Page 95 of The Devil In Blue
“Dead?” He looked down at himself, his face going white as powder. “I suppose I am.”
A laugh sputtered from his mouth, but there was no depth to it. No humor.
But then he was gone. In a way, at least. His robes disappeared in a whisp of white smoke and what was left was a translucent, gray figure. Naked. Aged. Hunched over like an old man. Or, more like a beaten dog with its tail between its legs. He walked, eyes down and vacant. Empty.
Dead.
I watched him walk right by me, mumbling things to himself. Searching. Treading as if he was desperately looking for a path to follow.
The Labyrinth is for wandering souls.
But I wasn’t in the Labyrinth. I didn’t go in.
Confusion gripped me like a snake coiled around a mouse. It suffocated me. But I was no stranger to being drowned in confusion. I straightened, trying desperately to keep my head above water, when, from the darkness, wandered another figure. Another soul, perhaps.
Or perhaps not.
She was… me.
Pale hair was tied in a half-ponytail, frizzy and unruly as ever. She wore robes as if she’d just woken from a refreshing sleep. The brightness on her face was what set her apart. I saw trust. Excitement. An innocence I couldn’t even imagine myself ever possessing. To see her trot through the mist, unseeing and unconscious of my presence, was almost horrifying. Horrifying because it was me in a form I could not remember. Me in another lifetime. Me… if I was happy and whole.
Only something rigid in my gut made me certain that smile was about to be stripped from her pretty lips. Those brown eyes were soon to go dark. Those rosy cheeks would eventually be gaunt and chalky.
“I’m so happy you came to see us,” she said, bouncing toward someone unseen in the mist.
“What is this?” I whispered, watching a broken past replay before my eyes.
The innocent Briar opened her arms to embrace someone and when that figure came into view, ice filled my veins. I couldn’t see them beneath the large, lace-trimmed hood over their head, but I knew something was off. Something was so, so off.
“Of course,” the woman said. “Come, before Rune wakes. I want to show you something only a lady would appreciate. And after, I have a wonderful gift in mind for you to give him. He’ll love it.”
She took the hand of my innocent little twin, leading her through the mist. I should not have followed. I didn’t want to, but my feet moved anyway. There was something wrong and my aching heart needed to know what it was.
I watched the figures stroll what I had to assume was a street judging by the occasional street lamp. I was seeing everything as if through a very narrow lens, catching glimpses of the surroundings only when they came close to the subjects of the vision.
“Wait,” I said aloud, getting an uneasy feeling the further the hooded figure and my mimic walked.
Something in me knew they were wandering too far from protection. Too far from something important.
My world fell apart when the two figures stopped in an alley and a man stood in the shadows, cloaked and hooded.
That innocent smile flattened off my mimic’s lips. Even she knew something was not right at that point. She trembled as the man removed his hood and revealed a face I knew too well. A face I last saw only moments ago.
Father Eli. He had a wicked grin on him. One I couldn’t help realizing was younger. Fewer lines were scattered on his cheeks. I froze, watching everything play out and full well knowing in my soul that I couldn’t intervene.
This has already happened.
Innocent. Curious. In love. I felt those things bleeding off of the woman standing between Father Eli and the hooded woman. She was confused. Stunned.
So was I.
“You’re sure that the king will not hunt me down and kill me?” Father Eli asked.
The cloaked figure shook her head. “I will direct his attention elsewhere. He won’t want to save her.”
“What are you talking about?” my mimic said, her voice trembling.
I felt that fear and betrayal inside me like I was there.
