Page 33 of Minding the Minotaur
“That seems harsh for a first offence.”
“Wasn’t the first time. And I stole the portal cape, which is a sacred relic, so?—”
“A relic?”
“Yeah, we keep everything we found as we dug out theLabyrinth, and made a special vault for it all. There’s human stuff from centuries ago, and some of it’s very well-preserved. And then there are objects that we don’t fully understand. Some believe the cape is part of an ancient system of magic. Amazing it still works, really. No-one knows exactly how, but it does.”
“And you were willing to risk using it?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve always pushed the envelope a bit. My mate Brody is one of the Vault guards, so I paid him to let me try it on. And then, hey presto, there I was up in Sparkle City. When I met you, I was on my fourth illicit visit. And then Otis sprang me. What I didn’t know was he’d put this tiny device in the lining that recorded all my trips, and that landed me in deep shit.”
“But why house arrest? Don’t you have proper lock-ups?”
I shake my head. “We don’t imprison monsters. Even being confined to the home is unheard of.” I huff a sigh. “It’s a long story, dating back to the rebellion.”
“Gosh, there’s so much I have to learn.”
“I’ll tell you more sometime‚ if you’d like.”
“I would love that.” She frowns. “It’s so weird to think you’ve all been living here, beneath Sparkle City, for?—”
“Centuries,” I supply. I can’t help adding, somewhat proudly, “We monsters built Sparkle.”
“You did?!”
“Well, not me per se, I wasn’t born when Sparkle got built. But monsters, yes. We were around long before the domes. When humans were running around stunned and disoriented after the apocalypse, we helped them. Some say it was our engineers who designed the domes in the first place.”
“Then how come you’re down here and we’re up there?”
“You tell me.”
She squeezes her cheeks between her palms. “Oh Arlo, you must hate us.”
I shake my head. How could I ever hate a race that produced such a beautiful woman, inside and out?
But I keep my mouth shut, not wanting to come over all mushy on day one. “I didn’t mean to get all heavy,” I mumble.
“No, I want to know. We’ve had lies told to us, at school. At work. Everywhere. Well, actually, the authorities don’t let us know anything about the past. They say it would cause too much trauma.”
“That’s bullshit,” I say, with heat. “You need to know your heritage. Otherwise you have no roots, no sense of where you’ve come from, who you are.”
“I believe that,” she says quietly.
We sit in silence for a long moment, and I side-eye her thigh, so damn close to mine, so close I could just nudge my leg until it touches all down the length of hers. But I don’t want to scare her. She’s been told I’m a clumsy oaf, and I’ve already knocked her over. I’m not going to risk touching her. Even if I have a powerful sense that she wants me to. “I’m happy to tell you more. About the rebellion and the Covenant and all. I like reading about it, kind of puts it all in context.”
“Yeah, I saw all your books in the study. It’s unheard of for humans to read factual books. We’re allowed novels, as long as they end happily.”
I nod, pleased she wants to know, but horrified at the way humans have lived in ignorance all this time. I’m beginning to think we might actually have got some things right in the Labyrinth. At least we openly honor our past.
Suddenly, my stomach rumbles audibly. “I guess it’s lunchtime,” I say, thumping my gut. “Have you met my nutritionist, Tippy?”
“Oh yes, Otis introduced us. She’s so sweet. And also a lizard man called Len.”
“Ah, Len.” I roll my eyes. “If you don’t have scales, he’s going to give you shit.”
“He called me a paper skin,” she laughs.
I grimace. “That was rude. Len doesn’t pull his punches. But Tippy’s great. Can’t always say the same about her food, though most of it’s edible. Do you think you could cope with trying one of her strange concoctions?”
