I am inside the house. The same mahogany walls that fringed the walls. The same dim chandelier hung overhead. The same ash-blonde dame and invalid loomed. I lay on a soft object, my body sinking as fast as my consciousness. The couch, perhaps.
I struggle to move but my body does not obey. I feel nothing. I do nothing but stare off into space. Alice's brows furrow, and Virgil hands her a knife, sharp and glinting in the light of the fixture. She takes the knife, and draws it near her left hand. A slit. Blood pours, and she draws near. Her face is calm and cool, collected even with the bloodied limb she had.
Her arm extends to me. To my mouth. The droplets of the tea tasted iron in my swallows. My throat itched. More. More. More. Until I reached for the hand, took it into my own and tongued the liquid.
The red tea fills me with life, with vigor that I had never known as I sucked on her wrists like a babe would a mother's breasts. Her bonny wrist was coated in blood and saliva but she was not revolted. Or if she was, she did not show it. I pin her to the couch, slurping passionately, making sure that no blood went undrunk, untaken by my ravenous stomach. The smell of roses and honeysuckle from her wrist, that was as delicate and feminine as the bones. My tongue and fingers glided far from the wrist now, but I could not stop it. The smell and taste of the iron crazed me. Her body next. I gripped her wrists and—
"That is quite enough," Alice says. Her voice brings me back though I do not know how. I stumble on the floor and massage my temples. "Mr. Diggory, you have made a rather uncivil show of yourself." Her face shows displeasure and contempt for me; the crinkling on her nose is enough to know this. I do not know how to respond. My shoulders slump.
"I am sorry Ms. Alice," I managed, looking down on my vanished wounds, to avoid the gaze of the woman. Ghoul. It is not important. "That was unsightly behavior of me. Please forgive me."
She did not respond; instead, she slipped on white gloves that hid the wound on her left wrist. She massaged it, perhaps ashamed, perhaps hurt. Even when I read her expressions, I could not tell. A mix of both, perhaps. Noticing my gaze on her, she looks to Virgil, and asks to be excused from the common room. The invalid nods, and she retreats to wherever, the wooden creaks dying off as she went farther. I sat upon the sallow couch once more, the invalid in front.
The invalid was looking below. I followed his gaze, the warren of intricate designs that marked the carpet floor, of spindling shapes, scarlet and azure, winding across the rug. The smell of burnt firewood hung over the room, wicked flames dancing maliciously in the hearth. My study was interrupted by the invalid's talk.
"You are lucky," he said. His voice was toneless, tranquil even in the shameful act that had preceded our talk. "You have survived for two weeks without the Missus's blood," he remarked. He did not want to talk about it. It relieved me but the words that came after did not. "…and you have killed much of the ghouls that plague Middle Yarim."
Middle Yarim? What was he talking about?
He must have noticed my surprise for he said, "It is only reasonable that you will now know of the city's divisions," he said. "It is time you know of what you are up against," a pause; "Hunter.
"Yarim is separated into three divisions: Old, Middle and the Ward. The first of the three is found up North, its streets crawling with the creatures that have died by your hands." I frown, remembering the tens, maybe hundreds of ghouls I have killed. There are more. Virgil continues, not seeing, "it is much dangerous there than it is in the other two but your skill with the blade will be sharpened from it.
"The next is Middle Yarim; this is where we have sent you to," to be slaughtered, I thought. "start the hunt," Of course he will not admit it. What did I expect? The invalid continues unerring in his words, as unmuffled and unperturbed as he had started. "It is much to our delight that you have encountered both Rosalia and Crawford. Seek their aid in your tribulations, in this dream that I—you have been trapped in. And perhaps you will succeed…" The next few words were a mumble, as I could not. It struck me that this invalid with the cavernous sea-green eyes…He had been a hunter. Long ago. And now he spent his days here, in this penitentiary, a prisoner sentenced to life. For what, I did not know.
"That is the burden that we place on you, Anima," he says. My palms rest on my forehead. "For your freedom and for the people of Yarim. Find the Ichor of Mekaldis and save everyone."
"What about the Ward? You have not told me much—nothing at all about it."
He bit his lip. I do not want to hear the words he is about to say. "I know nothing of it; all of us know nothing of it."
A sullen quietness dawned in the room, interrupted only by the hissing and crackling of the firewood. 'I know nothing of it', I thought to myself. Then how should I know better? But I did not say it. I looked at him, hoping that he might say it was his strange sense of humor but no words of hope came from his mouth. His lips wore a tight-lipped smile. He knew it was foolish and moronic yet he sent me to my death anyway.
"There is hope still, Anima," he said, gazing at me once more, sinking me once more in those bottomless eyes. "Speak with Ms. Alice; she will tell you of it. She will forgive you. The door left of the corridor leads to her room." If my eyes were not mistaken, his face was tinged with a bitterness that led me to believe an assumption I had when I first saw them.