Again.
Again.
“It’s no use,” I mutter once he stops to gulp air, his head dappled with beads of sweat. “Nobody can hear you.”
“W-who are you?” he croaks. “What do you want from me?”
Snapping the shaving blade back into place, I roll the jar of thorns across the filthy cobbled floor. It comes to a halt by his feet, and though he pales, a glimmer of hope ignites his eyes.
“You w-want candy?” he rasps. “I-I can get you some! My cousin organized a meeting for me and Madame Strings. Tomorrow. I’m to be her new runner for the city’s west.”
“So I’ve heard,” I mutter, sweeping my hair off my face and pushing to my feet. Wobbling toward the wall, my boots scuff against the chalky sheen that coats the ground. Powdered remnants of the burrow’s ancient inhabitants.
I drag my finger down a groove etched into the stone, one for each person who was carried out dead. “And how did you prove yourselfworthyof this meeting?”
“Th-there are many young children about the city in need of direction and stability. In need ofhopethat the world will not end in shadows. I-I purchased a jar of Candescence I used to bring overtwentychildren to the temple doors—each with minds opened by their first taste.”
My gut knots, and I swallow the bitter spill of disgust rising in my throat.
“And what happens to these children?” I ask, running my finger through another jagged groove.
Another.
“They’re brought into the open arms of the Shulák, of course. Some are taken to the land without shadow. To the great Glass Temple,” he proclaims, and I whip my head around, eyes narrowed. His are glazed, expression wistful. “A place many of us onlydreamof seeing.”
Glass …
Without shadow …
This place—it must be inArrin.
I clear my throat, casting my gaze through the bars to the beams of light piercing down from above. Even now, they look so beautiful—sotranscendent—that the backs of my eyes sting.
There was once a time when those beams of light were so, so far away. When a dimness seeped through me, little by little, day by day.
When those shadows drew closer.
Closer.
“It’s bright here in the middle of the day. But at night … the shadowsdance.” I spin, flipping the blade open, then shut again, making him jump. “They creep and crawl and slither along. Theysing—a rattling tune that makes you quiver.”
I pocket my blade and approach, stopping close enough that his rancid breath stains the back of my throat. Lips pulled into a feral sneer, I squeeze my hand into a ball, force myself to release it, heart racing as I grip my ring and nudge it past my knuckle.
Let it clatter to the ground.
A heaviness settles upon my shoulders, like my feet are suddenly nailed to the stone. My spine wants to curl, my limbs want to fold. It’s an effort not to tuck into a ball and shuffle to the brightest part of the room as my fake skin loosens its barbed-wire grip on my true self.
His mouth drops open, eyes widen with unbridled fear. The hair hanging before my eyes goes from auburn to iridescent, and the air ripens with the reek of his piss.
This place seems to do that to people.
“You …You’re—”
“Unfortunate, I know. We both are, I guess, given your current predicament.”
He pales.
I pinch one of the thorns lining my right ear, drawing a tight breath before I rip it free. The side of my face ignites in a deep, tear-inducing pain that seeps into my jaw, making even my teeth ache with the relentless blaze. A warm wetness slips down the side of my neck, and I blink, freeing the tears that had gathered in my eyes.
