She shook her head slowly, and an old ache reawakened deep in my chest. Id known the cheetah shifter for weeks in captivity before Id found out she had children. The only way Zyanya knew of to deal with being isolated from them and unable to protect them was to keep the pain of separation to herself and to hoard her memories.
He didnt buy any of the kids, Lala said.
I exhaled slowly. The coup Id incited had cost Zyanya her family. There had to be a way to get the kids back. I had to find a way.
Do you have any idea where A sudden thud turned us all toward the exit, where the door was now propped open by a gray-clad figure lying on the floor, sprawled into the hall from the shoulders up.
Rommily! Mirela was up in an instant, dark wavy hair trailing behind her. Lala and I raced after her.
The ambient buzz of soft conversation died as the other captives turned to watch, and just as Mirela grabbed Rommily by the ankles, the poor, fractured oracle began to convulse.
Somebody help! Mirela shouted as she pulled her middle sister through the doorway and back into the dormitory. But when she knelt next to Rommilys head, the older oracle suddenly stiffened. Her eyes went wide and her jaw clenched so hard her teeth ground together.
Pull them back! I shouted at Lala, as she stared at her sisters, horrified and confused. Theyre too close to the sensor.
I tugged Mirela back by one arm while Lala pulled Rommily by her ankles, and as soon as they were more than a foot away from the door, the convulsing stopped. Mirela blinked up at me in confusion, and I suddenly wished Id pushed her into the hall instead. Surely the convulsing would have stopped once she was away from the doorway, whether she was inside or out. The sensors were based on proximity, and they didnt care which direction the signal came from. Right?
Are you okay? Lala asked her sisters, and her voice drew me out of my thoughts.
Yeah. Mirela sat up and leaned over her middle sister, who only looked up at us, blinking tears from her eyes. Rommily, what hurts?
Heavy footsteps clomped toward us from the hallway, then two armed handlers stepped into the room. The first held his remote at the ready, the screen facing away from me. Back up, he warned, one finger poised to cause more pain.
When Lala carefully pulled Rommily back, Mirela and I followed her.
What happened? the second handler demanded, glancing at the screen on his own remote. Our system indicates that Oracle 02known as Rommilytried to breach the doorway.
She wasnt trying to breach. Mirela stood, putting herself between the handlers and her younger sisters. She just got confused.
The second handler pointed to the doorway, where I noticed that a pinpoint of red light glowed from the apex of the arch. Do not pass. Its pretty damn simple.
Shes...disoriented. I joined Mirela, trying to decide how best to explain about Rommily, to protect her. Traumatized. She doesnt always understand what shes told. Or what she sees. Its not her fault, and it cant be fixed. So I suggest you get ready to make some exceptions on Rommilys behalf.
The second handler stepped closer, as if his presence could possibly intimidate me more than the collar around my neck already had. Is that a threat?
I crossed my arms over my chest. Most definitely.
Neither of them seemed to know how to respond to that.
Just keep an eye on her, the first one said at last, glancing from me to Mirela, to Rommily, then back to me.
Evidently Id just become an honorary oracle. Which was fitting, considering that Id just predicted an early death for anyone who messed with Rommily.
Or with me.
Delilah
Breakfast was delivered by two of our fellow captivesa selkie and a dryad, whose hair looked like a curtain of woody vines and whose fingers and toes branched like delicate tree limbs. They pushed a steel cart into the room and passed out trays from two different stacksone for the shape-shifters, who were largely carnivorousand one for the rest of us.
The food was bland but nutritionally sound, a definite improvement over the menagerie, but what I found truly noteworthy was the fact that captives were allowed to perform work duties with minimal supervision, because their collars wouldnt allow them to go anywhere they werent supposed to be, or do anything they werent supposed to do.
If I earned a work detail that let me roam the property, I might be able to observe Vandekamps security systems and procedures in search of a weakness that could be exploited.
After breakfast, two handlers in tactical gear came in to call six more women out for work duty. Lala and Mahsa were among those chosen, but they werent told what their chores would be or when theyd be back.
Sometime later, the squeal of hinges drew my attention to the door as it opened, and the familiar, waiflike figure who stood in the hall drew a gasp from me. I stood, and Mirela joined me, but we both kept our distance from the ifrita fire djinniin spite of the drugged haze lingering in her eyes. I didnt even know theyd bought Nalah, Mirela whispered.
Me neither. Id secretly been afraid shed been euthanized. After all, wed had to keep her sedated since we took over the menagerie, and we werent even trying to hold her prisoner.
Nalah looked tired and disoriented, standing there in the doorway, but she wasnt trying to melt the walls and her gray scrubs werent even smoldering. Either because the sedatives wed given her hadnt worn off yet or because Vandekamps collar had succeeded where wed failed.
Go on. The handler behind her gave her a small push, and as the ifrit stumbled into the dormitory, long strands of tangled hair fell over her face, reflecting light in every conceivable shade of red, yellow and orange. Her hair resembled the flames the fire djinn lived and breathed, and could kindle out of the air with little more than an angry thought.
From the hall, the handler aimed his remote at her, then clicked something on its screen. A red light flashed in the front of her collar, and the sensor over the door flashed at the same time.
Nalah was now restricted to this room just like the rest of us.
She wobbled on her feet, and I saw no awareness or recognition in her expression. She appeared to be in a total drug fog.
Come help me with her.
Mirela grabbed my arm. As soon as the drugs wear off, shes going to roast you. Nalah blamed me for Adiras death.
Not if her collar works. If Vandekamps tyrannical tech made Nalah easier to deal with, I was more than willing to take the good with the very, very bad. She needs help, Mirela.
Fine. The oracle let go of my arm, still staring warily at the ifrit. Ill get her some water and a mat to lie down on. You get...her.
While Mirela pulled one of the gymnastics mats from the pile stacked against the wall, I approached the teenage djinni cautiously. Nalah?
Her gaze snapped up, fiery copper eyes focused on me with a familiar, burning hatred. But a second later, they glazed over again. That was all the malice she had the strength for, at least until the drugs were out of her system.
Do you want to lie down? Mirelas getting you some water. I reached for her arm, but the djinni stumbled backward to get away from me, putting her dangerously close to the doorway sensor. You need to move away from the door. Itll
Do you want to lie down? Mirelas getting you some water. I reached for her arm, but the djinni stumbled backward to get away from me, putting her dangerously close to the doorway sensor. You need to move away from the door. Itll
Nalah?
I turned to find a woman about my age staring at the ifrit through wide ice-blue eyes. Waist-length silvery hair hung down her back and the fall of light made it shimmer like water flowing in sunlighteasily the most identifiable feature of a marid, a water djinni. And she didnt look friendly.
Im Delilah Marlow. I stepped back, so I could keep both djinn in sight. Whats your name?
Simra.
Do you know Nalah? My understanding was that the young ifrit and her royal marid companion had been captured by Metzgers shortly after theyd sneaked into the United States and had no friends here.
Everyone south of the border knows her. Simras cold gaze narrowed on Nalah. Where is Princess Adira? she demanded.
Tears filled Nalahs copper eyes.
Um...Adira was shot when we took over the menagerie, I whispered, afraid that my explanation would upset Nalah. She didnt make it.
You failed her. Simra glared at Nalah with feverish spite. You should have taken the bullet for her. That was your obligation! She let out a high-pitched war cry and lunged at the ifrit. I threw myself between them, but before she could crash into me, the marid collapsed in the grip of a seizure.
Her collar worked faster than I could, and it was a hell of a lot more effective.
Mirela led the sobbing ifrit to the sleeping mat shed prepared while I knelt next to Simra with no idea how I could help her. Fortunately, her convulsions only lasted a few seconds, but shed hit her head on the floor when she fell, and even after she stopped shaking, her eyes looked unfocused.
Simra? I swept glittering, silvery hair back from her forehead and searched her pale blue eyes for any sign of awareness. Are you okay?
She nodded, then rolled onto her side and covered her face with her hands. I knew that would happen. Still, I had to try. She pushed herself upright and smoothed long hair back from her pale face, composing herself.
Try what? To hurt Nalah?
Simras icy gaze focused on me. To avenge the princess.
Did you know Adira?
I saw her in a parade once, she replied, her expression softening with the memory. When she was a girl. Nalah sat at her feet, and I was mad with envy. So many of us wanted to be the princesss companion, but the ifrit royalty sent her Nalah as a gift, when the betrothal of their prince to our princess was announced. As a cross-cultural gesture. Her gaze hardened again and she clasped her pale hands in her lap. But Nalah let our princess die.
Shes just a kid. And she was Adiras companion, not her bodyguard, I pointed out.
She has disgraced herself by outliving the princess she served. Simra sat up, her spine as stiff as the line of her jaw. If I could restore her honor by taking her life, I would.
The casual brutality of her declaration sent a chill crawling over me, and for the first time, I was grateful that Sultan Bruhier, Adiras grieving father, had denied us entry into his kingdom. Djinni culture sounded ruthless, and the injustice of it would have driven meand the furiae within meinsane.
Delilah? a low-pitched voice called, and I looked up to find Bowman standing in the dormitory doorway holding a clipboard.
I stood, my heart thumping in anticipation. Yes?
Come with me. He pressed a button on his remote, and the red light above the door flashed, but if there was any response from my collar, I couldnt feel it.
Where?
Bowman only watched me. Waiting.
I gave Simra my hand, and she let me pull her to her feet. Do you know what this is about?
She shrugged. Its a little early to be your first engagement, but you never know. Are you an oracle?
Im human.
Theyll never believe that. The skeptical tone of her voice said she didnt believe it either.
At the door, Bowman bound my hands at my back with padded restraints, which told me that the staff wasnt sure they could control me with a collar until they knew my species. And that the clientele didnt want to see visible signs of abuse on their high-priced exotic chattelexcept whatever marks they might inflict themselves.
Whats this about? I asked as I followed Bowman into the hall, taking note of the fact that hed come for me alone. But armed.
He pressed a button on his remote as we approached an exit on the opposite side of the building from where wed come in the night before, but his lips remained sealed as he pushed the door open.
You dont know, do you? Youre just an errand boy, right? I asked, as I stepped out onto a sidewalk that felt rough and cool against my bare feet.
Bowman marched me past a row of nondescript single-story buildings, each built of gray or beige brick punctuated at regular intervals by windows too narrow for a human to pass through, even if the glass were broken. We were clearly on the operational side of the grounds, which obviously wasnt meant to be seen by Vandekamps clientele.
At the end of the row of ugly buildings, we took a right, then approached a beautiful iron gate in an intricately patterned stone wall. Bowman pressed an icon on his remote to allow me through the gate, and a red sensor blinked between two stones near the ground, embedded right into the mortar.
When we walked through the gate, concrete gave way to smooth stone pavers beneath my feet and I caught my breath as I took in the stunning series of gardens and buildings that made up the Savage Spectacles grounds.
At first, I could only stare, wide-eyed, at the botanical zoo spread out around me, cut from various shrubs dotting the broad, neat lawn. The cryptid topiary was astonishing and incredibly intricate, yet the details conformed more to fantasy than to true anatomy.
To my left, two box-tree centaurs appeared frozen in midtrot, alternate legs gracefully curled beneath them as they ran, long human hair trailing behind them, and their poses were so dynamic I almost expected their hooves to hit the ground when realitys stopped clock resumed ticking. On my right, a shrubbery manticore brandished its eight-foot-long stinger-tipped scorpion tail against a griffin with a twelve-foot wingspan, swooping in from overhead by the grace of the strong, bare trunk holding it up like a doll on a stand.
As Bowman led me across the courtyard, down winding stone paths and past iron arches leading to other areas of the grounds, I gawked at a small herd of shrubbery satyrs playing flutes in a semicircle, as if the artist had drawn inspiration from Renaissance-period stereotypes rather than actually going to see a satyr.
Past a gazebo surrounded by playful-looking elves that could have frolicked right off the front of a cookie box, I found a beautiful stone fountain spilling water from three tiers. Poised above it, as if they were about to dive into two feet of water, were two mermaids and a selkie emerging from her seal skin, all trimmed from massive bushes planted on three sides of the fountain. As with the griffin, they were held up by the pruned-bare center trunks. Unlike the griffin, however, those figures bore little resemblance to reality.
A selkie would shed her seal skin as she emerged from the water, not as she dived into it, and mermaids...well... In reality, their upper halves didnt resemble human lingerie models anywhere near as closely as the topiary might lead one to believe.