sweeping quietly and trying to look as boring and blank as possible. She glanced down each staircase and corridor as she came to it. There were no markings or signs anywhere, and all the other rooms looked the same to her.
As the excitement that had pushed her into the palace began to fade, she kept up a slow mantra in her head, repeating it over and over again.
It hadn’t occurred to her until she was inside and sweeping that there might not be any humans in the palace. All the residents could be wolves and black dogs. Her face flushed with fear. Some of the little snake- things, like the ones at the café, flew in lazy circles around the ceiling.
When she finally saw a man and woman walk by, Zoe let out a long breath. The perfume still seemed to be working. No one paid any attention to her, including the black dogs that roamed the place, pissing and shitting where they wanted, marking their territories as they went. Still, she had no idea where to go from here, and she knew she couldn’t keep sweeping this one room forever.
A few minutes later, three of Hecate’s wolf-headed enforcers came in and fell into deep conversation with two human men. The men were both large, like wrestlers on TV, and wore identical blue uniforms that looked vaguely like something you might think a cop or prison guard would wear if you hadn’t seen one in a hundred years. Their thick leather belts caught Zoe’s eye. Dangling from each belt was a set of heavy old-fashioned keys, the kind she’d seen in a dozens of old movies, whenever a princess was being held prisoner in a magic tower.
Soon the wolves and the two human men walked off in opposite directions. Still sweeping, Zoe followed the human guards into one of the room’s side tunnels. There was a spiral staircase carved from pink quartz that gave everything a faint reddish glow as she followed them down.
When she reached the bottom of the steps, the guards were gone. Human souls, wolf men, and black dogs roamed the corridor. Zoe wasn’t sure she could just turn around and go back up the stairs without someone noticing, so she started sweeping, hoping she’d catch sight of the guards.
She went into the nearest open room off the main corridor, and immediately wished she hadn’t. The room was too hot and it stank of something wet and rotten. The walls were made from large interlocking gray stones, like a massive jigsaw puzzle, and were covered in strange hieroglyphics. Giant black cobras, like the ones she’d seen in Hecate’s procession, slid quietly around a set of low stone enclosures filled with straw and large white eggs. Nests, thought Zoe.
A moment later, one of the eggs cracked open and a small hatchling, not much bigger than a pencil, wriggled out. It spread its wings and hissed and the big snakes hissed back. Another egg opened a moment later and another snake slithered out, wet and glistening. It was much larger than the first hatchling. As other eggs began to crack, it slid across the straw to the first young snake, reared back, exposing its fangs, and struck. Once, twice, three times, until the smaller snake lay dead. The large cobras twisted around the nests faster, hissing excitedly. More eggs opened and the scene repeated itself over and over. The larger hatchlings attacked the smaller ones and killed them. When all the smaller ones were dead, the young snakes began to feed. The black cobras reared up over the nests, hissing and tasting the air with their tongues. Proud parents, thought Zoe. She backed out of the room as quietly as she could.
She clutched the broom to her chest and went to the end of the corridor, hoping to find the guards. A group of wolf-men enforcers and human souls stood before a wall-size map of what she was sure was Iphigene. The humans pointed to spots on the map with wooden or rusted metal stumps of hands. Each time they did so, one of the wolves would mark it with an
“Hey, you.”
Zoe squinted at the map, trying to see if there were any marks on the beach near the drainpipe. Please don’t be following me already, she thought.
Someone grabbed her arm. Zoe looked up into a man’s face.
“You. Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
He wore an old uniform like the guards, but he didn’t have a belt and the insignia on the front was different.
“No. I’m sorry.”
“Never mind that. Clean up this mess over here.”
He led her to another room and pointed to a pile of clothes and shoes that filled the corner of the room.
“Gather these up and take them to the incinerator,” he said, and left.
Zoe leaned the broom against the wall and went to the clothes. Coats, dresses, and pants were scattered across the floor. Children’s clothes, glasses, and jewelry. Zoe didn’t know what to do, so she began sorting things into piles.
At the far end of the room was a big screen showing the image of a woman laughing. It looked almost like a music video at a club. The woman had dark coffee-colored skin and bright eyes. In front of the screen another woman was strapped to a chair. Wires ran from her head to a big brass device with spiderlike legs moving over a spinning platter. The machine reminded her of the Animagraph but was much larger. The woman screamed.
“Please. No. It’s mine. You have no right.”
This is it, she thought. This is where they make the records for the secret room of Emmett’s shop. Images of the woman’s life flashed on the screen as the machine transcribed them all.
A couple of men and a woman in white lab coats clustered around the brass machine, making tiny adjustments here and there.
“Queen Hecate will enjoy this one,” said the woman.
“A lovely specimen,” said one of the men.
The woman strapped to the chair cried quietly as every small moment of her life was transcribed onto the record.
The screen was dark now. Another body, covered in sweat, moved over the woman. Hands and lips caressed her. Memories of sex. The three technicians laughed.
“Please,” said the woman. “Let me have something for myself. I’m not chattel. I’m not here for your amusement.”
“Yes, you are, my dear,” said the taller of the two men.
Four more souls stood in a line against the wall. Three women and a man. At the front of the line was a girl not much older than Zoe. Over the collar of her shapeless overcoat, Zoe could see her wide brown eyes and bleached-blond hair. The girl was holding her hands over her mouth, as if stifling a scream. Zoe continued sorting the clothes.
Without warning, the blonde bolted from the line and ran for the exit. Before she’d gone six steps, a black hound leaped from the door and sank its jaws into her throat. Another dog followed and grabbed her legs. The girl screamed as the dogs tore into her. The other woman’s life, the life of the woman who was strapped to the chair, flashed by on the screen. She was eating cake and people were singing “Happy Birthday.” The song mixed with the blond girl’s screams. Zoe’s stomach churned. She wanted to throw up. She grabbed the broom and a handful of clothes and headed for the door.
Out in the corridor, she fell back against the wall. She wanted to curl up on the floor, close her eyes, and scream like the woman strapped to the chair. She wanted to throw up or to cry. Instead, she kept her head down and looked for a sign or mark, anything that might point to an exit.
Zoe heard a faint metallic jingling of keys. Turning, she saw the two guards she’d seen upstairs. They were going into a stairwell at the end of the corridor. Zoe held the clothes in front of her and followed them. The moment she was out of sight of the door, she dropped the clothes. She almost left the broom behind, but at the last second decided to keep it.
At the bottom of the stairs, rows of prison cells spread out as far as she could see in all directions. Most were empty, but the blood on the floor and red trails of slithering snake bodies made her wonder if the prisoners
