Page 97 of Angel's Fall

“Because of all the places to die, here would be the most infuriating.” Shaya continued to feel along the mirrors for some sort of latch or trigger to open the door. There had to be one – Erik used this place as an entrance to his home. It was just hidden.

“Do you think hell is this hot?” Raoul asked in a lilting, far-off tone.

“You could help, you know. Start on the opposite wall.”

Raoul did not move from where he had sprawled on the floor. “Don’t you think it will be that one? That’s where they are.” His eyes were clouded, and Shaya knew the man was thinking back to all they had heard. Shaya could still hear it too. The roar of the organ, the cries of passion... But more than that, he recalled the words of love.

“If we get out, what will you do?” Shaya asked earnestly. “And don’t say kill him, I know that. What will you do if, by some miracle, Christine survives this too?”

“What do you mean?” Raoul asked back. “He made her a whore before and did it again to spite me. When she’s free, she will repent her sin.”

“Sheloveshim, Raoul. You have to understand that now.” Shaya replied, turning from the wall.

“She thinks she does, but it’s just a sickness he’s infected her with,” Raoul spat back. “He has tainted her with depravity, twisted a poor girl’s impressionable mind. She can’t really love him, despite what she says. If she does, it is a crime she must absolve herself from.” Raoul tugged on his undone collar, looking about the forest of reflections and iron branches with bleary eyes.

It's the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, brother. To think it came from the mind of someone with such beauty in his soul.Ramin had said that to Shaya privately, after the torture chamber had been unveiled in Mazenderan.

“Wait, what was I saying?” Raoul stammered.

“That if her love is real, then it is a sin.” Shaya was unsure if the boy heard him. He hoped he didn’t. “Love is never a sin though.”

“What do—” Raoul stopped as the sound of pounding came from the wall that separated them from the house on the lake.

“Are you still there?” It was Christine’s distressed voice, and Shaya’s heart leapt at the sound.

“Where else would we bloody be?” Raoul snarled back as he tried to stand. The poor thing was clearly not made for such heat, though it could be that his yelling and slamming himself against the walls had exhausted him more than it had Shaya.

“We’re here! Where is Erik?” Shaya called back. It terrified him that someone was on the lake; he had nearly died there himself. Who would be foolish enough to follow them down?

“I don’t know!” Was the fear in the girl’s voice of the monster or for him? Perhaps it was both. “But I looked and—”

“Did you find a way out?” Raoul demanded.

“If I tell you, you must promise to use it to leave and never return,” came the soft entreaty through the wall. “I don’t want anyone else hurt.”

“How can you ask that, after everything?” Raoul demanded, and Shaya very much wanted to strangle the fool on Erik’s behalf. “He just said—”

“We promise!” Shaya called and met Raoul’s incensed glare with his own. “No one else needs to suffer tonight! Just tell us.”

“Do you swear? Both of you?” Christine asked, smart girl that she was. Raoul’s mouth moved open and shut like a fish, and Shaya wondered how uncomfortable that was in the stifling air. Another noise made Shaya jump in fear. The door. “He’s coming. Look on the floor! Under the tree by a root—”

“Christine—” Raoul began, but Shaya covered his mouth to shut him up and motioned for silence. They had to know what had transpired on the lake.

“You’re soaked. Erik, what happened?” Christine asked on her side of the wall.

“It wasn’t me,” came Erik’s listless reply, all the terrifying fire that had been in his voice now gone. What had he done now? “I swear, Christine,it wasn’t me.”

“What happened?” Christine demanded again, sounding just as frightened as Shaya.

“Not here,” Erik declared. Shaya cursed under his breath as he listened to the fading sound of steps and Christine’s muffled voice.

“Come on, help me look for this exit she found for us,” Shaya ordered, falling to his knees at the base of the iron tree. The roots and trunk were so hot it burned Shaya’s fingers when he grazed them. He was grateful, even so.

He never would have thought to look there for an exit in the floor, but it made sense that Erik would have yet another trap door at his disposal. Shaya prayed that it at least took them somewhere to get them relief from this maddening heat and the illusion of the jungle that grew more real with every passing second. Shaya knew what this room did to even the strongest men, and he knew as well that he was not one of them. He hoped they had time.

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Erik would not lookher in the eye. It was something he did when he was ruled by fear, Christine knew. He stood in his bedroom, dripping, and looked at the rumpled sheets and the carved canopy. His eyes went anywhere but the woman who desperately needed to know what had transpired in the water and who still wanted to reach him.

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