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Cari directed us to where she was, and once the stairs ended, we were faced with a stone wall.
“There,” she said, pointing at the wall.
I looked at it. It was odd for a wall to be the only thing you could reach by taking the stairs to the lowest level. The room we were in couldn’t even be called a room. It was a cramped space between a wall and the stairs.
“Did they build this wall for you?” I asked. “How do you get food and water?”
“Portals,” she replied.
“So,” Fiona took a step forward. “Dearen can conjure a door, and we can pass through the wall. But what is beyond the wall? Will there be any guards?”
“No,” Cari replied. “I’m all alone in there.”
The way she said it made my heart ache for her.
“We’ll get you out,” I said. I did not want to think about how many years she’d spent down there, all alone and desperate for contact.
Dearen took a step forward and raised his arms. A door appeared right before him without any resistance.
The room on the other side was surprising, to say the least.
We weren’t looking at some gloomy dungeon with cobwebs. The room on the other side was not dark nor dirty.
It was almost as though I was back in the Seelie Court.
As we all passed through the door and stood in a hallway, I couldn’t help but look around in amazement.
Dearen’s door disappeared behind us.
The shift from the rest of the castle to this nicely decorated living space that suited a high lord or lady was incredible. If it weren’t for the fact that the place did not have any exit, I might have thought the occupants were well off.
There were paintings in the hallway, a long dark purple carpet with golden lines on either side...
Chandeliers hung uselessly from the ceilings, and the ceilings had frescoes on them, ones that were pretty enough to have visitors seeking to witness their beauty.
But no one came to visit this gorgeous hallway.
It was just Cari, left in beauty.
Cari led us through the hallway, and we entered a living room. The hearth burned brightly. There were two chairs placed in front of it.
On the other side of the wall was a vast library filled with books of all kinds. It seemed like a rich collection and one that would cost a lot. There was a table filled with food; loaves of bread and all sorts of cheeses, jam, ham, and even honey cake. None of it looked dry or old, and it was all placed neatly on the table as though a servant had prepared it.
“You wait here,” Cari said. “I’ll be back.”
We were all amazed at how luxuriously this place was decorated. It was a spacious room that was too much for just one girl.
But the room had no windows. As far as I could see, there was no exit or any way to look outside into the real world.
Cari was a prisoner here, but it seemed the queen thought of her as an important asset.
Once again, I was amazed at how the queen thought about things. What difference would it make if Cari had golden-plated candlesticks on the colossal mahogany table when she was always forced to eat alone?
Who cared how luxuriously decorated a room was if they were not allowed to see the sun seeping through the windows?
Who would want to be wrapped up in beauty when the beauty acted like a prison guard, keeping her inside against her will?
“It’s sad,” Brigid said.
