Something Wicked

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Isla opens her eyes. White ceiling, white room. She’s in the palace still. Despite everything, that’s a little comforting. At least she knows where she is. She just has to–

“This is fucking sweet!” Solanus screams in the other room. “We should see the whole palace! I want to see everything! Can we, Lucy? Can we?”

“No,” Lucian says.

“But Lucy, you can’t do that to me! I’m your best friend, I’ve never asked you for anything ever! Why can’t you help me this one time?”

“Because if you stay in that thing much longer you’ll die and burn your soul out again,” Lucian replies.

Isla gets out of bed and opens the door. Lucian’s out by the balcony, with a small silver bird flapping around her face.

Continue reading “03.20 – Autonomy”

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It takes a tortuous twenty or so hits to break the delicate fingers apart, and another five to get them to break off entirely, and when Isla’s finished, there’s nothing but broken gears and spindles of brass clinging to the cuff bolted into Lucian’s wrist.

It takes a chisel and a pair of pliers to get the rest of it all off. It’s difficult–very difficult. Aurel had gone to a lot of trouble to keep those hands intact and attached, up to and including multiple holes, drilled directly into Lucian’s wrist. Isla glances up to Lucian’s face and spots similar holes along the side of her face. She looks down again.

She’s not sure she wants to know what Lucian went through.

Continue reading “03.19 – Playthings, Escaped”

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The wisp leads Isla down into corridors of the palace she’s never been to, away from the opulent stonework and mosaics and stained glass. The stone hallways are plain and gray. She follows the wisp down one, then the next until it stops in front of a door, then dissipates in a flash of red light.

Isla opens the door.

The room is…bleak. There’s a metal table on one side, jars on a shelf on the other, with tools hanging underneath. There are cells along the back wall, and one of them is occupied.

Continue reading “03.18 – The Other Workshop”

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Aurel is at his drawing table, working on a piece of metal. He doesn’t even seem to notice Isla in the doorway.

Isla steps into the workshop. “Aurel,” she says.

Slowly, Aurel puts down his tools and turns around. He’s wearing a set of magnifying lenses and doesn’t seem particularly pleased to see Isla. “I believe I told the servants to inform you I couldn’t be disturbed while I was working,” he says. “You are lucky you did not enter while I was doing anything delicate. What happened to my guard?”

Continue reading “03.17 – The Heart of the Matter”

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Isla stands frozen for an entire minute, staring at the horrifying creation lying limp on the chamber floor.

She has to do something. She doesn’t know what Aurel is trying to do, but she has to stop him, somehow. He’s working on some project in his study, she knows. She can confront him, talk to him, get him to explain himself, or…or something. He’s reasonable. He’ll listen, surely. Surely, he understands that this is not okay, that he can’t do this kind of…thing to people.

To her.

Continue reading “03.16 – Masked Confrontation”

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Voices again.

“–away from her, don’t you dare–“

A flash of knives, blue and white light in her eyes, cold pressure against her bare skin.

Lucian stands above her, a knife hanging delicate between her fingers. Isla can’t move, can’t speak, can’t do anything to make her stop as the knife sinks in–

“–wake up, Isla, it’s me! Isla, stop, you have to listen–“

Red eyes. Darkness.

There’s pressure on her from all sides, constricting shadows around her neck and burning pain trailing down her arms, glowing blue.

Then, through the darkness and the noise–that voice.

“I’m waiting, Isla.”

Continue reading “03.15 – Vicious Spell”