I learned from the best, I whispered in my mind, looking at the pulsing gold.
Flattery will get you the very heart of a mage. Truly fascinating, how you remade your connections. You left the one to me, but imbued it with honesty. I can tell you truth, or nothing at all. This is to both our benefits in this maze. I’m not leading you astray, Butterfly. You can feel the honesty in your creation.
I could feel his dark humor as I looked down at the gold thread and swallowed at the shine.
I still don’t trust you.
You’ve always been the smart one. But I want you to reach your goal here as much as you want to. And I know this place.
I took the left corridor.
Constantine looked at me strangely.
Right, then left, then left again. Hurry now.
I followed the directions, picking up my pace.
“I’m mildly concerned at our sudden, deliberate path, while you feel conflicted,” Constantine said casually.
“You should be,” I murmured. “Watch me for possession.”
He looked at me sharply, and his fingers wrapped tightly around my wrist.
The boy joins. Charming.
Constantine sucked in a breath, fingers constricting painfully before forcefully smoothing my pinched skin without letting go.
Axer’s eyes narrowed on the two of us and he touched my other wrist.
Even less charming, Raphael said. Let’s grab a better one.
“Ren,” Olivia said stiffly. “Why am I hearing Verisetti?”
The lovely Miss Price, Raphael crooned. A much better addition.
“Ren,” she said warningly.
I sent a mental summary packet.
Now, to work, Raphael said with relish. It is good for you to have your rabbits. They will ensure you survive to face Stavros.
I narrowed my eyes.
We aren't going to find Stavros here?
Assuredly, a sliver of him. But the Basement is a workplace, not his home.
Unsettled, I heard the dead silence across the feed.
This is the Basement, though? I asked calmly.
The loveliest of workspaces, designed with the brightest brains to lobotomize in mind.
Why didn't you destroy it?
I've tried. Failed. I've killed thousands in the attempts. The problem was always finding the entrance. Once inside, no problem. I know this place. His mental voice became vicious. But the bigger problem with Enton Stavros is getting him where you want him to be. I had an opportunity...
His voice turned wistful and I felt all three of my friends twist at the connection.
“You would have killed Ren,” Olivia said angrily.
Yes. But it's always been her path. She saved herself from the very beginning by making me flee her Awakening before I was ready. Enton would have had us both, had I stayed. Left, then another right, Butterfly, then...
Dark feelings mixed with triumph as we proceeded.
This is it. That door. This is what you want.
This was the Basement.
You have all the pieces for finding Enton. You just need to put them together.
I looked at the swirling patterns on the last door. The patterns were trying to hide their true nature, but I knew them. I sent Axer an image and held out my hand. Axer placed a completed puzzle box on top.
I opened the door and pressed myself against the adjoining wall as Axer quickly slipped inside. At his signal, Constantine and I hurriedly joined him behind a section of stacked crates inside a warehouse-styled room. The shadow cloaks wouldn't hide us for long, but long enough for this.
My heart lurched as we peered around the crates.
At first appearance, it seemed like a normal warehouse. Rows of storage units were piled along the walls with rows of shelves extending far beyond. Unlike a warehouse, the storage contents on the right were quite alive. Mages and beings of all ages and ethnicity stared back at me. The first row was stacked only two high, but the others behind it were ten high and at least twenty deep. Tubes and lines of magic whirled in curlicues of color into and out of the different grids.
And these weren’t like the Awakening cells in Crelussa—where a mage would stay for a week or two. These cells were for long term captivity and held no privacy.
There was a different look and age to the gazes of the mages at the far back rows, from the ones at the front. The gazes of the ones to the back were deadened and older—as if all their emotion had been consumed over time, and they were simple husks. The ones I could see in the front rows appeared terrified, and the colors from their cages were sparking and flying. The ages of the mages from back to front descended like a macabre timeline of Stavros' experimentation.
A gruesome vision of pain and death painted the space to the left and the ceiling above.
Creatures and magical beings were attached to magic siphoning tubes and electric fields. Some were stretched out in the air as if they were a moment from being drawn and quartered, others were manacled to the ground. One specific dragon-looking creature was netted upside down on the ceiling. None of them were awake or alert—maybe the only positive in the entirely horrifying scene.
Vats—different ones from those at Crelussa—were stacked to the ceiling in the back of the room, connected outward to both the creatures, beings, and mages in long, clear tubes.
Five “work” tables were arrayed on the left, in front of the rows of storage shelves containing jars, containers, and tools. The storage shelf in the front pushed down through the floor and was replaced by another—this one with a solid front and a far more sinister purpose. Tools glittered on hooks and beakers of steaming liquids shone malevolently in the light.
A cell in a middle row on the right suddenly moved, its top swinging along a tube in the ceiling. It contained a giant fire-spitting lizard.
Five technicians with blank gazes worked around the space. None of them raised a gaze to us.
Hollowed out by Stavros long ago, do nothing to raise them yet, Raphael warned.
One punched in a code. The lizard suddenly froze in its cell and its body was pressed back against the glass. The cell tipped back to rest on one of the work tables, then melted downward, pressing the creature against the table, immobile. A small kit of tools raised into place at its right and I could see the spells that would exchange one tool for another with a flick—probably for one on the newly placed shelf behind.
I shivered. It was a far too elegant solution for containing something living and transporting it immobilized to work upon—tools already in place. I imagined that when they were done experimenting, the reverse would occur, neatly containing the creature in its cell and returning it to its spot in the grid.
I could imagine Raphael upon that table.
Months, I spent upon Table One, Butterfly. Be a love and destroy it for me, will you?