The Faerie Guardian

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Without answering me, Ryn walks to the table and begins looking through the pages. “Did you notice there’s an outline of a door on the wall opposite where we came in? Calla must be through there. We need to figure out how to open it.”

“She has some kind of extra power, doesn’t she?” I say, ignoring his attempt at deflection. “Why else would she be here?”

With his back to me, he says, “I’m not supposed to tell anyone. We’ve tried our best to keep it a secret.”

“I’m risking my life to help get her out of here, Ryn. The least you can do is tell me why she was taken.”

He feels along the table and lifts papers. Searching for keys, perhaps? Several pages float to the floor. I pick them up, fold them, and stuff them into one of my boots. You never know, they may contain useful information.

When Ryn reaches the other side of the table, he leans on it and looks at me. “She has a powerful imagination. Very powerful. When she imagines things, she can make you see them.”

I give myself a moment to let that sink in. “So . . . she can make me see anything she wants me to see?”

“Yes. She’s learning to control it so that she doesn’t have to share everything that goes on in her head, but she still slips up sometimes, when she gets emotional.”

“Wow. That’s a cool ability.”

“So is finding people.” He moves around the table again, feeling beneath the edge with his fingers. He stops. I hear a click. On the far side of the wall, a rectangular piece of stone slides up. “Yes. Found it.” In a few quick strides, he’s across the room.

“Stop!” I hurry to the opening. “Can’t you smell that?”

“What?”

I sniff the air again, recognizing something I’ve come across in Uri’s lab before. “I think it’s poison.” I look up. Embedded into the bottom edge of the stone that just slid up are hundreds of shards of glass, their pointed ends glistening blue. “I’m guessing that glass is going to fall on you if you walk beneath it.”

“There must be a way to deactivate it.” Ryn’s eyes scan the walls, probably for another button.

“Or we could just activate it,” I suggest. I fetch a piece of paper from the table and wave it beneath the bottom of the door, then jump back as the glass pieces slice through the air and hit the floor.

Without so much as a ‘thank you’, Ryn steps over the glittering shards and into the next room. “What the . . .”

I follow close behind him, and my stomach turns the moment I look up. Suspended from the ceiling by thick chains are what look like giant bird cages. And within each cage, most of them lying down, is a person. Around the ankles of those closest to me, I can see metal bands just like the one Zell and Drake put around my wrist. Below the cages, filling the centre of the vast room, is a large circular pool of water.

“This is so messed up.” I turn to Ryn. “We have to go to the Council about this. Surely you agree with me now? This isn’t just about your sister.”

He nods, but I don’t think he’s really listening. His eyes search the cages. “Calla?” he calls. I expect at least some of the sleeping prisoners to wake, but perhaps they’re used to hearing one another cry out.

“It looks like you can lower the cages,” I say, noticing the chains running across the ceiling and down the walls. “You just have to find the right chain.”