Page 73 of The Lustrous Dark
“Then there must be a secret passage,” Shadi says, proving he's a hundred times more brilliant than Shay gives him credit for.
The four spring into action, scouring the room for a hidden door. They overturn cushions, pull out shelves, and tap their palms along the walls. As the limited possibilities dwindle, Shay turns in frustration toward the ridiculous statue.
“Where are you hiding them, Sidi?” She smacks the flat of her hand against the stone iteration of the book her name was never written in.
A loud, grinding screech brings the room to a standstill. The square tile the statue is standing upon lifts and rotates. The entire stone figure shifts aside, revealing a small room, no larger than a broom closet, hidden beneath.
Giving Shay an awed smile, Khawla immediately crouches to climb down into the vestibule.
“Khawla,” Shay says, her voice keying shrilly. “What are you doing?”
“I can feel them,” Khawla says with a confidence born of certainty. “The one they call the Snow Queen is sleeping, very deeply, as though recovering from heavy exertion.”
“That makes sense,” Walid says. “Jawad spent an extra-long time in here the last few days.”
“Where is he now?” Shay asks, a chill pinging her spine.
“I don't know exactly, but he left the kasbah not long before your arrival.”
Once Khawla maneuvers herself inside the opening, Walid follows, then Shadi, leaving Shay to make the descent last. There's a brief moment as she shimmies on her belly when her legs dangle loosely. She hangs by her knuckles and kicks around, scrambling for a solid surface. Firm hands grasp her waist, and she's momentarily airborne. Then her feet meet the ground.
She turns to face Shadi, their eyes locking, and in that moment, all Shay sees is him. His hands rest at her hips, his touch too light to burn the way it does, and his face is so close that, even in the eerie lighting, she can count the copper swirls like threads of saffron floating in his brown irises.
Walid clears his throat, reminding them that they are not, in fact, alone, but squeezed in an extraordinarily tight space with two other people. Shadi and Shay whip around in tandem to see Walid and Khawla studying the anomaly they were too distracted to notice.
Attached to the wall at the rear of the vestibule is a round wooden disk. Some type of glowing crystal is embedded in its center, the source of the eerie light, and a handle protrudes from the side.
“I think we're supposed to crank it?” Shadi suggests.
Each one in turn responds with a nod, approving this course of action. Shadi grabs the handle and rotates it in a full circle. A low humming vibrates in the walls, a grinding pulse that rises before it putters out and stops.
“I think you need to keep turning it,” Khawla says encouragingly.
Shadi winds the wheel a few more times. The humming grows louder, and the room begins to drop. Lower and lower. Slowly at first and then faster. The square above them shows the distance between them and the prayer room growing longer and longer, until finally, the handle hits a stopping point.
The humming dies down. The wall opposite of the wooden wheel slides to the side, introducing a doorway. A new room has opened before them, and instead of the dank, cave-like dwelling Shay would expect from the underground dungeon she assumes they've been transported to, they step out onto a floor that flows like a spotless river of marble.
Walid lifts the lantern high, its light spilling across smooth walls that appear freshly painted. The living space is lush. Abundant seddaris abound, expansive enough for either sitting or sleeping on. Chairs are arranged in a series of spaces, each creating a sense of privacy while flowing together without feeling cluttered. Pillar candles in glass boxes sit on the floor around the room's perimeter, each positioned next to a door embedded with a small rectangular window that hangs at eye level.
The touched ones, and there are many, seem out of place in these comfortable surroundings. Most are sleeping. Others are too blitzed out to notice their dwelling has been intruded upon. Some, Shay realizes with slow-dawning horror, look young, and more than a few are riddled with bruises and other injuries.
Only one is visibly pregnant. Shay's eyes are drawn to her immediately, like mindless moths enchanted by the lure of a deadly flame.
24
Dearest Brethren,
By God's might, we have discovered the location of the raw material the enemy is sourcing to produce Snow. The next phase of our mission is to find all four of the magical talismans our informant from the bloodsucker clan told us about. According to intel he received directly from the Sisterhood, these talismans can be used to either reawaken or to destroy all magic forever. Any Naturalist who obtains one of these talismans will be accorded a position of highest rank and prestige in the New Dalwa.
A COMMON GOAL FOR A COMMON PEOPLE!
—an encrypted memo distributed to all known members of the CNM
Khawla stops at one of the doors and peers through the rectangular window. As eager as Shay is to cross the room to Hind, something on Khawla's face convinces her she needs to have a look for herself. All four of them end up taking turns peeking in on the first three rooms, the scene in each one stranger than the last.
The first has a padded floor and walls. Two women are inside. One picks the other up as though she weighs less than a loaf of bread and hurls her from one end of the room and into the opposite wall. She repeats this over and over, and the other woman bounces up as if unaffected every time.
The next room contains a large pool in which a handful of women swim. Sharing the water with them are a couple of octopuses. One crawls along thebottom floor, and the other shoots across the pool and back like an arrow sprung from its bow. At least one woman, her bottom half submerged in the water and her top half reclined on the stone stairs, looks to be in mid-transformation between octopus and human form.
