Page 4 of Unraveled (A Kingdom of Beasts and Ruins #1)

I follow Irene and Skylar through a mazelike series of long corridors. My breath stutters out of me as I cross my arms to shield my body from the surrounding cold.

The building trembles once again, and I fear it’ll collapse at any moment. What kind of magic does the beast possess to take down a magical structure like the veil?

Steam clouds my vision as we step inside the machine room. Based on everyone’s sweaty faces, I expect it to be a furnace, but it’s even colder than out in the streets.

There’s a distinct ticking, like a clock, somewhere in the background.

Tick, tick, tick.

The team hustles around us, distracted by their own tasks. They wear similar clothing to my sister and Skylar, simple brown woolen trousers and white shirts. A few have masks over their faces, made of brass and aged leather.

I’m speechless. Not at their strange getups or the building so massive it could rival the library. But at the feeling of... death, lingering in this place.

Cold. Slimy. Unwelcome and wrong.

“The beast is gone.” A woman’s shout breaks through the loud hissing of steam. I can’t place her with my limited vision of the crew, nor can I see the infamous machine.

“Maybe he gave up and is searching for a victim instead?” another person says, rushing out of the mist while their eyes scan the wooden crates next to me.

The steam thins, and now, I can see a pyramid made of bronze that looms over every inch of the room.

Different-sized panels cover the entire geometric shape, along with gears that click a mechanical rhythm.

Around it, walkways wide enough to fit a person wrap the pyramid’s body, and a scientist tightens a tube caked in a viscous substance to the wall.

I blink and shift my gaze to another using a pulley to haul a sack of clinking metal parts over the side of the pyramid. This is not what I thought it would be.

I pause just before I step in a pool of liquid that’s run off from a hose nearby, and wrinkle my nose at the dark color. Burgundy, maybe even purple, and smelling of rotten meat.

“Don’t stop working to fix whatever that monster destroyed.

We haven’t seen the last of it. I fear it knows what we have here.

I’m not sure how, but we have to stop it before it succeeds at ripping apart what’s left of the veil.

For our people,” Skylar says from the entrance of the room.

He tucks a strand of golden hair behind his ear, his dark brown eyes fix on me, and my stomach hollows.

He’s speaking to me, maybe sensing I’m on the edge of backing away from this madness. His scrutiny is intense and makes me squirm. I reach for the hood of my cloak and pull it forward farther so it covers my face in its entirety.

A ray of light stutters and then shoots into the sky from the pyramid’s point, blinding me as I look through the glass dome over us.

The hair of my arms stands on end, lifted by static. Then, the scent hits me like a wall of decay, burned hair, and alcohol.

I search the room for the source and find a man in a jumpsuit using leather straps to pull a dead person out of a bronze chamber connected to the pyramid. I stumble back and crash into a broad, warm body.

“Easy there,” Skylar whispers against my ear, his hands steadying my floundering steps. His touch is hot like coals on fire, and when I try to move out of his grasp, he tightens his hold.

I’m too distracted to ask him to release me. All I can focus on is the body’s gray skin pulling into the crevices between ribs and wrapping tightly over the thick bones of kneecaps.

“W-what are you doing here?” I gasp and shove him away as horror settles in the pit of my stomach. A bitter taste drenches my palate and my lips quiver.

“We’re protecting our people, which is more than I can say for you, librarian...” Skylar moves past me, gesturing at the body. A bald, ratlike face. Bone structure that’s more angular than a human. Its blank eyes stare at nothing, red irises hazed by death.

Not the corpse of a person, but a beast. Somehow, I don’t feel better about it.

“Mia, are you alright?” Irene says, with the same placating tone Mother used when we were upset as children. Whatever she’s trying to accomplish, it only disturbs me further.

Who could be okay with this? How can all these people be so casual around a dead being? I gag, in spite of my empty stomach, but calm my body before I’m sick over my only good pair of boots.

“Nevan, we have company. Get that thing out of sight.”

The man drops the dead beast from the leather strappings.

He glances in our direction warily, wiping the sweat that drips from his bald head, before he rushes to pull out a large canvas sheet and drape it over the body.

As if that makes everything better. I look away so I don’t fixate on the dark spots already staining the fabric.

How many times have they done this, hidden a corpse from a visitor?

“I was upset the first time I saw a dead monster as well.” Irene walks into my line of sight with a tentative smile. She mistakes my horror, and seems to believe it’s at seeing a corpse.

Why is there a beast in the middle of town? Why were they keeping it in that chamber?

I cover my lips and wheeze.

“I assume this is the first time you’ve encountered a beast?” Skylar shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks from the balls of his feet to his heels and back. It’s a carefree movement that doesn’t match his calculating expression.

Of course it’s not, though I’m usually safe inside my home when they break through the veil. My blood turns cold, and I shiver when my mind supplies me with the screech of the beasts as they hunt the streets.

“It’s not that,” Irene says. “Mia has a soft spot for animals...”

My hackles rise, and I’m not even sure why I’m feeling defensive. Both things can be true. I like animals, and I also believe in our survival. “They are predators, but so are we, and many other creatures out in the world.”

I always wondered what goes on in this room, what the machine is like. But now that I’m here, the only thing I can focus on is the body abandoned in the corner, with a dirty tarp on top of it.

“The one that killed our father looked like that one.” Irene’s voice has me jumping where I stand.

I glance back at her with growing unease.

She would know as they were together when it happened.

It’s hard to forget my father’s blood stained the sidewalk for weeks before I gathered enough courage to wash it away.

“I just— I can’t believe you have a dead being here.”

“Beast. Call it what it is. It helps. You’re human and feel empathy.

It’s why it’s shocking to see them dead for the first time.

But remember, they aren’t like us or even like other animals in the forest.” Irene’s voice trembles as she points in the direction of the forest outside, and the voices in the room grow quiet.

“They’re despicable and evil. They take us from our homes.

Sometimes they gut us in the streets and don’t even eat us. ”

“What are you doing with them? Does the mayor know what’s happening here?”

“Of course she does. She funds our initiative, as it’s the only thing keeping us safe from the Hunt,” Skylar says. “To simplify it so you can understand, the machine gathers their core energy and uses it to keep the veil running.”

I purse my lips to hold back an insult. I might not be a scientist, but I’m not an idiot, either. “So you use the beast’s magic. I can understand how that works.” Probably better than they can, for I can use magic when neither of them can.

It makes sense, and yet, I’m not fully buying the goodness of their intentions.

“Do they feel it?” I ask, because torture isn’t something I could ever agree with, no matter how horrible the one receiving it is. “Are they alive when the machine is... using them?”

Irene opens her mouth, but Skylar beats her to it. “It takes their energy. Like the nectar from a flower, and we are the bees.”

“You aren’t answering my question.”

“We aren’t the animals here.” Skylar’s smile is pleasant enough.

His straight teeth and handsome face have Irene under a spell.

He straps a handheld crossbow the size of my two palms to his belt.

The polished-redwood and aged-brass details on the handle stand in contrast to the black grease smeared on his fingertips.

I’m not sure I believe them, which is not good as I need confidence in them if I’m going to use magic against the powerful monster ripping our veil to shreds.

The building trembles again as the machine sputters.

When the building shook before, I assumed it was the beast’s doing.

A scientist rushes to replace one vial with a new one.

It’s a long bottle, filled to the brim with a thick, glowing golden liquid that sloshes against the glass.

As soon as it glides into place, the ray of light shooting from the top of the pyramid renews, bright and vigorous.

Even though I can’t see it, I can feel the veil growing stronger.

How often do the scientists go into the forest to hunt for beasts to feed this machine?

Does the veil weaken every time they change bodies in the chamber, allowing a beast in?

Or do the beasts break through regardless, like the flying one did earlier, but on a much smaller scale?

It’s been a year since a beast crossed the veil—or so we’ve been told. I remember the night Father was killed like it happened yesterday. But how many truly cross every three months during the blood moon? That corpse isn’t a year old.

“We are going to the west tower, so we are close, but hidden. When the monster comes back to attack the dome again, you can cast your spell to kill it.”

“I won’t do anything unless you answer my questions.” I point toward the forgotten corpse in the corner. “Was it conscious? Had it hurt anyone before you captured it?”

“It’s nothing you need to concern your pretty head with, darling.

” Skylar’s voice is all politeness, but his flaring nostrils reveal a horrible temper.

“We don’t have time for this, but I promise after we’re done, I will answer all your questions.

Otherwise, how will the people of Penumbra feel when they find out you could have saved their children but instead allowed the veil to fall? ”

It’s official. I don’t trust this man. His condescending words might be worse than the way he stares at me.

“I don’t care about opinions. Librarians have our own set of laws to abide by.

I’ve already said hurting the beast will break one of those laws.

I was ready to do so if it meant saving Irene, but after what I’ve seen here. .. I require more of an explanation.”

“We follow the laws,” Skylar agrees, and a pit settles in my stomach at the wicked glint in his gaze. “Which is why I might need to report you to the head librarian. Using magic to break into the scientist quarters goes against your laws, too, doesn’t it?”

Even Irene stops breathing as we stare at each other in silence.

“Skylar...” Irene speaks, but stops when he raises a hand.

“The mayor and her council know we need the energy of a magical beast to maintain the veil. Their own essence repels them. We capture them during the blood moon, before they can take any of our citizens to be killed.” Skylar gestures to the corpse.

“That one tried to take a six-year-old girl with it a few months ago. We barely made it in time to save the child.”

I turn to my sister, who nods, and the corners of her lips dip into a grimace. “It’s true, I was there.” She reaches for me, her small hand grasping my shoulder. “Do you remember that our father, who was a good man, helped create this machine?”

I can’t breathe as his face flashes in my mind. Then I remember how my fingers cracked open as I struggled to clean his blood from the concrete.

“If you help us, Mia, then you’re here with a formal invitation, which makes your previous... mishap a necessity for the greater good.”

I always defend the scientists to everyone who doubts their worth.

My father was a scientist, and my sister still is.

Yet here I am, refusing to help the only way I can when it truly matters.

But my respect for their work only goes so far, especially now that Skylar’s laid this threat in front of me.

Even if their intentions are for the good of the people, I’m being forced to perform. Or else.

“I won’t kill the beast,” I warn.

“It’s alright, Mia. You just have to help us stop him from destroying the veil. That’s all.” Irene’s smile eases some of my wariness.

Will I be able to cast a spell strong enough to put the beast to sleep? I hope so.

As the dead creature is being dragged away, its feet catch on a hose on the floor. The tarp slides and reveals part of its leg. Instead of the familiarity of a human foot, there are claws in its place.

It shouldn’t matter that they aren’t human, I should want to protect their lives regardless, but it matters tonight. I have to choose between them or us, and the choice is easy. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

Irene beams at me, and I wish I could match her enthusiasm.

“Great,” Skylar says. “I brought you to the machine room, so you could see for yourself what goes on here. We aren’t ashamed of what we do.”

“For our father,” Irene whispers to me, and I nod, the weight lifting from my chest.

Hate doesn’t have a place in the life of those who wield the borrowed power of the grimoires.

But knowledge sometimes breaks even our most deeply embedded promises.

They took my father, who was kind and the rock in my world after my mother disappeared.

He didn’t deserve to go the way he did.

.. and neither did the 120 other Penumbrians who’ve been taken by the beasts even with the veil’s protection.

I’m ready for my revenge.