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Though, actually, last night was actually pretty toasty, with those huge wings of his surrounding us. I shake my head and decide not to think about it. I’ll ask about closing the window tonight, though.
I’m about to turn away so I don’t turn into a popsicle, clutching the towel around myself, when a glint on the very tip of the horizon catches my eye.
I pause where I stand and squint.
Is that just more ice and snow?
I squint harder, grip the window frame more tightly, and lean a little further out.
I catch the glint again. And blink. Then squint even more, wishing I had a telescope.
Wait, is that a—
I slip, and my top-heavy momentum wrenches me forward. I screech and manage to just barely scrabble for a better hold on the frame before tumbling out.
But the towel that was on my head flutters out into the wind. Caught and whipped around violently, the wind tears at it as it falls toward the dark lake below.
“Shit!” I breathe out, my heart rate all but doubling.
But then I scramble back from the window and, instead of staying far, far away, like a sane girl would, I run back for the bathroom.
I grab the thick-bottomed glass cup that the monster let me bring up from our meal so I can drink water.
I want to rush back to the window because the light is slipping. Here in winter, the days are frustratingly short. I walk carefully on the blown in snow and feathers back to the window and hold the glass up. Tilting it this way and that until it provides the slightest bit of magnification I’m looking for.
And holy shit!
My eyes aren’t tricking me.
There, in the furthest distance, maybe even on the opposite shore of the lake… is a manmade light.
My heart leaps with excitement.
We aren’t the only ones alone out here, after all.
What if it is possible to escape back to civilization?
Chapter Thirteen
MONSTER
I slam the dungeon door shut to the screams and animal grunts behind me, my large bullwhip bloody at my side.
With a growl of my own, I hang it on the hook beside the dungeon door and start up the stairs toward the human side of the castle.
“What is done in darkness will come to light,” Creator-Father used to always quote. But then he would curse. “Except in this instance. Pray with me, Beast, that none of this ever sees the light of mankind. Or it will be the End of Days.”
Creator-Father liked to talk like that.
Talk-talk-talk, that’s all he could do when he wasn’t putting on his inventor’s cap and pretending he was a god himself. He did so like to pretend.
And now it is left to me to pick up his pieces.
A particularly piercing howl comes from down in the hole, and I bang my knuckles against the iron door to silence them.
They know better than to get rowdy after a visit.
Yes, they met the lash of my whip today. So they ought to know better. I could go right back in there, and I rattle the heavy door on its hinges to let them know it.
The screaming settles down some.
Good.
I’m heading back up the steps when I hear a noise up above. This castle should be full of only the howling wind and the occasional cry from the dungeon. But that is all.
I know its sounds intimately.
So that patter-patter-patter-patter that I suddenly hear from up above is distinctive.
It’s a mortal sound.
It is the sound of her tiny feet on the stairs. She is running down them.
Of course the reason why is obvious.
She’s making another attempt to flee.
Anger rises in my chest, making it glow slightly in the dark of the underground stairwell. I disappear in the dungeon for a few turns of the clock hour and she suddenly thinks in the quiet she can steal away?
I shake my head in disappointment, though not surprise.
If anything, I am angry only at my inability to make her obey.
You have been going too easy on her. Too delighted at your cock’s gush to do the work you know must be done.
I want to growl at the thought, but unlike my foolish consort, I know how to be quiet.
Onward her steps come toward me.
That’s right. Come to me, little consort. Find out what happens when you disobey.
I draw my wings close to me. Even so, the confines of this stairwell are tight, built for mortals. My wings drag against the walls, tearing feathers loose. Still, I make no noise.
Patter-patter-patter-patter.
Still she comes, heedless of the danger lurking below.
I allow my fury to feed me. I breathe it in, along with her scent.
She is near now.
Almost to me.
I crouch low, ready to spring at her once she reaches the ground floor.
But— She doesn’t.
Wait, what?
Instead of reaching the ground floor and sprinting for freedom, instead, she turns around and heads right back up the stairs.
