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She became that person again as Rigelus laid a hand on the door. The lead glowed, and then the door swung open.
The oppressive heat and humidity of this place hadn’t changed since that first visit. As Lidia stepped inside after Rigelus, it once again pushed with damp fingers on her face, her neck.
The hall stretched ahead, the one thousand sunken tubs in the stone floor shining with pale light that illuminated the bodies floating within. Masks and tubes and machines hummed and hissed; salt crusted the stones between the tanks, some sections piled thick with it. And before the machines, already bowing at the waist to Rigelus …
A withered humanoid form, veiled and dressed in gray robes, the material gauzy enough to reveal the bony body beneath, stood at the massive desk at the entrance of the room. The Mistress of the Mystics. If she had a name, Lidia had never heard it uttered.
Above her veiled head, a hologram of images spun, stars and planets whizzing by. Every constellation and galaxy the mystics now searched for Bryce Quinlan. How many corners of the universe remained?
That wasn’t Lidia’s concern—not today. Not as Rigelus said, “I have need of Irithys.”
The mistress lifted her head, but her body remained stooped with age, so thin the knobs of her spine jutted from beneath her gauzy robe. “The queen has been sullen, Your Brilliance. I fear she will not be amenable to your requests.”
Rigelus only gestured to the hall, bored. “We shall try, nonetheless.”
The mistress bowed again and hobbled past the sunken tubs and machinery, the trail of her robes white with salt.
Rigelus strode past the mystics without so much as a downward glance. They were mere cogs in a machine to help facilitate his needs. But Lidia couldn’t help assessing the watery faces as she passed. All slumbering, whether they wanted to or not.
Where had they come from, the dreamers locked down here? What Hel had they or their families endured to make it worth it? And what skills did they possess to warrant this alleged honor of honors, to serve the Asteri themselves?
Rigelus neared the dimly glowing center of the hall. There, in a crystal bubble the size of a cantaloupe, a female made of pure flame slumbered.
Her long hair lay draped around her in golden waves and curls of fire, her lean, graceful limbs nude. The Sprite Queen was perhaps no bigger than Lidia’s hand, yet even in repose, she had a presence. Like she was the small sun around which this place orbited.
It was close to the truth, Lidia supposed.
The mistress hobbled to the warded and bespelled orb and rapped on it with her knobbly knuckles. “Get up. Your master’s here to see you.”
Irithys opened eyes like glowing coals. Even crafted of flame, she seemed to simmer with hate. Especially as her gaze landed on Rigelus.
The Bright Hand inclined his head mockingly. “Your Majesty.”
Slowly, with dancer-like grace, Irithys sat up. Her eyes slid from Rigelus to her mistress to Lidia. Nothing but calculation and resentment shone on her face—an uncommonly plain face, considering the usual beauty of her kind.
Rigelus gestured to Lidia, the golden rings on his long fingers sparkling in Irithys’s light. “My Hind has a request of you.”
My Hind. Lidia ignored the possession in the words. The way they raked down her very soul.
She stepped closer to the bubble, hands once again clasped behind her back. “I have three prisoners in the dungeon who will find your sort of fire particularly motivating. I require you to come to the dungeons, to help me convince them to talk.”
The Mistress of the Mystics whipped her head to Lidia. “You can’t mean for her to leave here—”
Not sparing the crone a look, Lidia said, “Surely, as mistress of this place, you can find it in yourself to protect your wards for a few hours.”
Beneath the thin veil, she could have sworn the mistress’s eyes sparked with hostility. “Irithys is here because of the need for her specific kind of protection. Because of her light, a beacon against the darkness of Hel—”
Lidia only leveled a bored look at Rigelus.
He smirked, always amused by the cruelty of others, and said to the mistress, “Should Hel come knocking, send word and I will assist you personally.” A huge honor—and an indication of how badly he needed Athalar broken. Ruhn and Baxian, she wasn’t entirely sure about, but Athalar …
The mistress bowed her head. Leaving Irithys now staring at Lidia.
Lidia lifted her chin. “Will you be amenable to assisting me?”
Irithys glanced down at herself, as if she could see the small band of tattoos around her throat. A halo of sorts—inked on the Sprite Queen by an imperial hag to keep her power in check.
The queen’s gesture was a silent question.
