Page 32 of Death of the Glass Angel (Apotheosis #1)

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Gemellus was a lying, cynical bastard. But a well-meaning one. And one day, he simply changed, and the man I thought I knew was gone—as if someone else had stepped into his body and taken the reins.

-Professor Aevus’ personal journal

The longer Talon spent in these dim tunnels, the more his memories stirred. His mind wandered as his guard led him away from his cell, imagining fire clinging to the stone, suffocating him. And there was no escape.

The taste of burning caressed his tongue, and the scent of charred wood filled the air. Talon squeezed his eyes shut, repeatedly reminding himself it was not real. The voices drifted over the imagined blaze, chanting.

Fire!

It’s happening again.

He’s going to die.

Talon bumped into his escort, who grabbed his arm and straightened him. Opening his eyes, Talon found himself in a spacious workroom filled with dirty, ragged workers.

Looks like he’d found the missing stormborn men. Only twelve were accounted for, hunched over workbenches laboring on what looked like hunks of ore.

The guard hurried Talon through the room. Trying to figure out what they were doing, he studied every detail. Sparks flew from the fingertips, magic that appeared challenging for them. Though there were two forges present, no one was using them.

That was why the torturer wanted to know if he was trained—that was no ordinary ore. It was anmarite. A notoriously useless metal, both difficult to mine and impossible to shape. Only lightning, natural or magic, could dent the stuff.

Driving Talon down another hall, the guard dragged him into an infirmary. A handful of rickety cots rested against the wall with a single shelf lined with gauze and a few vials of poultices. Forcing Talon into a stone chair, the guard shackled him to it and departed.

Nothing about this place was what he expected. Shifting to watch the door, Talon tried to move his arm in hopes he could extract another of his hidden lockpicks.

The torturer entered the room instead. She snatched a vial from the shelf and popped it open. A sickly sweet smell wafted out.

Her cold eyes met his. She needn’t speak her threat; so long as they held Des, Talon was in no position to resist.

Grimacing, he choked on the foul-tasting liquid as she forced it down his throat. The woman walked away, her outline blurring as Talon’s vision darkened.

Biting his lip, he strained to stay conscious, to no avail. The edges of his vision blurred within minutes.

What could have been five minutes or five hours passed in the blink of an eye. True unconsciousness did not wrap Talon, but rather a dulled awareness. He could faintly monitor the woman standing beside him, a bloodied tool in her hand. But he felt nothing.

Burning pain steadily grew on his arm as Talon’s senses slowly returned. The woman swam into view again, taut gray bun gaining clarity as individual stands took shape.

The door flew open, and the woman whirled around. A horrible crash and the crack of bones followed. Her head snapped back, and her body crumpled. A new figure drifted into view—a man with black hair whose eyes shone like bright beacons amongst the haze—gold, like metal ingots.

“Talon?” A voice called, though it sounded several miles away.

The click of metal alerted Talon to his freedom, and he tried to stand but quickly failed. He melted to the ground and was only saved from smashing his face into the stone by someone grabbing his arms and yanking him up.

“By the ancestors.” Felsin cursed.

Oh, his tone of voice didn’t sound good. The burning in Talon’s arm sharpened until it felt like fire. Turning his head, he saw a mass of red and a stream of blood flowing from the chair across the floor.

Not quite cognizant, Talon held his trembling arm above his lap, watching blood drip onto his pants. Felsin returned with a gauze roll, hastily wrapping Talon’s arm, the white staining red with every loop of the cloth.

With an agonizing tug, Felsin fastened a tourniquet above his elbow. Talon found his voice. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I followed your evoker.”

Talon’s evoker? He stared at Felsin, not understanding.

“The mirage in the rain.” Felsin hastily explained. “From the inn.”

Right. Just before they had been separated, he and Des had seen its reflections on the floor. But it had not deigned to appear.

Felsin tensed as a guard ran down the hall and burst through the open door. Seeing the corpse on the floor and the intruder standing beside Talon, the man drew his axe, shouting for backup before brandishing his weapon in Felsin’s direction.

Felsin pushed Talon to the right before diving left, a moment before the axe struck a cot with a metallic clang. Talon’s body felt like it weighed several tons as he spilled across the stone floors. A ringing incessantly buzzed in his ears, concealing all other sounds.

Gritting his teeth, Talon tried to pull himself up, raising his head in time to see the armored man turning his attention on the defenseless idiot sprawled on the floor.

The axe swung above the guards’ steel helm, prepared to cleave Talon in half, but then his head snapped forward with a loud clang, and he froze.

His axe slipped from his loosened grip, and it clattered to the floor as he dropped to his knees and fell to his side, dazed or dead.

Felsin stood behind him, fist raised and covered in hardened rock that crumbled away as he shook his hand in pain. Racing to Talon’s side, he pulled him to his feet.

“You,” Talon panted, “Look like you’ve done that before.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Felsin wrapped one of Talon’s arms around his shoulder, supporting his weight. “Where’s Des?”

“She’s-” Talon paused, tasting sweet liquid and blood. “How do you know that name?”

“Where is she?” Felsin repeated, ignoring the question.

“The dungeons down the hall.” Talon wearily tilted his head, indicating the direction.

“Shit. That’s where the-”

An alarm bell resounded through the complex as shrieks and screams echoed from the direction of the workroom. Unsteady, Talon leaned down, yanking his hidden dagger from his boot.

“The entrance isn’t far,” Felsin said, pulling Talon to the door. “I’ll drop you off there.”

“I’m not leaving without Des.” Talon protested weakly.

“What help are you going to be? Should I throw you at my enemies?”

“I’m going.” Talon hissed through gritted teeth.

“And they say I’m stubborn,” Felsin muttered as he kicked the door open wide enough for them to pass through.

Reflective water appeared down the hall at the entrance to the workroom. And yet, Talon was strangely unafraid of the creature from the rains. A deluge had pounded around it, and calm waters had gathered at its feet. Tranquil, almost.

Their boots splashed through the unnatural liquid, ferrying them to the chaos beyond.

* * *

No ripples disturbed the mirror encasing the floor as Des flew past the worktables and dashed between the guards. A towering figure shrouded in tattered white cloth stood between her and the other halls; its glassy eyes following her.

The chaos served to her advantage. The stormborn men scattered in fear of the mirage, running in every direction, slamming into guards on their way out.

Phantom appendages snaked through the mirrored floor, bursting from the surface of the strange water to grab at the fleeing figures, yanking them back towards the creature.

One man crashed into Des, knocking her to the ground.

She scrambled to her feet, squeezing between two worktables as she veered right to avoid the mirage evoker.

Five paces remained between her and her destination. Des counted down with each pound of her feet, her body colliding with the heavy stone door as she shoved it open and slipped through moments before one of the phantom hands grabbed her ankle.

It latched onto her cloak instead, catching the fabric in the door as she slammed it behind her. Ripping her cloak, she freed herself from the door and whirled around, breathing heavily.

Four doors lined each side of this hall.

Des threw open each, finding a plain office in a couple and storage closets in others.

Only one room was occupied—a man sat behind one of the desks.

Hearing the commotion and Des’s thumping footsteps, he shot to his feet, confusion writ on his face.

Hoping to avoid him, Des dashed away, pausing before the only closed and locked door at the end of the hall.

Shit. She didn’t have time to pick this. A shout drew her attention to the man emerging from his office.

Acting without thinking, Des raced toward him and shoved her dagger against his neck. “Where are the keys?”

Blood trickled down the man’s beard as his hand flailed for his belt, pulling loose a key ring. Snatching it from him, Des pressed the dagger deeper into his skin.

“Where’s the other prisoner?”

“I don’t know.” The man swore.

Yanking the knife away from his skin, Des shoved him toward the exit and flew back to the locked room, unlocking it with a prayer.

A prayer that went unanswered. Talon was not here inside this cluttered office.

What would a songbird do? Cursing under her breath, Des kicked the door closed. They would not leave without information on their enemies.

Acutely aware of her time limit, Des quickly scanned the paperwork on the desk and the books lining the shelves.

Documentation. Accounts of the men working here, ledgers of their anmarite stash, amongst other numbers.

As she spun around to examine the desk, everything else in the room dulled and faded away.

A diagram lay across the desk, drawn by a talented hand—designs for a suit of armor.

A display case sat just behind it, no larger than a jewelry box. A plaque rested at its bottom, words carved into the bronze. ‘The Glass Angel’.