As they descended and Rhyden grew quiet with foreboding, the rest of them filling with fear and trepidation of what they’d find below, she remembered that time, so long ago, on the rooftop, when she’d cried and prayed for someone, not knowing she had Soulbonds out there—waiting on her, just as she’d been waiting on them. It had taken everything for their paths to align so they’d meet, but looking back, she wouldn’t change it, even for all the heartache, even though a piece, small and fragile and timeless, still felt amiss. As if her selfish, greedy Soul strained for somethingother.
Lucien used the light on his phone to illuminate the way, and dust floated in the thin beam. The air felt untouched, and she wondered when the last time this supposed maintenance stairwell had been used. Her ankles ached in her heels.
Rin thought she heard footsteps trailing them, but as she stilled and cocked her head, listening, she heard nothing.
Auren’s hand settled on the side of her neck, fingers enclosing her shoulder. "Hunter?" he questioned.
"Ah—it’s nothing. Never mind." Rin pressed a hand to her heart, feeling the beats beneath her palm. She swore she heard it echo in her ears—maybe that had been it. She hummed and resumed her pace, venturing down, down.
Lucien steppedoff the last stair at the abrupt end, feeling Vesperin sticking close to him, Auren with her.
Through the thin light of his phone, he saw shapes and a faint, distant glow. The air was cold, untouched, slightly medicinal.
He felt, at this moment, that they’d perhaps gotten in over their heads.
He swung the light to the others, and the glow flickered over Vesperin’s face, making her lashes sweep down in spider-like shadows on her cheeks.
"There’s something down here—I feel it," said Lucien.
Auren shivered. "Whatever it is, it is highly unnatural."
Vesperin stepped away from them both, and Lucien turned to her, always watching her, ensuring she was alright. Her hands were by her side, clutch dangling from her wrist and hitting the side of her gown, displacing the stitched butterfly wings as she walked further away, to the distant glow.
"Vesperin," Lucien hissed, then cursed as his phone light flickered and went out.
She neither stopped nor turned back to him at his warning.
Auren met Lucien’s eyes, then together they caught up to her quickly.
Auren grabbed her shoulder gently. "It is wise not to run, Hunter. You are capable but—" Whatever the Soul Searcher had been going to say died, as the three all but fell into a room, with an open archway that acted as a large door. The area they’d just been in, at the bottom of the steps, had been merely a foyer of sorts—this? This was the real underground of the Academy.
Here, they saw the source of that glow:
Large tubes of liquid lined the room, in perfect order. One after the next, in neat little rows. The liquid within the glass was so bright it made Lucien’s eyes water; he turned his head away, only to find Vesperin walking closer to one, as if entranced. A moth to a flame. She was silent, her glassy eyes filled with awe—and reverent fear. She was scared.
As if in stop motion, Lucien could do nothing but watch with growing horror as her hand raised—she was too far for him or Auren to reach in time—and she placed her palm on the tube. Electricity zinged at the mere touch, sparking in the air like live wires. The glass rattled, the blue liquid within sloshing, but not overflowing—the top was sealed, a thinner tube running from it, snaking down the floor and somewhere further out of sight. All the tubes led to the same place.
Vesperin jerked her hand away with a gasp. The sound was far too loud in the quiet of the room, echoing. Lucien winced, surging forward to grab her as she stumbled back, away from the tube. Only?—
He hissed as his bare palms made contact with her shoulder. Static traveled from her flesh to his, shocking him.
Vesperin made a surprised sound, too; though, not of pain. As strange white glimmers receded, sinking back into her flesh as if they’d never been there, never shocked him, she looked up from her raised hand, where she studied her skin as if it held the secrets of the universe. "Lucien, what was that?"
Lucien’s hand hovered over her arm. The small, pale hairs stood on end. "I don’t know, sweet girl. You—shocked me."
She looked from him to Auren, her pupils so blown they appeared nearly black. "Do you feel it, too? Do you hear it? That hum—it’s like—" She shook her head, chin lifting as her gaze tracked over the countless blue tubes. "It’s like it’s calling me. Whatever it is." Her voice was soft and airy, dazed.
Vesperin began to press her face closer to the same tube she’d touched. They towered above them all. Lucien saw his and her reflection in the shine of the glass, distorted by the curved shape.
"It feels like me. Like whatever’s inside me is in here, too." Vesperin reached for the glass again.
"No!" Lucien and Auren said at once.
"I won’t touch it," she breathed, and as her palm hovered over the glass, not touching as she kept true to her word, Lucien saw white tendrils of electricity spark on the surface of the glass, as if reaching for her. The liquid rippled and shimmered like turbulent ocean waves.
It was Auren who finally broke, taking her wrist and tugging her back, where she fell into his chest. She blinked multiple times, as if slowly awakening, then looked around the room, at the tubes, as if seeing them for the first time.
"What is this place?" Vesperin asked them.
