she says, wriggling the socks, and I remember her telling me that before. “I’m…” She hesitates, like she’s not sure whether or not she should hold back or not. “Just take these. Please. You’re shiverin’ harder than a hairless cat in a snowstorm.”
I look down at myself and realize that I am chilled, but I’ve gotten used to it. Ophidian has never given me any new clothes since he tore my pants off and my wings wrecked my shirt.
“Your toes are near blue. Please,” she pleads again, and I finally scoot over and take the socks from her.
They’re still warm as I slip them over my feet, and my toes curl inside the fabric, trying to burrow into the foreign warmth.
“You should eat too,” the voice of the monster on the other side of my cage comes through the bars like a low rumble. “You’ve been out for a while.”
“Oh, you talk now?” I retort snappishly, even as I snatch the iron plate of food and begin shoveling the dry, dense biscuit into my mouth. I don’t know why I care that he’s suddenly talking now after he ignored me, but I do. He’s also probably not deserving of my frustration, but it feels good to release it somewhere.
He doesn’t respond at first, and my eyes flash up to him, but all I can see from where he’s perched in the shadowed corner are his slightly glowing gold eyes and his propped up silhouette as he watches me. “No point making friends. You could distract me for a time, but you’ll be dead soon, same as me,” he says blandly.
“Hey! Don’t say that!” Medley snaps, and I look over at the vehemence in her voice as I choke down the rest of the dry biscuit before I grab the hunk of meat that tastes like smoke and cracks off onto my tongue like charcoal.
“Why? It’s true,” he says with bored derision. “The sooner you both realize that, the better. Once Morax has you, you never get away. You have no choice but to do whatever he tells you.”
“Morax is Ophidian?” I clarify.
He moves closer, the chains bound around his chest and back clinking. “Morax. The Ophidian. The corrupt Abdicated. The Controller. He has many names.”
“I would’ve just gone with psychotic asshole, but that’s just me…” Medley mutters.
The monster stops just shy of the bars that separate us, and for the first time since I’ve been here, I get a clear look at him in the light of the burning torches. His face is angular, strong lines and high cheekbones that wouldn’t look so severe if it weren’t for the weight he’s dropped from eating the provisions the guards barely remember to feed us in here.
He doesn’t have wings like Medley or Morax, but his sage-green skin covers a lean, taut body, and the iron chains bound over his chest have left bruises behind from where they lie heavy against his skin. Limp black hair hangs long around his face and brushes past his shoulders, but it’s his eyes and the stark black markings tattooed on his abdomen and arms that hold my attention the most.
He has dark circles beneath his eyes and a haunted look in the gold-lined irises that I’m sure my gray gaze is reflecting too. He’s handsome, in a monster kind of way, but he’s broken; I can see it in his gaze. Possibly even more broken than I am.
“Who are you?” Medley asks, once again voicing the question I’m wanting to know.
For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer. But then his eyes scan from Medley to me. “My name is Toreon.”
“Well, Toreon, we don’t need that kind of negativity in our lives right now,” Medley reprimands, and I nearly smile at her sweet voice carrying such crack whip chastisement. Obviously, the sight of him doesn’t scare her at all. Maybe she’s used to monsters.
Maybe she’s seen them her whole life, just like me, but instead of people claiming she was insane and hallucinating, she grew up knowing they were actually real.
“If you think your life is going to be anything but pain and regret now that you’re in this cell, you’re sadly mistaken, Nihil.”
My brows pull together at his nickname, and Medley bristles. “Haven’t you ever heard the phrase, if you can’t say somethin’ nice, don’t say nothin’ at all?”
He frowns. “No.”
“Well, now you have, so shut it,” she says before turning to look at me again. I swallow the last of the