A Violet Fire (Vampires in Avignon #1) - Kelsey Quick Page 0,26
A steep stairwell welcomes my hesitant feet and I reach out to either side of the walls to prevent myself from falling. As the ground drops, the walls grow cooler against my fingertips. I should have suspected we would be residing below ground. How fitting. Also, how troublesome. Without immediate access to the outside world, a feat such as escaping from an underground blood harem is going to take much more than some intel and rope. Time to locate a shovel and some dynamite, I suppose.
Eventually we reach the end of the stairs, walking ahead for a period and reaching a fork in the path. Everyone follows left as told, though I find the right more compelling in this moment, and not just because I am a rebellious soul. Although it is so faint that it causes me to question my sanity, a light purple hue pulsates from the right. I stop abruptly.
“What is it?” Savvy asks, running into me.
“Do you see that?”
“Huh?” Both she and Katarii look down my line of sight curiously.
“See what?” Katarii asks.
“There. There’s a light coming from that hall,” I say, looking up at them for only a moment before turning back.
“Wavorly, are you seriously doing this? We don’t see anything.” Savvy sounds legitimately upset as I feel my way along the sandstone walls, toward the light. Lovely Savvy. Always a rule follower, like the rest of them. I could never seem to pluck her from those infallible traits that Saya guaranteed on all of their sales, the kind that sap the sheer individuality out of the human, albeit rendering them soulless blood sacs. Sometimes I wonder if I would have liked Savvy if she had been born to the world as I had, with the ability and free will to choose who she wanted to be.
But I guess there’s something innate in everyone that always surfaces at one time or another. I think hers is kindness and some sort of strong moral compass, while mine is still up in the air. I like to label myself the outcast, but I don’t think that counts. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so bitter if life simply continued on in my hometown of Avignon, like normal.
But was it even that normal?
The light pulsates brighter as I round the corridor and for a split-second, I’m afraid. What could produce this glow other than something living? A vampire awaiting me, luring me, even? One with littler self-control than the ones at Nightingale, whom were specially trained to face arduous temptations every day. I shake the thought from my head. No one here would dare touch a supply unit of Zein’s. As we were taught in Daily Lessons Among our Masters back in fourth year etiquette studies, lesser vampires who so much as touch the supply unit of their masters were subject to death penalties. All of which are gruesome, according to texts, since vampires are fairly close to immortal. So, I should be fine. I’ll be fine.
I peer around the final length of the curve, and my mouth nearly drop. I swallow down my heart and step closer. Before me is a wall that is made of a strange, violet light, as if the bright, rigidity of lightning met the ever darkening, fluidity of the ocean. It ripples, and skips over itself at times; the whole thing a fragile mess of anti-physics.
Am I dreaming?
A door makes itself known in the center of the wall, rippling with the rest of it.
The wall itself is sheer enough for me to at least see if there’s movement on the other side, but all I can make out are shapes—rectangles, more specifically—unmoving. I give it another moment or two, just in case something is waiting until the last minute to jump out and strike, before I cautiously reach my hand out toward the handle. Increasing warmth, and a strangeness that can only be described as light particles collapsing and hardening into something moveable, fill my hand. A real door handle. I push down on it and open the waving impression of an entrance. Everything on the inside solidifies into a complete change of scenery. A lit lantern bounces light off a patch-patterned marble wall, rather than sandstone. A fur rug lines the entire floor, glistening black and silver from the fluttering light. Leather chairs upholstered with brass buttons, small table rounds, and rows and rows of bookshelves fill the large space. I step inside and take extra care to close the door softly,