Page 110 of Tell Me Why
It was abnormal for him to sit in dread of anything. Life was long, very long, and if it wasn’t exciting from time to time, it really wasn’t even worth looking forward to. The risk was what made the potential of another century or two of existence even bearable.
But Tell knew what was going to happen next, and he lay on the bed in the opulent, underground stone room, one that smelled of wine and dust and roses, and he dreaded.
He had to get out.
He would be on a plane to Texas, perhaps as soon as tonight.
He was going to be there, and he wasn’t going to let them take him inhereagain.
He’d found his exit once and he would find it again.
It didn’t matter what it cost.
He was getting out again and he was getting to Tina.
They were testing her.
Her entire existence was delirious, just a question of variation in light and pain, one of degree, but she had moments, bright, brilliant flashes, in which she could see the things around her clearly, and the patterns that she could assemble - if she could resist questioning and picking them back apart when she was delirious - were starting to understand the purpose of what they were doing.
The analogy of the egg stuck with her.
She was hiding herself away, further and further, day by day. The pain mattered less and less because she just wasn’t really here for it. But the parts of her that she was hiding were less and less capable ofdoinganything about what was going on. She had had moments when she’d fought them, before, but she couldn’t imagine doing that, now. She couldseewhat was going on, but she was kept and held, helpless and directionless, and she had a sense that her moment was slipping away from her.
At the beginning, she had kept track of days, but then she’d counted a couple of days twice and missed a couple and she had no idea, now. She’d abandoned the attempt and was just tracking her reservoir of strength and agency.
When those ran out, she was cooked and done, and they would dismember her for strange vampires to eat as an indulgence.
If she was going to fight them, if she was going to getout, it had to be soon. She didn’t have enough self left to do it for much longer.
Tell had said he was going to come back.
Where had he gone?
What had happened to him?
Where was Tell?
He heardthe fountain arrive and stand outside of his door.
It was like a vampiric alarm clock, a sign that he was intended to rise and prepare for the night, now.
He did as he was bidden.
He showered and dressed from the armoire in the room, clothing that was different from what he normally wore, but mostly in question of quality rather than fundamental style. There were details here that would matter to Keon and Tell saw to them carefully, coming as the supplicant for the first time in a long time. He fed, then settled in to wait through the breakfast hour.
There was a knock on the door, and he went to open it, unsurprised to find Isabella there from the sound of her footsteps, but not having any ideawhyshe would be here.
“Come,” she said. “Quickly. I have arranged a special audience.”
He followed her down the hallway and through to the main room of Castle Keon, one that had remained nearly untouched by time through the centuries. Feudalism had suited Keon just fine.
They held banquets and dances on the stone floor here, as well as show-fights and executions.
Keon sat in a great throne cut of stone, looking formal and dark and a little too modern for Tell’s tastes.
“My daughter tells me that you have information that will not wait through my breakfast,” Keon said. “Though I cannot fathom what it is, given that her mission is complete and your debt is discharged.”
“You are assembling men to take the locations I found for her,” Tell said.
