Page 40 of Fractured
The lynx said, “I don’t remember.”
So, yeah—that got us nowhere fast.
twelve
“All you haveto do is ask.”
It was almost funny when he said this—and not even because he was a talking lynx.
“Ask…who?” Because I was hungry and I needed food. The sleep had done me well, but my stomach was growling still. And the fucking doors still refused to open, to let me out.
“The palace,” the lynx said. “Ask the palace for anything you need.”
“Ineedto leave.” I said the words slowly, separately, so he didn’t miss a one.
“What youtrulyneed,” he had the audacity to say.
I shook my head, spun around and looked at the stone walls, at the windows up there on the ceiling that still refused to let through more light, and I said, “I truly need to see, don’t I? I need light. I need to?—”
But I never got to finish speaking because as soon as I saidlight,all the torches that were mounted on the walls came to life with a white fire at the same time.
A scream stuck in my throat. Every instinct in my bodydemanded that I start running, and I would have had a single door been open in this room, but there wasn’t. There were only walls, and torches on them, lit up with flames that were a mix of silver and a pale gold—like starlight.
Footsteps, and the lynx was in front of me. I saw him so much more clearly now with all that light. “And food. You truly need food. I can hear the rumbling of your insides.”
My hands shook. My stomach twisted and turned what felt like forever, and I said, “Food. I need food.”
I’d haveneverbelieved it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. Even after witnessing a lizard trying to kill me with spit, I’d have never believed it if someone told me that one of the long tables a few feet behind me would move. The top of it wouldflip,turn to the other side—the other side that was full of dishes. Plates and bowls and glasses and silverware, like they’d been glued underneath it, and had just waited for the tabletop to flip to reveal themselves to me.
Even the glasses full of liquid, all three of them.
Caught between laughing and crying, I remained there even when the lynx went closer and sniffed the air, as if he were searching for something. I remained standing when he then looked me dead in the eye and said, “This is food made for servants. The palace took it from their kitchen, and nobody has reason to poison servants. It is safe to eat. Come.”
All those words, yet their meaning was lost to me for a good long while. The lynx was patient, though. He waited for me to wrap my head around the fact that there was now light and food in this room, simply because I’d asked for it. I’d askeda roomfor it, and it had delivered.
Eventually, my hunger took control, and my legs carried me to the table. There was bread and rice and meat andvegetables, tea in a cup, water and wine. There were small bowls full of creams and powders, and I couldn’t even tell you what I ate or how it tasted, just that I remained standing even when the lynx suggested I get a chair. I remained standing, and I ate and cried in silence until I was full.
That would forever remain one of the strangest moments of my life.
The designson the doors made out of silver-colored metal were even more beautiful than I’d realized. There was enough light in the room now that I saw every curve and every edge, every shape embossed on them. Even the handle was shaped like a feather—and it still wouldn’t budge when I tried it.
Both doors that would lead me out of this room were locked.
For a while, as the lynx sat there by the table where I’d eaten and watched me, I inspected the walls, the paintings—mostly of roses that had this gorgeous lilac-pink color—and the shelves full of books. Empty books. Cold books.
I inspected the light of the torches, too, and something nagged at my brain as I did, something close to a memory, but I still couldn’t put my finger on it. Flames the color of starlight—such a strange thing, but they did give off plenty of light so that I wasn’t even afraid anymore. I could see every corner, could see every little detail surrounding me, and the lynx lay there in plain sight—there was nobody else in here with us.
I didn’t think anybody could find me here if they tried, andthatwas the source of the bursts of panic that came over me every now and again. Rune couldn’t find me here,and if I didn’t figure out how to open those doors, I wasn’t going to find him, either. Maybe until it was too late.
Lyall’s face was right in the center of my mind’s eye. The way he spoke. The way he smiled and laughed. How well he’d hidden his true nature from me, had made me fight against my own instincts, and made meblame myselfevery time I considered that maybe he wasn’t the good guy he pretended to be. All because I remembered the boy he had been when he healed me in that meadow. All because I had no clue that someone so young and innocent looking could be a fucking mastermind andplanfor the whole thing to happen.
“There’s nothing here,” I said, and I had to actually look at the lynx at make sure thathehadn’t said it with my voice—that’s how fucked up this entire situation was for me. How little I could trust my own senses. My own mind.
“Everything you need is here,” the lynx said. “You must search to find it.”
“Searchwhere? The doors are closed! What, you want me to search under the furniture, is that it? And what the hell am I searching for?!”
To make a point, I strode over to the sofa where I’d slept, and I went down on my knees and looked underneath it.
