Blakeshire (Insight #9)(75)

“I’m detaching myself from friends currently. That includes you.”

“You are bewitched. Right now, you are walking into this prison with your stomach empty and you have the audacity to think it is your idea.”

“I’m going to bed. Alone.”

“Fine. Tomorrow, let me know how comfortable Willow’s bed was.”

“Will do.”

My smug response ignited something in him, and in that instant I was against the wall with my arms pinned above my head. “This attitude is going to kill you,” he breathed down my neck.

One nod from me sent him flying backward. There, he met Aden, who flung him against the opposite wall a second before he charged him, holding Britain in place with his forearm. “I’m sick of watching her tell you no. You have two choices right now: walk away, or let’s take this to The Realm and end this argument once and for all!”

Britain smirked as he pushed forward. I couldn’t tell if Aden had let him go or if he had overpowered him. The shock in Aden’s emotions led me to believe that whatever strength Britain had displayed was unprecedented, at least in Aden’s mind. I’ve always known that Britain was far more powerful than he let on.

“None of this has anything to do with you. Stop hiding from your own hell.” With that, Britain adjusted his suit, glanced at me, then sauntered down the hall.

Aden glanced at the cart, and with his energy he sent it soaring down the hall, barely missing Britain. I felt sorry for anyone that was in that vicious cart’s path.

Aden pointed to the door, telling me he was done with this day. Of course it opened with ease, and once the door closed that stainless steel bar fell into place.

Simply because I had far too much doubt mingling in my thoughts, I pressed the lever that I’d seen Alamos touch—and sure enough, the door opened with ease.

“Good. You’ve figured out how to work the door. I’m going to bed.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled.

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Maddie, this is your business. I don’t know what is real or not with you, but make sure you don’t confuse yourself, that on the inside you know who you are.”

“My head is swimming.”

He smirked as he looked over my damp dress. “It always has been. Do your thing, and you’ll be fine.” He took one last long gaze into my mind, into that conversation I had with Donalt, then turned and briskly walked to his room. A few seconds later, I heard the beat of his drum sticks against what sounded like stone. That was his thing—his release.

I glanced around the vast hall, hearing Britain in my head, him calling this a prison, him telling me that I was sleeping in Willow’s bed. I thought about chilling on one of those couches that centered the hall or finding a reading nook in the library, but I finally decided that if I did, that would be my way of saying I believed him.

I made my way to my room. After the door was closed, I let the dress fall to the floor. I was too waterlogged for a shower and too restless to settle down. I was sure that I wouldn’t see Drake again tonight. He had a few thousand souls to save.

My mind kept going over what Donalt had said to me about my first death. None of it really made sense to me. The only reason I was hung up on it was that Drake had mentioned hearing a crying child in his dream and Donalt had confirmed that there was a baby there. The question was: what were both Drake and I doing here, and how in the hell did unearthly kings come into play?

Now that it was dark, the flaming water amplified the room. Knowing that I was basically in my underwear, I nodded to the drapes around the window and urged them closed.

I walked closer to the nearby basin as I studied where that water fell from, how the fire remained unscathed. Wondering if it was real or artificial fire, I blew air against the water; the spring bowed inwards, touching the flame, but as it did a power pushed through the fire and it became stronger than before. Maybe that was how you turned it up…I wondered how you turned it down.

I felt around the stone basin, looking for a knob or other obvious way to control this art. In the stones, there were large circles the size of saucers. It was easy to spin them, and before long I had all twelve of them off. Inside, I could not only see the liquid, but smell a seemingly familiar chemical aroma. I didn’t want to touch it, but my curiosity was driving me mad.

Finally, I came to the obvious solution. With my energy, I called what was in the closest cylinder up. When the glow of the fire shined through the liquid, I could see a beautiful shade of lavender. Shocked by my discovery, my energy got away from me and the color moved against the water. The lavender swirled around the dome, creating one of the most beautiful scenes I had ever witnessed.

Curiously, I glanced at the jagged stone floor and walls; creativity struck me then. My energy swayed more of the color into the spring of water, then I guided the colored water to the stone floor and with my eyes I demanded the course I wanted the paint to flow. It looked so edgy, so sharp and unreal that I felt a high absorb my body. I always felt this way just as I lost control on my projects, just before I found a much-needed release.

I beckoned more colors out of their cylinders, had them merge with the spring, then guided them to the ridges on the floor. Curious about the other two basins that made up the triangle of these firewater lamps, I went to undo their lids, finding even more colors to play with.

Before long, every ridge in the floor and walls was marked with its own little valley of paint. I had moved this paint so fast, commanded so many streams of them that more than once I had managed to get in the path of them. Every color was across my bare skin, my tank top, and briefs. I loved the feeling of it, of being one with the art.