any dreams; no scary ghost version of me and, to my disappointment, no memories of Jason. I wondered if I’d seen them all now—if I’d removed all the mind blocks he left in place. And that idea made my soul feel empty, disconnected.
I ran the brush through the lengths of my hair, watching each movement through the mirror of Arietta’s dresser, then picked up the perfume bottle by my hand and sniffed it. Nope, no garlic. I had cornflakes for breakfast, and I was pretty sure they didn't contain any garlic, so it seemed odd to be able to smell it. Perhaps it was some potion Arthur was cooking up. I did see a few cloves of garlic on his windowsill the other day.
I sprayed a little perfume on my wrist, just to make sure the garlic smell wasn’t me, then walked out of my room, closing my door behind me.
“Ara.” Mike came charging down the corridor at a half run. “There you are.”
“Been here the whole time. What’s up?”
“I'm coming with you this morning.”
“With me?” I shrugged, simultaneously shaking my head and frowning.
“Don't play dumb. I know you're going down to the cellblock.”
“Who told you?”
He grinned. “I have eyes and ears everywhere.”
I looked at the wall beside me, to the focused gaze of the woman in the painting there. “When I get back, I'm hanging you upside down.”
Mike laughed. “Don't take it out on her. Blame yourself for being foolish enough to think you’d get away with it.”
I dropped my arms to my sides. “I just want to see them.”
“That’s fine, baby, but you shouldn't have planned to go alone. You don't know what’s down there.”
“I have a map.” I pulled a small, repeatedly folded piece of paper from my pocket and held it up to Mike, who took it, opened it out, then laughed.
“Baby, this is a map of de la Mort’s cell block. Not Loslilian.”
“Oh.”
“Where did you get this, anyway?” He tucked it away in his own back pocket.
“I took it from Arthur’s ro—” Oops.
“What were you doing in there?”
“Relax.” I started walking. “I was just watering his plants. He asked me to do it while he was away on Saturday.”
“Fine. But, does he know you have his map?”
I shook my head. “I was gonna put it back.”
“Not anymore. I'm keeping it.”
“Why?” I said as we reached the base of the stairwell.
“Because it’s exactly what we need.”
“Why?”
He turned his head, his narrowed eyes searching my face, while sunlight shone through the doors of the Great Hall, making his hair gold. “What’s with the hundred questions today?”
I shrugged. “You took something that's mine. I want to know why.”
“Well, it’s not yours, so it doesn’t matter. It’s Core talk.”
“And what, I can't know what my army is up to?”
“It’s not relevant to you.”
Hmpf! I bit my teeth together. We wandered through the pale-coloured rooms along the first floor of the east wing, stopping by a large door at the very end.
“Throne room slash Court,” Mike said, pushing the door open. “The only people allowed to access it this way are your council, the House and you.”
“How does everyone else get in?”
“The front doors—on the outside of the manor.”
“Okay.”
We walked in and I expected to see a grand room with high ceilings, but I met the blue back of a curtain, closing us off in a small space. Mike shut the door behind us and kicked a rug out of the way, revealing a hatch.
“A secret door?” I smirked.
“Nope.” He opened the hatch and pulled something out. “Secret key.”
“Oh. Cool.”
In the wall panel behind him, hidden to the right of the door, was a small hole. He pressed the key in, turned it, and the panel came forward just enough for him to slip his fingers between it and the wall.
“This isn't the way I was told to come,” I said.
“This is the fastest way to the section you’re going. Usually you’d take the stairs through the Round room and follow a passage.”
“But, one of the maids said the door to the underground was in the Council Chamber.”
“Right. The Round Room.”
I frowned. “I thought the Council Chamber was that room we all sat in last night with the House.”
Mike groaned. “Ara—are you serious?”
I moved my shoulders up to my ears in a really slow shrug.
“Baby, the Round Room is important—it has, not only great historical significance, but is the place you’ll hold all your Private Council meetings—for the rest of forever. That room we were in last night was the board room.”
“Oh. I wondered why it wasn't round.”
Mike laughed. “Oh, baby, sometimes your lack of focus can be very endearing.”
I looked at the slightly open secret door. “So, where is the Round Room?”
“Through there.” He pointed to the curtain. “It’s underground, dark, secret, all that stuff.”
“And round?”
“Yes. But it’s not called the Round Room just because it’s round. There’s an old stone tablet in there—which is round—and is said to have been the meeting circle of the first knights.”
“Meeting circle? What, like, a table or something?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. Well, thanks for clearing that up.”
“Anytime. Now, come on.” He took my hand and the underground chill rose up from the depth of the dark beyond, creeping around everything that contained life out here and sucking it away.
I pulled back a little. “Are there stairs there?”
“Come on. You’ll see.” Mike drew his phone from his pocket and opened iTorch, shining the white light down the barrel of a cavernous hole; stone steps led away in a curve around a cylindrical column hiding who knew what.
“Mike?” I laid a shaky hand to the air before me. “I don't like it down here.”
“You’ll be fine, baby,” he said, placing my hand onto the wall. “Just follow the curves and you won't fall.”
“Why is it so steep?” I couldn't see how far down this stairwell went, but it had a feel to it—a tilt, like walking down a really big hill.
“It goes pretty deep under the manor, Ara. What did you expect?”
I tried to shrug, but my shoulders were too stiff.
When the door closed behind us with a thud, sending an echo into the pits below, I squealed, hearing my own voice hit every step in this tunnel before bouncing back to embarrass me repeatedly.
“Ha! And you wanted to come down here alone.”
“I didn't know it would be this scary.” I moved closer to Mike and took his hand. “Is the other tunnel like this one?”
“Worse,” he scoffed, angling his torch to show the steps directly below our feet; they were all I could see—all I would focus on. The walls rose up around us, becoming higher and higher as we descended beneath the manor, and when we finally came to the base of the stairs, the slimy brown stones spread out to a corridor—longer than my eyes could make out, with a roof low enough that Mike had to hunch a little.
“Can’t you make that torch any brighter?” I nodded at the phone.
“This is as bright as it gets. You wanna hope I don't run out of battery.” He laughed. I did not find that funny at all. “You could use your electric light thing—in your hands.”
I looked at my fingertips for a second. “I don't think it works that way, Mike.”
“Try it.”
Among the eerie weight of fear this darkness pressed on me, I found a solid little thought—a happy one, and focused on it; David—his smile, his arms, his love. But despite the static charge in my skin, the light stayed dormant. I stretched my fingers, making them stiff, as if that would help, but it didn't. “I can't, Mike. It won't work when I'm scared.”
“It works if you’re gonna lose a fight.”
“Yeah, but that’s because I hate losing.”
“Well,” he said, and I noticed there was no echo to his voice, despite the empty, cavernous tunnel, “maybe you should imagine you’ll lose a bet. Maybe I’ll bet you can't make your light work down here.”
I smiled. “Nah. I don't really feel like having a headache today, anyway.”
“You still getting those?”
I nodded, but he probably didn't see it through the darkness. “If I'm on my own, just shooting stuff, I don't always get it.”
“Right. Well, we just need to exercise it. It’s like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it’ll get.”
“Hm. Well, I’ll just have to take your word for it,” I said.
“That’d be a first.”
“Shut up.” I aimed a soft punch at his arm, but missed, feeling his shoulder blade under my knuckles instead. He laughed, and we walked along for a while in silence then, our footsteps and my laboured breathing the only other sounds. I’d expected to hear screams of terror or moaning and groaning from our tortured prisoners, even expected to be grabbed at by reaching hands of despair, but as I ran my guiding touch along the wall, I noticed that, not only were there no horrible sounds, but no cell doors, either. It was just one long blank wall, leading to a black vortex a few meters in front where the light was too weak to reach.
I looked across at Mike; I could just see his jaw, his elbow and his wrist where he held the light, and I knew I was safe with him. Was also really glad he came with me.
“Glad I came with you now?” he asked, grinning.
“No. I could handle this on my own.” I stepped away from him, out of the safe glow of the light. “I wasn't planning to set them free or anything.”
“I wouldn’t put it past you, my sweet friend.”
“Even if I did, they’re children, Mike.” I looked up at him. “Do you get that? Children.”
“And that is exactly why I'm coming.” He pointed at me. “The Lilithians don't trust them, Ara. There has to be a reason for that.”
“Have you been down to see them yet?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I dunno, Ar. ‘Cause I haven't.” He rubbed his neck, rolling it a little.
As we walked, a rancid smell of decay seeped in and swathed us like humid raw meat. And the worst part was, I actually knew that smell only too well. I covered my nose. “David told me once that the Immortal Damned are fed live humans. That’s true, isn't it?”
“Far as I know.”
“And that’s what I can smell—the decomposed bodies?”
“What’s left of them, yeah.”
It made me tense then, knowing I was breathing the scent of death—of life stolen under panic and fear. “That’s horrible.”
“Yep. But the Damned won't eat them if they’re already dead. It’s the kill, the stalk, the terror they thrive on. Not just blood.”
I swallowed. “Those cages are secure, right?”
Mike laughed. “Yes. We’ve only ever had one escape.”
“Really? Did it kill anyone?”
“It ripped the flesh off a maid’s torso, but she was immortal, so she actually recovered.”
“Guess it’s a good thing we’re immortal, then.”
He scoffed. “Immortal. Not undying. You know that. If it’d taken her head off, she’d have been dead.”
“Or the heart, right?”
“What’d you mean?”
“Jason took my heart out, and I stayed dead until he put it back.” I rubbed my chest, dropping my hand as soon as I realised I was doing it. “If they ripped the heart out, would a Created Lilithian stay dead?”
“I think so.”
“What if we put it back?”
“Providing the Damned didn't actually eat the heart, they may regenerate.”
“Ew. So, you wanna hope you never lose a body part, then?”
“Yeah, well, not a vital one.”
“Is it the same for you?”
“What?”
“Death. Can you die, like I can?”