Page 83 of In Death's Hands
He looks affronted. As if making a joke is beneath him. “I assure you, I am not.”
“Then you’re out of your mind if you think I’m gonna stay here and wait for a bunch of strangers to act for me.”
Clenching his jaw, he takes a long breath in. “Your life has been risked enough as it is.”
“And just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s gonna stop unless we get to the bottom of this!”
“You—”
“No! You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do. That’s not how this works. You can run to your boss about it if you’re unhappy—we both know that meeting is a long time coming anyway—but evenhewon’t change my mind. You told Celestina I was a loophole, that I’d be able to move through the Order. Use me as such. Tell. Me. How. To. Help.”
He stays pointedly silent.
I’m about to throw my damn glass at his head when Thalnus says, “You have to commune with the Order.”
Turan gasps.
“She will do no such thing,” barks Nathan.
“Oh, get your head out of your ass, man,” groans Atys. “She’s not a fragile little girl. She’s in this as deep as we all are,deeper even, and it’s time you stop coddling her anduseher to get us all out the other side.”
I swear I hear Nathan’s teeth grind, and I don’t even dare to breathe as I see the war raging in his eyes. It takes a minute that feels like forever, but his shoulders drop as he says, “We’ll need a lot of salt.”
I sigh as I look out the window. The room is so quiet I can hear my heart thump-thumping in my chest.
Apparently, communing with the Order is a big no-no and has to stay secret. Nothing Turan said changed the others’ minds, and I stayed quiet as they explained that we couldn’t risk alerting whoever it was that cursed them. She looked like she wanted to argue some more but seemed to concede to that logic and let them plan.
They quickly left after that, all running to gather whatever ingredients they need, because apparentlysaltis the first item on a long list.
Sitting in the cosy corner atop the fancy cushions, I’m taking this time to take stock of my life. Using tools given to me by various psychiatrists, I slow my breathing, check in with my body and my mind, and just try to come to terms with all the shit that’s happened in the last two weeks.
I go over everything I know, everything that I feel, and try to free my mind of all the thoughts and emotions it’s gathered. As I look at the enchanting scenery of the forest, I grieve for my previous life. It’s strange to realise that I do miss the life I never truly wanted. That version of me always felt borrowed, temporary. And I was so sure that the feeling came from reading too much. I saw myself riding dragons, fighting evil and being seduced by thousands of dark, ruthless men. But now that I’m actually part of something akin to those stories, I miss the quiet of my life. My friends. I never felt like they were truly mine.Growing up in the system, seeing how prospective parents never evenlookedat me twice, I always viewed the people that did stay in my life as… not mine. And maybe that’s my fault. Maybe if I’d looked around and admitted what truly mattered to me, I could have appreciated the people around me. Maybe if I was brave enough, I’d check my phone, still at Nathan’s place, and see dozens of messages from Joana and Isaiah, maybe even from Mia.
I never claimed them as friends, and now that I’m a world away, I see how wrong I was. Friendship goes both ways, and they kept showing up for me in ways I never acknowledged because if I admitted to myself that they cared, then I was sure they’d disappear or change their mind as soon as I allowed them in.
It’s an uncomfortable balance to be glad of the change and yet grieve the past. Especially when that change brought so much chaos. And I’m still not fully ready to admit how glad I am to have met Nathan. It’s uncomfortable to know that I’d rather face all the dangers and the unknown than to actually go back to that life. A life I do miss enough to grieve but not want back.
For some reason—a reason I’m calling insanity at this point—it’s the unknown that’s making me queasy more than the very real possibility of fighting for my life again in the near future. I still know next to nothing about their world. The fact that I have no threads is terrifying, and yet, doesn’t it mean I have free will? That I am not bound by fate as others are?
I jump slightly when I hear the door open. My heart rate accelerates but quiets as soon as I see that it’s not Nathan and the others coming back for me but the same man who dropped off the food earlier. He doesn’t look at me as he silently walks to the table to clean up our meal. His eyebrows shoot up when he sees that I piled everything up neatly, but he smoothshis expression quickly. He ignores me when I thank him, only working faster to clean up and leave. I’m about to go back to my corner when something red catches my attention.
I’ve seen that red before. In the cave, on the door handle and, more recently, around Celestina’s reflection. Without moving closer to the man, as I’m pretty sure he’ll simply run away, I squint to find the source of that red. I look as casually as I can but come up empty. There is nothing. Maybe it was a reflection? Or maybe my nervous system is so fried I’m invent—There!
Around his pointer finger! A single red thread. Tiny, almost invisible, but there.
My heart a hammer in my ears, I take an involuntary step towards him that makes him scurry away with the cart of empty dishes. “Wait!” But he’s already out the door. Figuring in for a penny, in for a pound, I go after him to ask what it is. If he can see it. I rush out of the room, my dress tangling slightly around my legs. The corridor is empty. I take a few steps to the left but can’t even hear footsteps. I go the other way, but the hallway is dark and damp, and as my shoulders slump in defeat, I catch that red again in the far corner. I run, my breaths too loud and making the space oppressive. I stop quickly at the corner when I hear whispers. I take a peek and find the man I was chasing arguing with a woman holding a pitcher. She’s trying to force him to take it, but he vehemently shakes his head, clutching the cart’s handle. When one of his hands rises, I’m afraid he’ll hit her, but he only points to the end of the corridor, and my mouth hangs open when he uses the finger wrapped in red thread to send her on her way.
I forget to breathe when that thread falls from his finger and flies as if on a gentle wind to the pitcher. The red shimmers andglows as the thread grows and wraps itself all around the jug. Beckoning.
Head down, the woman follows the direction the man pointed at while he hurries the other way. I wait until he’s turned yet another corner before I follow her. I find her quickly as she seems to be purposely going slowly, like she doesn’t want to reach her destination.
I keep following, far behind in order not to draw attention, for about ten minutes. There are so many twists and turns in this place that I fear I won’t be able to get back to the room on my own. Most of the corridors are dark, barely lit by a single, weak light bulb, but once in a while a small window appears and a new piece of the wild forest shows up. It’s eerie and breathtaking. This place seems to have been carved from a lone mountain deep in the forest, and I wonder how no one knows about it.
The woman, still holding tight to the pitcher, whose red glow keeps getting brighter and brighter, stops in front of a simple wooden door. There hasn’t been any other door in a while, and this one seems to be purposefully far from everything else. She takes a deep breath and enters without closing the door fully.
I hear some moaning from inside as I get closer and wonder for a second if it’s anything like Thalnus’ garden, but the uneasy feeling in my stomach grows, and for some reason I know that what I’m catching isn’t sounds of pleasure.
“Down here is fine.” A man’s voice. I flatten my body to the side of the doorway and listen in. The moaning is accompanied by heavy breathing, but the pained kind. I hear some shuffling and some grumbling but nothing distinct enough to tell me what’s going on, especially over the loud thumping of my heart.
