by Cora May
Chanta nodded. That was the progress she wanted to hear—not how beautiful she had become since arriving at the school, but the fact that Fenneck could definitely hear what was going on. She had a few small questions to ask of Douglass, and she knew it might unfairly push him to the edge. She knew he wouldn’t be able to answer her, but what was inside his mind, she needed to see.
“Douglass Larr,” she said. “That is your name, isn’t it?”
Douglass’s eyes opened wider, a small gasp escaping his mouth.
“It’s been a long time since he’s heard that name,” Fenneck explained. “He’s not used to it.”
Chanta nodded.
“What do they do to Douglass Larr in this room?” she asked.
It was another few moments before Fenneck could answer. When he did, his voice got dark.
“They whisper to him,” Fenneck said. “The Anam. The tell him to do things, and then the teachers hurt him. He doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t know what they’re actually doing, and I can’t figure it out from his thoughts. But he’s scared, whenever someone comes in. Sometimes they take him away, to a different room. They make him do things… Provoke him. It seems like… Like they have learned how to control the Anam through him.”
“Who are ‘they’?” she asked.
Fenneck paused for a beat.
“Too many faces. Prisanni, a demon head, you, Creggor, Nessi, a few I don’t even recognize. He doesn’t have names for any of them, just Larr. He knows who Larr is. He knows every Larr. He has taken note. You’re not one he’s going to forget.”
“Who is Larr?” she asked.
Douglass answered that one without the help of Fenneck.
“Daddy,” he said. “Daddy loves me. He tells me. Daddy is Larr. Douglass is Larr. Chanta is Larr. Daddy loves me. Daddy loves Chanta.”
“Loves,” Chanta repeated. She didn’t like the sound of the word. She didn’t like how close it sounded. She didn’t like that it was attached to her, too, as if her father was alive and speaking about her to his son.
Fenneck didn’t like it, either.
“Chanta, he talks to him,” he said, fear in his words. “He talks to Larr every day. It’s the voice that whispers to him. It’s the Anam that whispers to him. Does he talk to you, too?”
“No,” Chanta whispered, moving her mouth away from the door so that Douglass didn’t hear her. “I have never heard them. None of them, especially not… Especially not my father.”
“Donlarr,” Fenneck mumbled. “Don Larr. That’s the name he went by when he came down to our Realm. Douglass has seen him. Not just in his mind, not just in his essence, but he has actually seen the demon. Face to face and in person. That is what made him crazy that day. That’s what made him snap. He killed two students that day. Donlarr did, not Douglass, but Douglass got blamed. He didn’t have anything to fight the allegation. Nothing except that a demon father had done it. He lost his mind trying to explain it, lost his mind because his father wouldn’t let go of it.
“It doesn’t matter, anyway. He was always going to take the blame for it because the headmistress and all the heads of houses couldn’t explain it away. Donlarr knew that. Chanta,” Fenneck said carefully, “half of Douglass’ mind is in the Realm of Darkness every minute. Donlarr knows you’re here. He’s been expecting you; he has told Douglass as much. You’re in danger.”
It wasn’t a danger that the Anam she commanded could save her from, she knew. The Obsidian stone existed because of Donlarr and none other. He would not have bred so many times if he knew there was a way it could backfire on him.
“He’s present, then,” Chanta stated. “Isn’t he? He knows we’re listening now, doesn’t he?”
Fenneck searched Douglass’ mind for a few seconds before he answered that question.
“I don’t think so,” he told her. “He doesn’t come as often as he used to, Douglass thinks. It gets lonely. His father is the only one who tells him he loves him. To Douglass, that makes him a good father, even though we both know he’s lying. So he’s sad. Especially lately, he had gotten very sad. It’s like his dad has abandoned him completely. He keeps waiting for him to come back, but he hasn’t heard from him for days.”
Chanta let that sink in. Donlarr was there, sure. He had access to Douglass, and therefore he probably had access to her, too. But he wasn’t there now. He wasn’t listening to this conversation in particular.
She wished she hadn’t said Fenneck’s name out loud. He had stayed away from the door, out of Douglass’ eyesight, but Douglass had his name. She could safely assume that anything her half-brother had would go straight back to Donlarr.
“Chanta, there’s one more thing,” Fenneck told her. His voice had gone hoarse. His eyes were trained on the door, concentrating on the mind behind it. His eyes widened, even though one of them was already swelling up pretty big.
“What is it?” she asked him. Fear was already pounding in her heart as his terror echoed in her mind.
“He’s not alone,” Fenneck answered quietly. “Donlarr has… He has a wife.”
If he had a wife, that meant that Chanta had a stepmother. The thought sat uncomfortably in her head. She hadn’t even fully adapted to the fact that Donlarr was her father, though she had known it before coming to the basement. Now she had even more family she was unaware of, and family that Douglass had apparently been introduced to. That was the only way Fenneck would have known that specific information.
“She’s not human,” he said slowly. “She’s not Anam, either. She’s something else entirely. Something in-between, Douglass thinks. And… And she works here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: BRINZIEL
D onlarr had come back. It wasn’t long at all. Maybe a few days, if Brin was keeping track of time well enough. So, Willa had lasted a few days. It only took Sorenna a few minutes to convince him to take Brin.
From the moment she had seen the fear in Willa’s eyes to the moment Donlarr had chosen her, Brin could not stop imagining all the horrific things he would do to her.
It was worse. It was so much worse. Brin thought she was surely just inches away from death now. She struggled against the pain to take a breath in.
The other girls were long gone. She was certain they hadn’t died, because the Anam weren’t supposed to be able to die. They were sent here for the sole purpose of suffering, so why would they be allowed to die at all? Yet, she was alone in the small cave that Donlarr called his home. Well, with the exception of Donlarr himself, of course.
He had beat her. He had tortured her. He liked to use knives, telling her that it had been too long since he had seen blood spilled—actual blood, not the sticky blue substance that sludged through the veins of the Anam. So he had taken his time with each laceration, getting deeper and deeper each time. She had screamed out. She had pled with him to stop. She had even begged him to kill her. That was a long time ago. She wasn’t sure how long, but it was a while. He had eventually stopped and left her lying ragged and broken on the ground.
That was where she was now, struggling to breathe. She couldn’t even see straight. She wasn’t sure why—was it when she hit her head against the cave wall in one of her instinctual fights against him? Or had he damaged her eyes and she hadn’t even noticed—or remembered? Or was the pain just so much that her brain was eager to shut off?
Her brain was very much eager to shut off, that much she could tell. She was struggling against sleep. Although it would be very much easier for her to be asleep during all of the torture, she knew she was there for a reason. She had fought for this, hadn’t she? It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? She was trying to remember what had made her want to go with this Anam, instead of staying with the nice Anam men that Sorenna had brought in to play with her.
That’s when the hooded figure walked in. Her blurry vision could not make out much, but she could see a figure cloaked in gray. The figure stopped short when it saw her, lying on the ground. Brin could hear a faint gasp come
out from the lips of the stranger.
Donlarr had come out to greet the guest.
“Do not mind her,” he told the figure. “It is only another one of my playthings.”
The figures gaze did not leave Brin, though. After a moment, the figure spoke again. It was the voice of a female that spoke.
“This one is human,” she said quietly, as if someone else was going to catch her there. Even quieter, she added, “She is one of the students.”
Donlarr looked back and forth between the figure and Brin.
“Is she one of our students?” he asked, worry coming into his voice for the first time since she had known him. “Because I didn’t know. I found her with Sorenna.”
“No,” the figure said. “Not one of ours, but human. You can’t kill her.”
“I’ve killed many humans before,” Donlarr said, his voice once more relaxed as he announced his murderous streak nonchalantly. “I was very good at it in my old life. Do you want me to spare this one? Is that what you’re asking? You, who have come to me with the plan to kill my kind?”
The figure didn’t respond right away. She was obviously weighing the pros and cons of what she was asking.
It was long enough for Brin to figure out that she was exactly where she needed to be. These were the beings responsible for the Anam Hunters.
“I suppose one lost human soul won’t change the balance of anything,” the figure finally said.
It took Brin a moment, but she realized what had just happened. Her life had been surrendered, and by someone who lived in the castle.
“Is it safe to discuss these things in front of her?”
“Huff,” Donlarr said, turning away from the hooded figure and walking toward the back of the cave. He began wiping his knife off on the walls. “If safety is what you’re looking for,” he told her, “perhaps you should never have come to me.”
“Don’t act like you didn’t want this just as much as I did,” she told him cynically. “You were all too eager to join my cause. You already had a plan lined up; you just needed my resources to carry it out.”
Donlarr chuckled.
“Perhaps,” he said. “Nevertheless, you must abandon your want for security. There is no such thing when you want the Realms for yourself.”
“Will you do away with her?” the figure asked. “I… know her.”
Donlarr thought about that for a moment.
“Would you like me to?”
“I…”
But the figure had no words. Brin had a feeling she couldn’t decide between guilt and her so-called security. Donlarr must have picked up on it, too.
“That’s exactly what I thought,” he said. “Why don’t you stop worrying about her and let me do my business?”
“Fine,” the figure said. “Let’s just get to work, then.”
Brin squinted, trying to clear her vision. She was desperate to identify the figure. Who was working with Donlarr in the human world? And how was she getting through to this Realm?
“Fine,” Donlarr said. “Make the portal.”
“Are you sure the Hunters are in order?”
“I seem to be missing a couple,” he admitted in a way that made Brin question whether or not it was a big deal. “The Reaper must have collected them since our last trip. Or maybe they just didn’t make it back from the last trip at all.”
Again, the words came off callous and uncaring. Brin felt his ego in the air.
The figure, on the other hand, let out a gasp so small, Brin almost missed it.
“Those are students,” she said. “Where are they? They need to be accounted for. Why have you not held up your end of the bargain? You let them go!”
“Calm down,” Donlarr told her. “Humans disappear all the time. If they’re not having a funeral for the missing ones already, they will soon enough.”
“They’re already searching for this one,” the figure waved at Brin. “They’ve already finished searching the castle, I’m sure they’re going to reach out to the Anam before long. I can’t afford to have too much attention drawn to the school. It could lead to me somehow.”
“You’re going to have to figure that one out on your own,” Donlarr said before moving on to a new subject, disregarding her concerns completely. “Now, can you make the portal or not? I haven’t got all day, you know.”
Brin was beginning to understand just how low his value of human life—or even Anam life outside of his own—truly was. What happened in the figure’s Realm didn’t have any effect on him whatsoever, so why should he care?
“Oh, wait,” he said, a thought suddenly occurring to him. “I guess I do have all day, don’t I? Because time does not move here. My life remains unmoved and unchanging unless I do something to change it. That is what we were doing, was it not? You best not be backing out of our plan, human bitch. You don’t want my wrath. Is that what you’re doing?”
“Of course not,” the figure said with vehemence. “Would I have come at all if I were?”
“Make the portal,” he told her.
Brin really wanted to know what the figure’s reasoning for coming to him was. Clearly, though, that had already been said, and she wouldn’t know. She also really wanted to know who she was still. What was wrong with her eyes? Would she ever see clearly again?
“Fine,” the figure said.
Brin watched as whoever it was turned her back to both her and Donlarr and looked into the empty space in front of her. She folded her arms together, deep in concentration. After a few moments, she began to wave her arms about, and in front of her motions, a small light began to form. It grew bigger and bigger until it was as tall as the figure herself was.
When she was done, she turned to Donlarr.
“Do you have everything else ready?”
“Have I ever let you down before?”
“Well,” the figure began sarcastically. “There was that time five minutes ago when you told me you lost some of the students. Remember that? So yes, I would say you have.”
Donlarr chuckled dryly.
“You’re far too sensitive, my dear. Why don’t you summon them now?”
Brin could see the attitude rolling off of the blurry figure as she turned toward the portal once more. Brin wasn’t able to make out what she was doing, but it seemed to take the utmost concentration. After a few moments, the portal began to morph in the middle—like it was sucking something in.
Then it began to spit things out.
Human beings. It was spitting out human beings, she realized. She recognized the colors of a boy in his pajamas. Then another boy. And a girl. Another boy.
The next boy that came out looked familiar for some reason—more than just the fact that he was wearing school colors. In fact, the first thing that caught her attention through the blur in her eyes was the rip he had in those school colored pajamas. There was a pretty olive-colored skin tone that showed through the rip that went from his upper thigh to his knee.
Brin thought of the rip her boyfriend had had in his pants from the year before when he and his roommate got into a fistfight on the bunk bed and his pants caught on a loose piece of wood. What were the chances that another boy had the same rip—and same skin tone—as Jace?
“Murderers,” Donlarr purred as each kid came out of the portal. “My murderers.”
That couldn’t be Jace. Absolutely not. He would never be working with one of the Dorcha. Nor would he ever, ever do anything to be deemed worthy of being called a murderer. He had been one of the only other fellow vegetarians in the school, in fact. There was no way he would be here now. It was not him.
But something about it couldn’t quite convince her that her boyfriend was innocent. Something about this boy’s posture, even through the blurriness, would not let her believe that it wasn’t him. It was all just too familiar to be anyone else.
No, Brin thought stubbornly, still staring at the blurry figure of her boyfriend.
He looked over at her just then, as i
f noticing her for the first time. Had she said it out loud, then? Her mind was so foggy, she couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter, though—she had his attention.
He looked away.
She didn’t have the chance to think about what to say. She didn’t even have the chance to utter another ‘no.’ How could he see his girlfriend, crumpled in pain on the ground of the Realm of the Dark and just look away? It was as if he hadn’t recognized her at all.
She wondered if she looked that bad that he truly couldn’t even recognize her as his own girlfriend. Her face felt pretty bad, but if she was being honest, not as bad as the rest of her did. She knew there were a few cuts and scrapes, but most of her face was still intact enough that he had to be able to recognize her.
Even if he really couldn’t recognize her, she did not look like an Anam. That much she knew for sure. She had no horns, nor did she have the hooved feet, and she most certainly lacked the height and overall build of an Anam Dorcha. Her body, no matter how twisted and crumpled it might have been, could not possibly look anything but human. Jace would never have looked away from a suffering human, especially one that was trapped in the Realm of the Dark.
That could not have been Jace.
She would just keep telling herself that.
Donlarr was still purring over the students as they came pouring through. There were nine in all, and once all nine were through, he turned away from the portal and to the back of the cave. The nine were lined up in almost a military formation. They stood straight, hands at their sides, standing attentive to Donlarr, in three rows. The back two rows had four students in them, but the first row had just one single student standing on the far right of the formation. Brin got the sense that it was incomplete. Were they really missing three students?
