“Trusting my gut where magic is concerned has worked out so far.” I fidgeted in my seat, wishing it was as accurate in other areas of my life. “However, I will allow that I haven’t warped anyone’s brain.” I frowned, considering. “That I’m aware of.”
“You’re going to experiment on yourself.”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re going to experiment on me too.”
“Linus, no.”
“Grier, yes.”
“You wrote the book on self-inflicted mad scientisting.”
“And you showed me the error of my ways.”
“I don’t want to scramble your brain.” I reached out, raking my fingers through his dark hair. “I like your brain.”
“I like your brain too.” He pressed a kiss to my wrist. “That’s why I wish you would apply the sigil to me first, in case there are any immediate side effects.”
“You wish, hmm?” I pretended to consider him. “Too bad I’m no genie.”
No, really. Just think of all the rub my lamp jokes going untold.
The flight was okay. I had no complaints about our accommodations. Linus had booked us first-class seats, and we received preferential treatment because he was the Grande Dame’s son and a regular customer of this particular necromancer-owned airline. No, it was the destination that kept me fidgety.
The drive to Atramentous was just as okay as the flight. Linus arranged for a van, same make and model as the one at home, and that gave us plenty of room and separation from the front to allow me time to mentally prepare for what awaited us.
No sooner had I settled my nerves than we slowed next to a guard shack. I couldn’t hear the exchange over the roaring in my ears, but Hood must have said the right thing. The red-and-white-striped gate arm rose, and we drove under it without a hitch. Except for the one in my chest.
Chain link fence gleamed in the van lights, the rows upon rows of razor wire glistening like wet teeth.
The final gate required us to exit the vehicle while it was searched, and then we were each patted down. They found my knife, as expected, and tossed it on the backseat. Everything in our pockets, down to the lint, they forced us to leave in the van.
I had never been more jealous of laundry fuzz in all my life.
“You will walk out of there again.” Hood clamped his wide palms on my shoulders. “Even if I have to tear this hellhole down brick by brick, or watch Lethe do it, you will return home. This place can’t hold you, and these people have no power over you.”
“Thanks.” I gave him a brief hug. “I needed to hear that.”
“Take care of her,” he ordered Linus. “You’re the next best thing to pack, and that means our oaths are yours.”
“This particular oath is no trouble to uphold at all,” Linus assured him. “Atramentous won’t keep her. It won’t touch her. If it tries, you won’t have to bother with Lethe or with bricks. I’ll level this accursed place myself.”
Three guards marched to the checkpoint from the other side, ready to escort us the rest of the way on foot.
I almost jumped out of my skin when the gate clanged shut behind us, and one of the guards chortled.
“Elite Pritchard has been cleared to act as your escort. Do not leave his sight. He is personally responsible for your safety and your conduct.” The guard flanking Linus droned on, clearly used to the drill but oblivious to our ultimate destination. “Do not speak to the prisoners unless you have the authorization to do so. Do not attempt to pass them contraband. You will be punished to the fullest extent of the law if you’re caught in collusion with an inmate.”
“Grier remembers the rules.” The chortler held the clipboard with our names. “You spent what? Four years here? Five? I read about it in the paper.”
“You must be new,” Boaz said, smiling brightly. “Why the hell else would you open your mouth in front of him?”
“Who?” The chortler checked his clipboard, frowned. “Linus…Lawson.”
The click in his head as the last name registered was as audible as his gulp.
Moonlight glinted off the blade of the scythe that appeared in Linus’s hand, made all the more terrifying by the fact his tattered cloak hadn’t manifested along with it. The expensive suit clashed with the weapon dangling casually at his side, and the guards scattered when they spotted the threat.
“I’m a potentate,” he informed them. “I have a right to carry a weapon on my person at all times and dispensation to use it whenever I feel threatened, even by a small-minded toad in uniform.”
“Understood,” the chortler croaked. “Sir.”
“Now that we’ve got that settled,” Boaz said, smoothly cutting in front of us, “we’ll be on our way.”
The guards didn’t protest, and Linus didn’t let go of his scythe, but they did follow at a respectful distance.
Their fear bolstered my resolve, and when Linus offered me his hand, I balled my fists to keep from taking it, from clinging to him, from letting him protect me from the past. “I can do this.”
“Yes, you can.” He brushed a lock of hair behind my shoulder, and his fingers tangled in the strands. “Just remember, you don’t have to do it alone.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
We took a short walk up a paved road lined with pines slowly being devoured by moss and rot. Each step brought us closer to Atramentous, and as it came into view, I was stunned by its ordinariness.
The exterior resembled any number of human prisons. There were guard towers, another fence, more razor wire. The facility itself was small, so small, considering how large it loomed in my nightmares.
“This is it?” The question tumbled out before I could catch it, and I hoped the guards tailing us hadn’t overheard.
“This is the surface.” Boaz cast me an unreadable look. “This is how they hide it from humans in plain sight. It’s registered as a private prison, and its official line is it incarcerates inmates based on contracts landed from some nebulous government agency.”
We were greeted at the door by a woman in uniform who smiled when she recognized Boaz. No surprise there.
“It’s been a while.” She raked hungry eyes over him. “How’ve you been, sugar?”
“Busy.” His aw-shucks routine deepened as they chatted. “You know how it is.”
“Heard a rumor you’re engaged.” She chuckled like it was the greatest joke of all time.
“It’s no rumor, Barfoot.” He eased past her to punch a code she handed him into a keypad. “I’m off the market.”
“Pity.” She trailed her fingers across his back as he held the door for us. “When you get bored playing house, you know where to find me.”
A hard glint darkened his eyes, surprising me, but he kept his voice playful, and she didn’t catch his temper igniting.
“Yeah.” He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, look at me. “I do.”
Determined to stay out of his relationship with Adelaide, for real this time, I kept my mouth shut.
The sterile space we entered reminded me of the waiting room in an ER, and I shuddered. Even here, the damp smell of mold permeated the air. Or maybe that was my imagination.
“Stairs to the left.” Boaz pointed to a corner. “Elevator to the right.”
“The elevator.” I wiped my palms on my jeans. “I want this done as fast as possible.”
Boaz inputted a second code in the access panel that had the doors sliding open.
What I would have given for those digits during my stay.
The slow creak and hard bumps of the car were the only sounds as it lowered us down the shaft.
We bottomed out with a soft thud that jarred my knees and made me grateful I had no memory of ever using it prior to now.
“We have to walk the length of Row A to reach the next elevator.” Boaz hesitated, but he didn’t ask me if I was sure I wanted this. We had come too far to go back. “Keep your head down, eyes forward, and put one foot in front of the other.”
Six feet past the elevator, I stepped onto a grate slicked with algae, and a sob lodged in my throat.
Here the sterile veneer had cracked and peeled away to reveal the true face of Atramentous.
Here the smooth walls gave way to craggy rock and iron bars flecked with rust the color of dried blood.
Here the moans of the incarcerated beat against my ears like fists the inmates were too weak to raise.
Tendrils of midnight caressed me, but Linus kept his distance. Only his allowing me that tenuous moment to acclimate, without the sensory overload of physical contact, kept me from bolting back the way we’d come.
Make no apologies for surviving.
I had withstood Atramentous for five years.
I could endure it for less than five hours.
If I could just take another step. Just one more step.
There—
No.
Okay.
Try again.
The next time, I made it. And bit by bit, I conquered the long hall, blinding myself to the pitiful souls shoved into the small cubbies bored out on either side of us.
The Society sentenced the worst of their worst criminals to life down here. But I was living proof that the justice system didn’t always get it right. How many other innocents had the system failed to vindicate? How many humans had been caged and forgotten, along with the secrets they carried about our existence? How many of these people would make it out of here alive? The answer to that was easy at least. None. Atramentous was where the convicted were tossed to die.
Old Grier had, alone in her cell, with her mouth and her eyes dry.
Another elevator down, another walk through my past, another brick with which to build fresh nightmares.
We repeated the process three more times, for a total of five levels, the lower floors as quiet as tombs.
The air grew ranker as we descended, until my eyes watered, throat burned, and nose grew stuffy. The cells shrunk, and the lights dimmed until even my necromancer vision struggled against the endless blackness.