Page 119 of Artemysia
“We go all the time. It’s creepy fun. We can have one more drink there—it’s the king’s special stash. Your answer breaks the tie, Marquis.”
“Trophy room. Sorry, Kye, your sister is right about these events, they’re fucking intolerable. If I have to talk to one more tiresome baron, I’m going to wring someone’s neck.”
“Your words are not fitting for a marquis,” he replies, smiling. “But that’s why we like you.”
I offer each an arm, and they lead me out the back archway through a darkened room with extra chairs and tables.
“We have to go through a secret passageway.” Sylvi presses a mirrored panel in the unused dining room, and it spins open into a stairway. She pushes me in with her small hand on my back, and we climb up a narrow flight of stairs. At the top, a similar mirrored panel spins us into a dark study. Shelves of books line the walls, but when Kye flicks on a lamp, I curse loudly.
Along the walls above the shelves, all around the room, hanging on wooden plaques like mounted deer heads, are preserved Syf heads. Their ears are still pointed.
They snicker at my shock, and Sylvi skips to a bar cart and pours a glass of amber liquid from a crystal decanter.
“Uncle’s best scotch,” she says.
I quickly down it. Syf heads stare back at me. I still don’t believe what I’m seeing, and I’m speechless.
The king’s scotch is the best I’ve ever tasted, but I can’t savor it. I stammer out my next question, because the game is over, and shit just got real.
“The king hunts Syf for sport?!” Oh holy fucking hell. They kill for entertainment?
What kind of advanced weaponry do they have to do this for fun?
Sylvi laughs lightly. “No, silly. Most were found half-dead and brought here to be studied. For science. But Kye and I think Syf are beautiful. We want to meet a real one. I…want to sleep with one.”
“Sylvi!” Kye admonishes his sister.
“You do too, don’t deny it,” Sylvi argues.
Kye adjusts the collar of his charcoal shirt under his black suit. “Only if he’s as hot as the ones we’ve seen. Wings and all.”
I cut in. “You don’t think they’re…monsters?” Hearing them talk like this stirs something deep in the pit of my stomach. Perhaps here, Syf are accepted? Is it possible they’re…admired?
But around me, the mounted heads tell a different story. Something doesn’t add up.
“We don’t think they’re monsters,” Sylvi breathes. “Not at all.”
“We aren’t the only ones who think so,” Kye adds.
“You’re not afraid of being attacked? They’re dangerous…” Do they really believe that Syf aren’t beasts?
“No, they aren’t. Not normally. But some get sick and go out oftheir minds,” Kye says.
“Kye is an apprentice with the lead scientist here, and they’re studying them. Trying to cure them.”
“Can they be cured? What causes their illness?” I ask, not quite accepting anything I’m hearing.
Because if I do, this changes everything.
It changes everything Delphine fights for—a cure would mean the end of killing for her.
“The king ordered experiments to be done on Syf here in the estate laboratory, in an attempt to control them. But the runoff from the experiments released into the East River poisoned them all. The river water doesn’t affect humans, but it turns Syf into angry beasts,” Sylvi says, swishing her periwinkle dress that matches her wide, unblinking eyes as she shifts closer to me.
“They’re actually beautiful creatures who deserve love, like us,” Kye insists.
“And we want to help them.” Sylvi leans into me. “You look like one of them, you know. Your eyes, your features…”
“It’s why we wanted to talk to you,” Kye chimes in.
