“Let me out, please! I can’t… I can’t breathe in here! I can’t be in here!” The air had gotten so thin, or my throat too narrow, and being trapped on all sides by this glass sent me into a downward spiral. The floor might’ve been solid, but I’d never felt less steady. Tears streamed down my cheeks and I beat the glass until my knuckles turned raw red, the first hint of mauve and vermilion bruises blooming beneath. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I was being treated as if I were a criminal who deserved to have the key thrown away.
I looked at Tobe, my last hope, through blurred eyes. “Tobe, you’ve got to set me free! I’m not a beast. I don’t belong here. Tobe!”
Please… He bowed his head and ruffled his wings, and I swore I saw a golden tear drop from his eye and splash onto the dark, silver-veined marble below. It spattered oddly, the tiny particles glittering like specks of diamond dust.
My mom finally turned her steely gaze on me, and I saw tears swimming in her eyes, too. “Quiet now, Persie.”
“You’ve put me in a cage!” I sobbed, my lungs swelling with heartache. “Please, Mom. I don’t understand…”
She stared unflinchingly, unmoved by my pleas. “This is for the best—for your sake, and for everyone else’s.”
“Mom!” I yelled, thundering on the glass with everything I had left. She hadn’t even given me a chance to get things under control.
“It’s already decided.” My mom turned her back on me, and the others followed suit. They headed toward the exit, their cloaks dragging along the ground. Glinting streaks of something dark and sticky followed them, and in the dim glow of the hall’s faint lights, it shone with a hint of scarlet. It was only then that I realized which hall we were in.
In a final, futile attempt to get them to turn around, I screamed until my throat felt raw, streaks of blood now smearing the glass. Once they left, I knew what would come. I could already feel his presence.
Leviathan…
No sooner had I thought his name than black smoke began to swirl in the corners of the box. A chill ran the length of my spine, as though someone had dropped a snowball down my collar. The hall grew darker as I blinked away tears, not wanting the salty sting to steal my vision. But it wasn’t the tears obscuring my view… The darkness was coming from inside the box itself, the shadowy mist becoming denser. And with it came more of the bitter iciness that heralded Leviathan’s arrival, prickling my skin until I was covered in goosebumps.
I have to get out! I have to get out! I tried to rake in a deep breath, but it was as if I’d forgotten the simple mechanics of inhaling and exhaling. All the while, the glass walls closed in on me and the black smoke shrank the box until claustrophobia claimed me. Frantic beyond sense and reason, I kept banging on the glass long after everyone had gone. Everyone, that is, except for a small ball of white fluff that sat watching at a distance with curious black eyes. I blinked, wondering if it was here to help, but then… it left me, too, vanishing into thin air.
“Please… don’t leave me alone. Please.” My knees buckled and I sank to the cold floor, my head hanging low. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Neither did we,” said that deep, musical voice, seeping through the encroaching shadows. “Would you call a satyr a criminal? Would you clap a griffin in irons for daring to live?”
“No, but—” I tried to argue, but he cut me off.
“But… you are human? Is that what you were going to say?”
I felt the caress of a misty tendril against my neck and jolted away. He didn’t get to touch me like that. He didn’t get to touch me at all.
I bent over until my head was practically on my knees, trying to make everything else disappear so I could breathe again. “I don’t want to talk about this now.” My head raised ever so slightly, and my hand touched the pane. “They… left me.”
“You do not need them. You do not need any of them. They are a hindrance to you, nothing more.” His wispy tendrils brushed my arms, but I had nowhere to run. “You will be their queen someday. There will be no glass boxes strong enough to hold you. You will smash them all.”
I covered my ears with my hands. “No! Shut up!”
Leviathan’s smoke grew thicker around me, the vise closing on my lungs. I needed air. I needed freedom.
“I just want to get out. I have to!”
A loud bang pierced the air, as though someone were rapping on the glass. My head snapped up as the hall, the box, and Leviathan evaporated, leaving me sitting bolt upright in my single, spartan bed at the Basani Institute. Sweat drenched my pajamas. The coarse sheets had twisted around me like a python, and, when I looked down, I noticed that my knuckles were mottled with fresh purples and crimsons. The bang echoed through the room again, more insistent this time. With a wave of relief, I realized it was coming from my door.
I untangled myself from the sheets and lumbered out of bed. As rooms went, this one was the epitome of uniform, devoid of any personality. The curved stone roof made it look like a tunnel that had been cut in half. It made me feel like I was in a cellar, but the circular window brought in the outside world and some much-needed sunlight—whenever the gray
