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I woke up in a cage. A cage, like the one you lock your dog in when you’re away. It’s big enough for me to sit up, but not enough to stretch my legs out. The room has a ceiling with arches so high it could make a second room. The chandeliers are as dim as candles, providing very little light to the cherrywood walls and matching hardwood floors. I thought I’d be brought to a dungeon, a torture chamber. But this resembles a grand study, a gentlemen’s seating area.
There’s a metal table in the center of the room holding tools like scalpels and needles and gauze. My pulse does an uncertain dance under my skin. What are they going to do to me?
I look down at my knees and see a white cotton gown. The kind like the one I wore in the asylum, but softer, finer quality.
I can’t believe I just got out of the asylum to be locked up again. And I don’t even know where I am. The room is silent. Still. Have my captors left me? Will they come back? The idea is too close to the basement. Cold, murky, lonely basement.
I wrap my arms over my chest and am jerked by a tug. There’s a skinny clear tube connected to the inside of my elbow, connected to a needle sticking inside my skin. I try to pull it out, but a shock shudders through me, up to my arm, my shoulder, spreading out like a spider web into my neck. It makes a popping sound, like a whip making contact with skin, and I scream, falling back onto the bars of the cage. I examine my surroundings, frantically this time, straining to see movement in the shadows. Am I alone? There’s a strong aroma of bergamot and amber with an underlining kick of cigarette smoke. The windows on either wall are frosted with bars. Thick sets of brown curtains are hung over each window. There are velvet tapestries, shelves of books, glass cabinets of glass bottles—perhaps for a chemist or a healer.
As I start to relax, but not quite, I catch a brief movement off to a dark corner of the room, a subtle shift, like the uncrossing of legs.
“How are you settling in so far?”
I jerk both backward and upward, hitting the top of my head on the cage. Was someone watching me the whole time? I grip the sides of the bars and gawk at the dark corner. It’s as if someone sits in a chair, out of the flickering glow of the sconces and chandelier, because all I can see are the caps of their knees.
“You have curvier birthing hips in person than I would have guessed.” His voice is slippery like a water moccasin with a slight lisp where his teeth touch his bottom lip. The personal remark leaves me stiff while the restraints of my cage mold into my back.
“I, myself, have always hated the starving look on our women. It’s just so peculiar how folks can think that attractiveness is based on how tightly a woman’s skin hugs her bones. Should we start digging up graves, plucking the dead from their tombs and showcasing them in the windows at boutiques? They’re all bone, right?” Did I say his voice was slippery? I meant slimy. He sighs. A thin cloud of smoke rolls into the atmosphere. “No, all of that…” A long, arthritic finger wafts around like a wand directed at me. “…Extra cushion around your bosom and rear is what should be admirable. The plump consistency is like biting into a juicy peach, don’t you think?”
From the pitch of his voice, I conclude that he is in his mid to late thirties. Maybe slightly younger. The knobby point to his knees and finger make me imagine a tall, scrawny man. With a pointed nose and bladed cheekbones. He still does not show his face.
“Are you in the habit of ignoring your superiors when asked a simple question? Or are you one of those deaf and dumb girls?” An edge to his tone. An irritable pinch.
“Deaf and dumb,” I answer. My impatience and sarcasm getting the best of me.
“I see.” A flippant smile paints his words. “At some point, you might find my conversation to be quite stimulating. It’ll certainly be a highlight of your day.”
The fear that springs to life inside me is almost visible when I look down at my sweaty palms. If his slimy voice is ever the high point of my day, I’m in for it. Sadly, I don’t sense even a syllable of dishonesty in the time since he first spoke.
“What’s your name?”
He crosses his legs again. Dark-scarlet-red pants and shiny black dress shoes. “Albatross Ivast. Demechnef royalty by day. Savant by night.” An awkward beat of silence, like he’s waiting for me to give him applause. “And you’re Skylenna Ambrose. Homeless. Conformist. Fugitive.”
I let my head rest against my new bed, letting my chin face upward. I’m done talking for now. I don’t know what any of this is. I’m scared to ask because he might tell me. Right now, I don’t want to know. I know I’ve been captured by Demechnef. I know wherever I am, it isn’t good. I’m locked in a freaking cage. There’s a tube that’s hooked into my arm that sends sparks of pain if I try and remove it. Right now, ignorance is bliss. Right now, I want to forget I’m sitting in a cage, talking to Alba Knobby Knees and close my eyes. I want to pretend, just for tonight, that my head is on Kane’s chest, with his arms and a big blanket around us, sleeping under the stars.
31. Faceless Demon
The smoke seeping off of this morning’s roast is making my stomach growl with each breath I suck in through my nose. This is sometimes how Kane chooses to wake me up. Hot, fresh food. Right out of the fire. The smell of roasted deer, rabbit, or boar triggers my empty stomach. The aroma coaxes it out of a deep sleep and it gently shakes me awake.
“Are you hungry?”
I groan. Not all of us can survive on four hours of sleep, Kane!
“It’s going to be fascinating seeing you get used to constant hunger. Most women in our society have to get used to it, but you clearly didn’t follow protocol. How’d you get away with that anyhow?” Before I open my eyes, the chilling voice throws the memories of last night back into my mind like grenades. The disparaging shock of not waking up to a campfire with Kane and DaiSzek is like eating expired food, fully expecting a delicious treat.
“Thought we discussed your poor response time, girl!” A touch of anger. Only brief.
I part my lips to reply, but there’s a snap, like stepping on a branch, and a blinding pain stabs along the left side of my body. I yelp and thrust my eyelids open to examine what force assaulted me. Nothing. Cage. Cabinets. Chandelier. It’s my collarbone, it feels broken, definitely broken, like it’s sticking out of my skin. I gulp down the nausea swelling up my throat, the taste of bile and dread coating my tongue. And I can’t move, can’t examine myself, can’t dull the searing agony blistering under my skin.
A whimper slips from my gaping mouth. Oh, god. Please help me, God.
“Well, aren’t you going to cry?” His input adds to my urge to vomit.
“Drop—dead,” I say between labored breaths.
Albatross spits in disgust. “Now listen here, girl, I make the rules. If I dropped dead, you’d drop dead. I demand appreciation for my company due to that fact, at least.”
I can’t answer. Sweat is forming a glossy shine on my skin, and the pain is debilitating, it’s as though someone stabbed me in the neck, and then broke the blade off inside me. It’s lodged, and with each movement I make, a new rumble of pain ignites.
