Because of the grimoire’s spell that depleted our magic outside the city walls, Orion’s magic had no longer worked in the dungeons. If it had, he’d have blown the entire fucking place apart and ripped off the king’s head centuries ago.
Down here, I was in the liminal space between the world of the mortals and that of the demons—a place where magic would fade after a few days. In the dungeons, Orion had been as vulnerable as a mortal but deprived of the mercy of death. If he got his fingers on the grimoire to reverse the spell, he’d never have to fear that kind of helplessness again.
It took me about twenty minutes of wandering aimlessly with a little fire burning in my palm before I found the dungeon itself. It was the scent of burnt flesh that eventually led me to the right place, a miasma of death pulling me forward.
The iron gate was open to the row of cells. When I stepped inside, the orange light from my hand wavered back and forth over rows of cells lining either side of a dark stone corridor. I hadn’t seen most of this dungeon when I’d first come into the City of Thorns.
But as I walked further, I saw a large hall jutting off from the central corridor. Firelight wavered over, blackened with time and glistening with moisture. Here in the hall, an old, threadbare noose hung from a gallows. It swung gently back and forth—which was very eerie, considering there was no wind in here. The sight of it made my heart clench. I could almost feel the sadness emanating from it.
This was the execution room. The Puritans loved a good public execution, but no one knew the Lilu were kept alive down here, so they were killed in secret.
It didn’t take me long to find the fresh bodies whose scent had drawn me here—or rather, the two piles of ash on the floor. The smell of blood faintly lingered in the air, too.
In the light of my flames, something metallic flashed on one of the piles of ash. I leaned down to brush some of the cinders away. When I did, I found a silver pin shaped like a hammer. The symbol of the Malleus Daemoniorum.
Orion had incinerated them, but I’d done the same when the congressman threatened my life. We all did what we had to in order to protect those we loved. Sometimes, it meant killing. And sometimes—in my mom’s case—it meant dying.
With the light wavering over dark stone walls, I found my way back to the cell at the end of the row. This was the place where I’d first woken up in the City of Thorns, where I’d stood when Orion had tasted my blood.
The cell’s walls crawled with ivy, and my throat tightened with emotion as I thought of Orion in here as a little silver-haired, blue-eyed boy. Holding up my palm of light, I found the carving in the wall. I leaned down, brushing aside the vines. Before, I’d only had my fingertips to feel the contours, but now, I could very faintly see the full text.
Luciferi— The i was faded and worn at the end. I ripped aside the rest of the vines to reveal the rest: —urbem spinarum liberabunt.
Just like Orion had said: The Lightbringers will set free the City of Thorns.
My chest warmed as I thought of his mom carving this. I felt an overwhelming urge to protect the boy who’d once been in here, carving the little queen in my pocket, but he was long gone.
A heavy sense of sadness hung in the air, a chilled mist that clung to the stones.
Right before she was killed, the guards moved me to a different cell by myself.
I crossed into the corridor again, sorrow twining with curiosity. From cell to cell, I scanned the stones, looking for something that would show me where he’d lived for all that time. On a few of the other walls, I found carvings, but nothing that could clearly be connected to him. Disturbingly, some of the carvings looked like claw marks.
About halfway down the row of cells, I went still. Through a tiny crack in the stone wall, a pinprick of light shone near the ceiling. It looked familiar somehow, the exact image of it seared on my heart. I’d seen that little crack before.
Under it, the warm light of my fire illuminated elaborate carvings in the dark stone walls.
My breath went still when I saw what he’d marked in the stone—three queens with spiked heads like crowns. He’d carved them three times, the markings violent and desperate, like the little Orion was trying to bring her back to life through the rock.
After the three queens, some of the carvings became more sophisticated. He’d rendered the Asmodean clocktower, frozen in time at six, the way it looked now. He’d carved a snake that seemed to writhe back and forth in the guttering light of my fire. Odd, given his terror of snakes.
There was the word Vindicta—revenge—carved with what looked like thorns jutting from the letters’ curls. And next to that, the carvings reminded me of the old Puritan gravestones—the skulls and crossbones, the words Memento Mori—Fugit Hora.