Page 56 of The Devil In Blue
“Do not put me in a cell,” I said, really starting to fight her but to no avail. “Stop this!”
She pulled me further and further into the basement where the stone floor turned to frigid, damp grittiness.
“I cannot break him,” Elanor said, catching me off guard. “Maybe you can.”
She snapped her fingers and a row of hanging lanterns along the wall burst to life, lighting the basement with orange light. I smelled piss and filth and pressed the back of my wrist to my nose, pressing my back against the wall as the firelight flooded a small cell in front of me. There was someone inside divided by a row of steel bars that seemed much too intricate for such a dank dungeon.
Panting, both from fear of being thrown in a cell and exerting myself to get away from Elanor, I peered into the space and saw a figure dressed in white. Or what used to be white. His garments were now stained with dirt and other excrements and tattered nearly beyond recognition. He was curled up on a few wool blankets against the wall and stirred when he noticed us. I saw his face when he rolled onto his side and my breath turned to ice in my lungs.
“Father Eli?” I muttered.
Elanor grabbed my shoulders and shoved me toward the bars.
“Oh, my little beauty,” he rasped, smiling at me as if he wasn’t locked in a filthy cell rotting away.
I gripped the bars in front of me, not knowing what I was supposed to do.
“What have they done to you?” I asked.
Like an animal, he crawled to the bars, dragging his white robes behind him.
“Oh, nothing I did not expect,” he said through another smile. His hands clamped over both of mine and squeezed. “I wanted to see you. They said I could not.” His cold lips pressed to my knuckles. It was something he’d never done and I stared, taken aback. In fact, he barely ever touched me at Southminster. He had mostly ordered others to do it. “I must bleed you. To keep the sickness at bay.”
“I—I thought the same. I have not been well, but... you said I was better.”
“Oh, did I?” He laughed. The sound was maniacal and high-pitched.
Whatever they’d done to him, it had driven him past his brink. I turned to Elanor to see that she’d backed into the shadows, giving me plenty of space.
“Let him go. It’s me you all want. Why is he here?”
Before Elanor could refuse me, I felt a blunt pain on my fingers and jumped back, holding my hand where Father Eli’s teeth had almost broken the skin. He reached for me, smiling again, and then completely descended into a pained, sorrow-filled whimper, shaking his head.
“We must bleed you,” he said under his breath.
“Father Eli,” I said. “What is it they want? Perhaps you can tell them and they’ll let you go.”
I didn’t believe that for a second.
“What they want is the truth.”
“What do you mean? What truth?”
His bloodshot eyes met mine and I saw something in them. Something wicked and awful. I’d seen him look at me like that before. Every time he was mad at my lack of progress, he gave me those eyes. I inched backward, catching another whiff of urine and dirt.
“So stupid,” he said, staring right into my eyes. “So perfectly, horribly stupid you are.”
“Father…”
“It was so perfect while it lasted. Now look. I’m in a shit-covered cell beneath the very palace you came from.”
I felt my stomach turn at the implication and shook my head slowly, wishing I hadn’t just heard what he said.
“You’ve been beaten into saying what they want you to say,” I muttered.
He laughed, but that time it sounded dark and mocking. “Andyouwere tortured into believing what we wantedyouto believe. For fifteen. Fucking. Years.”
My head was on fire. My ears were pounding. My heart had completely stopped and my breath was a ball in my throat. I’d been struck with words I didn’t want to hear… again. Father Eli’s chuckle was a distant sound until I came back to the world and was able to process what he said.
