| |
When I next left my room, I was able to walk around more like I used to and my regular sitters weren’t in sight. Still uncertain of the layout, I tried to head in the direction I thought prisoners might be kept. It probably wasn’t far from where I was. I followed the more obnoxious races, and eventually cries similar to those outside rose throughout the halls. It wasn’t any less busy, but I made a conscious effort to avoid anyone’s attention and act as small as possible. The reality was that I wouldn’t be saved if I got caught up in one of these groups. They seemed like they were their own nations.
The further I walked, the worse the conditions grew. I passed halls of workers standing at tables, each charged with making an extravagant piece of clothing, fingers bloodied. I passed groups of henchmen lining people up, intimidating them by force if they turned away, spraying the walls with blood and spit. I saw crowds outside equally unkempt infirmaries, crying or clutching, underfed children. Adolescents shadowed the guards, forming the beginnings of their own gangs.
When I casually tried to enter the more heavily guarded areas, someone with carved tusks caught my arm and pushed me back to the halls I was allowed to be in. I didn’t want to waste another indefinable amount of time and pushed myself to continue. I didn’t think I’d be able to search for Lunete in that hall again anyway, but I could wait for the change of the guards. And I hadn’t yet exhausted trying to find where the scribes worked. I couldn’t recall Áine or anyone else on the council saying it had been destroyed.
After I found my way back to the vast corridors that acted like crossroads, I waited at the side. Those in red armbands carried wide trays, weaving between others struggling under vats of water. Though I hadn’t seen anything that looked like paper or writing instruments, I simply hoped to get a sense of where other labourers were working. I was jostled a few times and warned about being a disturbance by a figure that looked as if they hadn’t worked a day in their life. It made the surrounding disparity even clearer, they outright ignored those who weren’t able to work.
Following people who were impassive and unadorned, it wasn’t long before I found the passages further back in the prime house. Immense, slanted, gaps towards the ceiling looked over the canal that cut off the rest of the city. The panes were jagged, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if they’d once been filled with glass. Crates were piled up along the pathway, some torn open and battered, others were guarded by different labourers who would shake their heads at those passing. I was aware that the rooms I sought might be patrolled, even so I carefully peered into the open places as I went by.
In one, the sinewy guards I now associated with the Unseelie were hunched over a carved table, the outline looked like some kind of raised map. I slowed, they were arguing but talking too fast for me to fully understand. I caught snippets about farms and supply lines. In another room, people in both plain, and finer clothes were striding between abacus-like systems. Some made notes when they’d obviously come to a decision. None of these were truly supervised like my last search, though it felt more appropriate, and I was sure I had found the more bureaucratic district.
Hoping the Unseelie didn’t place as much importance on the Pacts as the Seelie did, I pushed on. The thought that these huge archives, stacked like a grand library, were probably sealed and vaulted played at the back of my mind. I eyed another mezzanine after bobbing on my heels to see how far the open corridor spanned. It grew quieter further on, but I had found that quieter often meant more security, and the more cautious I was, the more attention I attracted.
Opting to find the hidden access to the level above, I had learnt that these corridors followed a pattern. There were false walls obscuring the way in, even though many were still decorated which made finding them complicated. The public staircases led to two levels of street-like hallways and were wider and more easily accessible. Like the odd section that looked as if it’d been built later, the vast spaces nearly always contained these extra half floors, some ran all the way around, some were accessed by different stairs. It hadn’t taken me long to realise that I could spend most of my life looking for new areas.
When the third flight of stairs led me into a darkened hallway, I nearly turned to come back another day. A darkened hallway could mean a whole extra passage of passages. The routes that wound further in often didn’t seem logical, and at first, I felt like this was going to end like the others— with me groping along a wall, blood pounding in my ears, in the pitch black. As I made my way back from the second passage, mention of the Seelie made me pause.
Three figures stood at the top of the winding staircase, blocking my way out. “I heard it from Bran, they know of a traveller. They said the Seelie are finally preparing for battle again—”
“Too risky to act unless we’re absolutely certain. We’ve lost enough—”
“I would rather die than find a way to live here. I’m exhausted.”
“The next sign we get will make it certain...”
I had to wait for them to disperse, but I thought the possibility of the Seelie’s counterattack was worth it.
I started to head back. The hallways and stairs blurred though, where they all looked so similar, and I got disorientated. I kept my movements slow and quiet just in case, and when a distant voice reached me, I flattened myself against the side, hiding my lantern. My eyes were useless when this happened, so I focused on my ears, attempting to hear where the murmurs were coming from.
It didn’t get any louder and there was only one muffled voice. When my initial panic dulled, I slid my feet gently to my right, thinking about the death wish I must’ve had to even risk another attack. Eventually though, I grew more confident and held onto the fact that nothing had happened so far, and gradually the voice became clearer.
By the time I had to shrink down to hear it more clearly, I realised I’d come across a place to eavesdrop. It sounded very much like the prime son, though I couldn’t be sure when I could only make out, “about...h-...books...-ay...Fath- was obsessed.”
I sunk to the floor, hand following the cold grate I had come across.
“I remember the gesture Mother would give him when he got that look. I don’t care if you know this because you won’t see the Seelie Council again, but my mind sometimes feels broken, and I can’t always remember what’s real. But I do remember the obsession everyone had with being remembered. Carve my name, paint my deeds, know me, tell stories about me. You were his way into the records, his seer daughter. Stupid man, really, not learning more about how it worked. We all know how that ended. ‘Papa, someone close, someone favoured, papa, I saw those unhappy people again.’...” His voice took on a high, childish imitation.
“So why didn’t you talk to him?” a softer voice asked.
Lunete. I’d found her. Except I hadn’t. How was I to find that room below once I made it back?
“‘Papa, why doesn’t T’sol look like the rest of us?’” He slowly dropped the inflection until he spoke again in his own voice. “‘Papa, what’s wrong with his heart?’ Because I could tell you the day I stopped being his son as well, and you were the only one who really listened to me afterwards. Despite all that, I can still remember the life I was supposed to have. We can’t all embrace exile and find a new life.”
“You would have had a place at the council. You are still our brother.”
“A mock position.” His voice raised momentarily. “I wouldn’t be listened to. I had already been judged. But I can make real changes in a rank like this.”
“It’s a council.” I could hear the placation turn to disbelief in her tone. “If your views are in the minority, you might not get everything you want. We are not the exception, look at what happens.”
There was a pause, and I came back to myself, trying to piece the fragments together.
“I have to do this,” T’sol said. “Things will improve.”
“I can see why you might think that. But you have to see that all this is the result of your decisions.”
I wanted to shout down to her, send a message somehow about what I’d just heard in the hallways. Help could be on its way, but I couldn’t bear to be the reason that failed as well, so I stayed still, listening as long as I could.
“I want to be able to forgive you, T’sol. I want to have the brother back who looked after me, who made light over breakfast, I miss when our family was whole.”
I heard a deep murmur, where T’sol must have responded too quietly to hear.
“It’s not too late if you actually mean it...”