Page 238 of Carousel

It’s animated. Full of people. Lartosi lights blink in every direction.

The room is similar to some of the rooms here on The Emperor. I see copper pipes, levers on platforms, wheels and vents in the windowless walls. At least two tanks humming, and machines that look like they could be used for anything from exercise to torture. All along the corridor are what I can only describe as cells. They’re like large rectangular tin boxes with glass doors. The more I look at the scene, the more I’m confident this is a prison.

Because each small cell keeps a prisoner locked inside. They all look Rhavnan, and though their overalls are clean and they look generally well-fed and healthy, there’s misery in their eyes, and in the way they sit hunched on their tiny beds or pace their boxes like caged animals.

Several men and women who are clearly Lartosi with their fair hair and grey-hued skin dash along the corridor. They’re carrying equipment or taking notes. They remind me of the doctor in the Palace, who could be their twin.

“Drake?” I ask, my voice shaking.

The scene freezes.

One at a time, the doctors and inmates disappear like they’re being plucked out from the image. The cells themselves are warping, spiralling, like a wheel is turning and the world has been caught in its prongs.

“Drake,” I say again. “It’s okay⁠—”

I’m interrupted by the sound of clinking against metal – tapping – and a girl crying. She sounds so young. Drake, she says. Is that you? Are you still there?

And I’m being pushed back.

I’ve seen something he didn’t want me to see.

The compound.

He wasn’t the only captive, because these people – other Rhavnans – were being bled, too.

I shout out to him, wherever he is.

“Drake, I don’t have time for this. I’m not prying in your head. I don’t care what’s in your head. Well, I do, but you know what I mean. I just need you to help me with Cosmer. I can’t move him, and I’m breathing in a lot of the gas myself⁠—”

He appears directly in front of me. Shadows leak out from under his boots.

“No,” he says, simply.

I try to shove him – but go right through him.

“But this is your fault! You knew he was down there. You could have woken me, or helped him, or stopped him from going down there at all! Or…”

I let the sentence hang. Because his face is as dark as the shadows surrounding him. His eyes are cast down but look red and raw, like he’s been scrubbing at them.

How strange.

His voice is more dangerous than I’ve ever known it as he rasps, “I will never help him – or help you help him – again, in this lifetime, or in any other.”

“Why?” I yell. “Why won’t you help? Why are you being like this?”

I’m being pushed out again, and the shadows descend on me like a cloud of bats.

“You know why,” I hear, in my head.

The shadows dissipate and I stumble, landing awkwardly on my thighs back in the Chamber.

I don’t know why. And I want to sit here and seethe, but I know I have more important things to do. I glance over at Cosmer – and see he’s moving.

He’s rolled himself over, onto his side, and now his chest is rising and falling. A faint sound is leaving his lips.

He’s chuckling to himself.

But as I crawl over to him, I feel more dread than I do hope.