“You didn’t have anything under control. Weston thinks you’re important, but nothing is more important to him than making sure that Miro doesn’t bond with anyone. Compared to that, you’re just a little girl, advertising the perfect face to catch a bullet.”
“Don’t mistake this for a tantrum,” I grumbled, pushing past him into the giant marbled walkway and heading in the direction of the ‘lived-in’ part of the multi-tiered mansion. “I get what you’re saying, I see the sense in it, but I had to get you away from Weston and I’m not going to apologise for—” I broke off, staring at the marble beneath my feet. “What the hell is that?”
“Blood,” Silas informed me, his tone bland. “What does it look like?”
“Why is there blood on the floor?”
“Don’t know. Wasn’t me.”
“Small relief.”
He turned to smile at me—a half-smile that swept me up in a brief, exhilarating moment of hope—and then he was walking. I followed him through several different sections of the main house, each new room revealing an extra layer of dust, until eventually, he paused before a door.
“This is Le Chateau’s prison.” He set his hand against the handle, which didn’t even appear to have a lock, and rested his eyes on my face.
“This?” I peered at the door, and then looked around. We were standing in a fancy—albeit dusty—sitting room. “We didn’t even go underground. Aren’t dungeons supposed to be underground?”
“I didn’t say dungeon. I said prison.”
His half-smile appeared again as he pushed the door open, standing aside so that I could see beyond him. I gasped, my feet drawing me forward until I was in the center of the doorway, the solid press of Silas’s stomach against my right arm. It was less a prison and more a giant aviary. Glass-walled boxes were set intervals apart in a garden setting, the sky open and gaping above us. The sun was already beginning to set, casting an eerie, fiery glow over the concrete pathway before me and glinting off each pane of glass until it seemed that the entire courtyard was simmering with muted flames.
“There’s no one in there,” Silas muttered, gently pressing against the small of my back to encourage me forward.
“Are you sure?”
The glass boxes were empty, but the surrounding plants could have provided cover for anyone wanting to hide.
“Positive.” Silas pointed to the top of the door that we had just walked through, where a small panel right below the door jamb was flashing two miniscule red dots. “Those are our heat signatures; the room is just picking up on us now. The panel was blank before we came through. There’s no one else here.”
I walked more confidently, then—though I should have been frustrated that we hadn’t encountered the people we had come to confront.
You’re not ready, a tiny voice whispered inside my head.
I shoved it away. I would have to be ready. There wasn’t any other option.
Silas strode past me, moving to examine each of the glass boxes.
I trailed after him, ignoring his question. The strange, transparent boxes were easily the height and breadth of a grown man, and were peppered with breathing holes in the ceiling, with no other breaks in the glass visible.
“How do they get them in there?” I asked.
“These are a magical phenomenon in our world.” He hovered his hand over the glass, a note of subtle reverence in his voice. “It is one of the only remaining examples of coordinated power. The original materialist and the original reader linked their powers to create material with emotion. These boxes can see inside us.” He moved his hand closer, his fingers brushing the glass. I watched in open-mouthed fascination as the glass rippled and bent inward, becoming something almost like water as it separated around his fingers, allowing him entry. “It senses the blood on my hands,” Silas muttered, pulling his hand back. “The magic is more complicated than simply admitting a person who has killed, though.”
He moved suddenly, grabbing me and setting me before him, his hands heavy on my shoulders. He watched my face as he pressed me backwards, and I barely even realised that the glass was solid at my back instead of warping around me as it had Silas.
“It even differentiates those who have killed in self-defence.” Silas dropped his hands from my shoulders, his touch skimming over my wrists until he was turning my hands, forcing my palms flat against the glass. “It’s a judge, a sentence, and a prison… all wrapped up into one. It doesn’t want you, angel.”
“So then how do people get out?” The words sounded breathy, and I knew that Silas could feel the sudden pounding of my heart, because his fiery eyes briefly dropped to where the organ was pressing insistently against the barrier of my chest.
“Creation is never foolproof. The originals knew that better than anybody, so they built a failsafe into the box. All you have to do is stand outside the box and declare, ‘this person must be freed’.”
“Isn’t that a little too easy? Couldn’t anybody be freed then?”