Chapter 195 - A Deal

"Zoe?" August called softly into the damp air.

There was faint rustling inside the cell room, and August dropped to the ground to look through the food door. Two wide, terrified eyes glinted back at her, nestled under a blanket on a cot raised off of the cold stone floor. It looked like a mouse or a rat was hiding in that pile of blankets.

"Zoe? Is that you?" August called again, wondering why she was doing this. But now her curiosity had taken hold, and she had to know what Zoe was up to in here. How she was doing, how she was being treated. Why she was the way that she was—so different and eerily, creepily intelligent and detached.

"Eliade?" a croaky voice called out in response, muffled by the blankets.

"Uh, yes. I am from Eliade. August, remember?"

It was cold being pressed against this floor, and August sighed. If she weren't quite likely pregnant, a reality that was blooming larger in her mind with every passing day that she had little else to entertain herself with, she would possibly consider passing through the cell door again just so she didn't have to deal with the discomfort that this position caused.

But who knew if passing through physical objects affected a fetus. The question almost had her chucking out loud. Literally, who would even know the answer to such a ridiculous question? She would likely have to return to her cryptic fae tree guardian to get that answer, and she didn't even know how to do that.

"I remember," Zoe croaked, and she slumped off the cot onto the floor before crawling to the opening right in front of August, her dark hair greasy and matted together and her eyes haunted.

"Goddess," August gasped, seeing Zoe like this. It was like another person entirely.

"Your eyes are blue," Zoe mumbled in a gravelly voice.

"Yes," August whispered. Why had the crow suggested she come here? What was the intention? She looked back and forth between Zoe's eyes, wondering. What good could come of this?

"Why did they change? They were gold," Zoe croaked again, and August turned to look for water. The girl was in desperate need of it.

"Have you been drinking, Zoe? Have they been feeding you?" August asked.

Zoe's eyes went hard and vacant. The small glimmer of curiosity that had appeared to light them momentarily with August's arrival promptly disappeared with the subject of her current situation. She sat up and slumped into herself.

"He abandoned me," the cry tore from her throat, but she choked on it and started coughing.

August scrambled to find water, draining some from a spigot into a nearby pitcher and passing it through the space into Zoe's cell. The girl took it reluctantly and drank, water spilling sloppily from the sides of her mouth onto the floor.

"I alway did everything he asked. Everything. My team we did amazing things for him. And then he abandoned me in a dark, cold cell. He's not coming for me, is he?" she asked in a haunted, empty tone that sounded resigned to this fate—one of being hopelessly lost and alone.

"I-I don't know," August admitted.

"Why are you here?" Zoe returned her attention to August, who now she could only see a knee and hand of.

"Honestly, I don't know that either," she replied and chuckled softly. "But I am sorry that you are here. That you are feeling so alone, Zoe. I wouldn't wish it for you… if it were my choice."

There were several minutes of silence that stretched on as both females sat there, staring at the dark door between them. In that time, an unexpected empathy moved inside August for the girl inside.

"I feel alone, too," she finally spoke. The words were safe to admit down here. "Maybe that is why I am here."

"You are different," Zoe replied, understanding without being prompted.

"Yes," August replied, and a sudden surge of grief erupted out of her without any warning.

She clamped a palm over her mouth, but soft sobs escaped around it until she finally removed her hand and let them come—let the tears escape, free to fall in large droplets on the stone floor and exist here in the dungeon where no one could hear or care except the souls who were also so alone like her. Maybe her mate bond couldn't even reach down here. It seemed a place truly cut off from everyone above.

Zoe just sat, listening, eyes calmly brimming with her own well of tears that glimmered dully in the darkness.

When August's soft sobs finally ceased, she wiped her cheeks with her sleeve. "I'm sorry. It's stupid of me to cry when you have it so badly in there. You must think I'm truly the worst."

"Why would you care what I think?" Zoe said numbly.

August exhaled deeply. "Do you care what I think, Zoe?" She didn't really wonder about it, but sitting poised here like this, with Zoe an apparent mirror image on the other side made the reflection of Zoe's thought tumble from her lips.

"Yes," came the surprising answer, so soft from the inside of the darkened cell. "I do."

"What? Why?" August asked, a kind of mild outrage and disbelief flaring in her voice.

"You are the Luna here. And you are magnificent," was the simple, innocent answer.

"You believe me to be Luna?" August asked in a similar tone as before, though this time there was surprise breathed around her words.

"What is there to believe?" Zoe chuckled. "It is the truth, is it not? A terrifying truth for Andreas, to be sure. You, August, are his worst nightmare come to life. I wish I had that honor. I really do."

August gaped at the door, unsure of how to respond. Finally, she crouched down and pressed the side of her face against the stone so that she could peer up at the haggard Zoe within.

"What has he done to you, Zoe? You can tell me. You are so young. And bright. Why would you end up with a mean old bastard like Andreas who would leave you to rot in a place like this?" she asked.

Zoe matched her position, cheek squashed against the floor as she met August's eyes.

"I will make you a deal, Luna," she croaked, her throat dry again having soaked up all the water and now in need of more.. "You tell me what you see with those eyes of yours and how they turned blue, and I will tell you everything you want to know about Head Elder Andreas."