Page 159 of The Amber Sunburst

OPHELIA

The Educator waits expectantly with the key dangling out of reach.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

He smiles, saccharine. “You don’t?”

The ‘play dumb’ plan is not going to work, but what else is she meant to do?

“Not at all. I didn’t think I’d have the pleasure of seeing you until tonight. But I do think I’ve changed my mind about a tumble now. What the Mothers don’t know can’t hurt them.”

Whoring herself out is definitely a last resort, but if she can get him alone in a room again, maybe she can hit him over the head or something.

“Ophelia, dear, I do think I’ve had enough with the games.”

“What did you call me?” she asks. She never gave him her name.

He steps past her and to the door. “Let’s go in here, since you’re so determined to, and I’ll explain.”

Danger! she hears in her head.

She walks in anyways. The room is full of buttons and switches controlling aspects of the labyrinth as well as a screen on the wall to see everything play out. A red button in the center of the control board is marked with an emergency symbol. All she needs to do is wait for the button to glow and press it. She subtly shifts to remain within reaching distance of it.

“Do you feel that you belong amongst the Priestesses, Ophelia?”

He asks like he knows what her answer is going to be.

“I thought you were going to explain, not me.”

“Humor me,” the Educator says, his expression annoyingly amused.

“I feel that I am a Priestess. And there is no choice for me not to be.”

“Yes, but do you belong there?”

Ophelia glares at him, but answers honestly. “No.”

“I know.” He takes a step closer, and Ophelia doesn’t back up. She can’t lose reach of the button. “You’re too smart for them. Too beautiful, too ambitious, too blessed. You have so many brilliant qualities, don’t you? One could say, too many.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know, when I saw you in the tower a month ago I thought: it couldn’t possibly be. You’ve been right under my nose the entire time, hidden in your Temple.”

“I’ve been a Priestess since I was three months old,” she says.

“And where do you think you were before that?” the Educator prompts.

“The Academy.”

“True, mostly. But you were born to no Guardian, Ophelia.”

“What?”

“Your brother, he didn’t have it quite so easy⁠—”

Her what?

“—She had nowhere to put him, you see. Thought she could hide him in the city like all the other boys that are relegated out of the Academy, but we found him eventually. You, though? We couldn’t have breached the Temple even if we had known you were there. The Mothers would never allow it.”