AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Where did they take you?”
He opened his mouth, barely any sound coming out. “I-I don’t… The Otherworld? I was trying to escape through the balcony.”
“Grey, that was a wall,” Noel said, his tone firm. “I think they wanted to confuse you so you’d hurt yourself enough that you’d be stranded here, or” —he bit his lip— “maybe drain me.”
Blood drained from his face, his arms trembling as Noel finally let go. “Noel, I didn’t mean to?—”
Noel shook his head, a small spark of concern still prominent in his features that Grey couldn’t help but write off as worry that Grey was becoming more of a problem than he was worth. He swiped the blood away from his lip. “It’s okay. Just stick close to me from now on, okay?”
Dread pooled in his core as Noel peeked into the room again, quickly rifling through desk drawers before ripping a basket from the shelves and dumping it out in the hall.
Look at you.
Yeah, look at me, Grey thought bitterly, his hands curling into fists with pressure building at the backs of his eyes. A nuisance and a monster.
16
NOEL
Noel picked through the baubles piled on the floor while he fought back a wave of nausea. The longer Grey hovered there, standing over his hunched form, the worse Noel felt about it all. He shouldn’t have let him wander off by himself in the first place—what a stupid idea to take his eyes off of him when some crazed fair folk was enjoying themself.
Grey dropped down to his knees in front of him and began sorting through the pieces Noel hadn’t gotten a chance to touch yet. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, barely audible over the scraping and rolling of trinkets against stone.
“It wasn’t your fault, so stop apologizing.” The words sounded harsher than he intended, immediately wincing as Grey crumpled in on himself. Noel pushed away several pieces of junk and was rewarded with a hexagonal tile. “Found one.” He shot up and jogged over to the door, slotting it to finish off the missing portions while Grey quietly rose to his feet behind him.
He pushed down on the handle, and the door creaked open to the darkened room beyond. All of Noel’s hope faded away in an instant, his heart dropping at the sight of an emptied pedestal that only bore a single, inky-black feather. “All that for… this?” He started inside, staring down at their reward.
“We shouldn’t touch it,” Grey said, his voice wavering as he rubbed his arms. “I have a really bad feeling about messing with something like that.”
Noel sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Fine, I guess. Let’s try elsewhere.” Grey backed up, his head on a swivel as Noel dragged himself into the corridor again. “This is so fucked.” He kicked a couple of loose trinkets against the wall, and Grey grabbed his arm.
“You shouldn’t do that either,” he hissed.
“It’s faerie shit, Grey. Relax.”
Grey’s hand fell away, taking Noel’s heart with it as he hunched back in on himself and rubbed his arms. “Maybe we should just go? I feel like we’re being watched,” he whispered.
Noel stepped over one of the baubles, starting into the dark corridor up ahead. “Come on. I know you’re creeped out, but we can’t leave empty-handed. Just… stick close.”
Quick, quiet shuffling sounded behind him, and Noel glanced over his shoulder to find Grey on his heels. He swept the flashlight over the stone and creeping plants prying through doorways. It finally opened to another domed room, flourishing with flora beneath the shattered greenhouse windows. Dim rays of sun cutting through the clouds made Noel flick off his flashlight and stare up at the arched stone beams, gawking at the craftsmanship of this nature shrine.
Grey stopped next to him, pushing his mess of hair back from his good eye and tracing the tall windows towering around them. The illuminated shards of stained glass that remained left pulses of reds, pinks, blues, purples, greens, and yellows floating around the conservatory like butterflies. “It’s beautiful,” he breathed, squeezing Noel’s heart with the sheer whimsy escaping him.
Noel cleared his throat and motioned for him to follow in his skirt along the edge of the foliage. “Let’s try a little further in. I don’t think they’ll want anything in here.”
The scrape and crunch of glass underfoot made his hairs stand on end as Grey caught up. Noel’s urge to reach back and grab his wrist pressed in with every creep of darkness closing back in on them. There was a wrongness to this place among the stillness and oppressive reminders of their absent rulers. Two playthings to gods wandering through sacred halls, left disturbed by greed, rather than cries of desperation.
He trained the beam on toppled chairs and upended, emptied chests lining their pathway with a disturbing sense of dread. But he kept going anyway, reminding himself that fear was the least of his problems. Chills pulsed through his veins as they reached an intersection, and he panned his light over the blackened recesses of the infinite labyrinth they’d walked into.
Noel side-stepped the corner and peered inside one of the doorways with its cover torn off the hinges. Claw marks left trails carved into the stonework of the frame, but he crept closer as light shone over the corner of a trunk mostly covered with a ratty cloth, shredded to bits along the edges.
“Noel…” Grey whispered, his voice quivering as Noel gently took him by the arm and led him in after him.
“It’s okay,” he said with more bravery than he felt. He pressed the flashlight into his hand. “Hold this for me.”
The beam bounced around the room until Grey stopped violently trembling. It pointed down to the box, and Noel knelt down in front of it. He tugged the cloth free, and beetles scattered all over the walls and floor.
Grey gasped, scampering back, but Noel bit down on the inside of his cheek and flipped the trunk lid open. Rows of teeth poked out of gray, goopy flesh, and a large tongue—as wide as both his arms together—shot out. Noel fell backward, kicking away from it.
