That would probably sound ominous, if anything that happened to me now could be said to be more ominous than anything else. I was dragged back outside—making me wonder if it was considered impolite to open a portal inside a building or something. Maybe there were official portal zones that you had to use?
Whatever the case, Shaky Portal-Making Guy threw a new one up in the courtyard behind the Recorder’s building. A moment later, he and my captor took me through it. When we stepped out, I staggered a bit, looking around in surprise. Silly me, I’d assumed the incarceration area would be some variant on Albigard’s creepy basement cells.
Wow, had I been wrong.
We were in... something that looked an awful lot like the inside of a giant redwood tree that had been hollowed out, as crazy as that sounded. The area was more or less circular, maybe seven or eight feet in diameter, and surrounded by rough walls. Only they weren’t really walls, as such. It was simply a hollow tree trunk made of unfinished, unaltered, living wood with no doors, windows, or other openings. The floor was packed dirt with twisted tree roots poking up through the surface here and there. There was a small hole dug near the edge, and the hole stank so badly of stale urine and feces that I nearly gagged.
I whirled around, taking it all in, and claustrophobia prickled at the edges of my mind. Then I craned my head up, trying to see where the light was coming from, and immediately grew dizzy. The walls... the tree... rose far above my head. Like, dozens of feet above my head, at a minimum. It looked completely unclimbable, with no hand or footholds that I could see. The illumination filtering in from the top appeared to be natural daylight.
“No,” I said a bit desperately as the reality of what was happening set in. “Please... don’t leave me in here.”
The guard who had been holding onto me gave me a shove, sending me crashing against the unforgiving wood of what was to become my living prison. He and Shaky Portal-Making Guy stepped back through the hazy ring hovering in the air. I pushed away from the wall and tried to lunge after them, but the portal snapped shut before I could reach it. All I succeeded in doing was staggering to a halt against the other side of the tree.
“Shit!” I yelled. The sound echoed hollowly around me.
I tried to quiet my uneven breathing. I was okay. No one had hurt me, unless you counted the bruise where my shoulder had hit the inside of the tree. I needed to slow down and assess things without panicking.
The hole in the floor was meant as a primitive latrine, judging by the stench. A pile of objects lay on the floor, directly across from the shit pit. I’d barely noticed them sitting there during my brief flirtation with hysteria. I approached the pile and crouched, examining the items in the uncertain light filtering down from above.
There was a blanket, along with clean clothes that looked to be roughly the right size to fit me. On top of the pile of folded cloth was a loaf of crusty bread wrapped in thin paper and what looked like a hollow gourd with a cork stopper in the top. There was liquid sloshing inside. I uncorked it and took a sniff. It was odorless, so I stuck my finger inside. Plain water, I was pretty sure.
And that made sense, I supposed. Weren’t bread and water supposed to be the standard prisoner rations? I was both hungry and thirsty at this point, too. My last drink had been after the self-defense training with Rans yesterday afternoon, and my last food had been an apple and a banana not much later. I winced at the reminder of the vampire I’d left behind, making an effort to put him out of my mind.
My fingers itched to lift the water to my lips, but memory stopped me. Doesn’t your generation read fairy tales anymore? I mean, is it seriously not common knowledge that you don’t eat Fae food or drink Fae wine?
Albigard had said I was connected to him now because I’d accepted his gift. Suddenly the pile of items looked less like a bounty and more like a trap. I set the water down and stared at it, sitting back on my heels and crossing my arms over my knees.
No one had said anything specifically about accepting Fae clothing or blankets, but I wasn’t inclined to take the chance. Nothing I had seen so far indicated that any of them gave a shit about my wellbeing. Why would they do things for my comfort if there wasn’t a catch involved somewhere?
I stood up and went to sit against the wall midway between the pile of temptations and the stinking hole. How long would they let me stew in here alone, before they came back and did something worse to me?
I tried to tell myself that being in this cell was a good thing. I tried to tell myself that Albigard was out there somewhere trying to get my dad free right now. Maybe it was like the legal system back home, where you could be held in jail for a long time waiting for a trial. Especially when something as important as an execution was on the line.
That would also be consistent with what Albigard had said about the Court barely being able to come to an agreement on simple issues. It should have been comforting. Instead I felt panic threatening again.
Fucking Christ. What was I doing? What the hell had I done? Would I be trapped in here with food I couldn’t eat and water I couldn’t drink until I died of thirst? If I did give in and eat or drink the Fae gifts, what would happen?
My breathing grew ragged, my heart pounding as a panic attack rose
