Zoe stood up, looking down on the woman. “Now look at you. You’re no help to anyone. Even if we did find out something about Juliana, you’d be useless. Completely and totally worthless.”
Genoa flopped down, spreading her arms flat against the cement floor of the women’s ward.
She hadn’t ever been this bad. The closest was after two of Zoe’s classmates had died during the guild’s trials. Genoa had blamed herself for not preparing them properly.
It was misplaced, of course. Neither of them had taken anything seriously. It was their own fault.
Part of the older woman’s depression then may have been due to Zoe deciding to leave the guild at the same time.
“Come on,” Zoe said. She made a cushion of air to help move Genoa back to her bed. “Where is Carlos?”
“Having an affair.”
Zoe raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think Carlos would do that to you.”
“He is. I smell Ylva’s death on him when he comes back.”
Zoe opened her mouth to respond. And then closed it. “You… I don’t…” Zoe shook her head side to side. There was no way he was sleeping with Ylva.
She decided to simply ignore that part.
“I’m surprised you can smell anything at all. You reek of alcohol.” Zoe released her spell, dropping Genoa onto her bed. “I’ll be right back, just going to go through Eva’s potion closet. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll find something that will help.”
Eva’s potion room was set up to brew most common potions. Nothing that required any kind of specialized equipment. Simple, but it worked.
Unfortunately, nothing was labeled. Some were identifiable due to their coloration, such as the light blue general remedy potion, but Zoe couldn’t name most of them. Wayne could have identified more had he been there.
One that Zoe knew, though she rarely took, was missing completely. It took Zoe a minute to figure out why.
Of course Eva would be missing an alcohol dissolver or hangover cure. She was far too young to be drinking.
Zoe pulled a light blue remedy potion from the shelf. It cured headaches, so maybe it would do something for Genoa.
“Alright,” Zoe said as she reentered Genoa’s room. She uncorked the vial and held it up to Genoa’s lips. “Drink this and then try to get some sleep.”
Helping someone else drink a potion, or anything really, always felt awkward to Zoe. There was just something clumsy about it that never sat right with her. Doubly so if the person was so out of it that they ended up drooling half the potion out of their mouth.
Luckily, Genoa did not drool. Zoe only had a single dose of awkwardness that Genoa probably wouldn’t even remember.
As Genoa laid back to get some rest, Zoe did a quick search through the room. There were only four bottles that had some liquid in them. More that were empty. Zoe gathered them up and dumped the contents down the drain in the kitchen.
She’d probably missed a few, but that might help a little.
With nothing left to do in the women’s ward–unless she wanted to shout at Arachne through the door for a few hours, which she didn’t–Zoe headed out into the prison proper.
If the women’s ward was a pigsty, the rest of the prison was a thing out of nightmares. Rocks and boulders littered the ground. While they had cleaned up the bodies, a few dried splotches of blood still lingered here and there. Mostly around where Genoa had fought the inquisitors.
Walking with a cane across the disturbed terrain was not fun.
Zoe made a beeline towards Ylva’s domain. She had no desire to take in more of the scenery.
The interior was much the same as it always had been. For the most part. The storm clouds overhead might be leaning more towards the storm aspect of their name. No ring of light illuminated the throne in the center of the chamber. The pinhole in the clouds had vanished.
Zoe stopped at the entryway and frowned.
The throne was empty. Ylva wasn’t in her usual place.
Carlos, on the other hand, sat on a chair fashioned from marble just outside one of the alcoves. Zoe wasted no time in walking up to him.
He didn’t even look up.
It was difficult to see through his coke bottle glasses, but his eyes were certainly closed.
From the way his head was slumped into his chest, he was either dead or asleep. Given his snores, Zoe was leaning towards sleep.
She reluctantly rubbed his shoulder. It was almost cruel to wake him. Carlos looked peaceful while he slept.
Just when Zoe decided to leave him to his nap and go find Ylva on her own, Carlos stirred. He pulled his glasses off, gripping the lens between the palm of his hand and his fingers.
Zoe shuddered. She had worn glasses when she was younger. Back before she could use air magic to augment her sight. Even the slightest speck of dust drove her insane.
After rubbing his eyes, Carlos replaced his glasses without even wiping them off.
“Have you seen Ylva?” Zoe asked, pointedly ignoring his poor glasses handling.
“She is,” he paused to yawn. His eyes went wide behind his glasses. “Oh. She’s um, talking to the prisoner. In the uh, torture room.”
“I see.”
For a moment, they simply stared at one another. Genoa, while she was lucid, had no issues with the current treatment of their guest. Carlos had been more outspoken against using the torture chamber.
Treating another human to the machines within Ylva’s torture chamber should elicit feelings of disgust or sickness. Zoe was finding it hard to care. Besides the fact that the nuns had attacked, she was all cared out between Eva, Juliana, and Shalise. Des and Hugo’s absence as well, though to a slightly lesser degree.
Hugo was dead. Ylva had confirmed that both with her mother and through her eyes on Nel. Des had been present during Hugo’s untimely demise, tied up like Nel. Since she’d been untied and had started working with Nel’s captor, Ylva no longer saw a distinction between her and their enemy.
“How long have they been in there?”
“What time is it?”
“Nearly three o’clock.”
“About two hours then. We were discussing possible places Zagan might have sent Juliana before she decided to uh, talk with the prisoner.”
“Any progress on Juliana and Shalise?”
Carlos looked down at his lap, slowly shaking his head. “S-she confirmed with her mother that Juliana’s soul is not in Death’s Domain. Juli is alive, somewhere. Since Nel is apparently in immediate danger, Ylva decided to focus on her.”
“I’m sorry,” Zoe said as she gave his shoulder a hopefully reassuring squeeze. “We’ll find her. If we rescue Nel, maybe her ability will help in finding Juliana and Shalise.”
“Yeah. Silver lining or whatever, I guess.”
Zoe went silent for a few moments. What to say to reassure someone depressed and unable to do anything?
Nothing.
Zoe was in much the same position. None of the girls were her daughters, but the situation was the same. Pretty words given as some sort of placebo would be exactly the opposite of what she would want to hear.
“I gave your wife a general remedy potion, put her to bed, and then took away as much alcohol as I could find.”
“She’s going to be angry.”
“Good. Let her get angry. She should be angry, not moping about at the bottom of a bottle.”
“You don’t have to live with her when she’s like… how she is.”
“If you can’t handle it then tell her to come talk to me.”
Carlos sighed, but nodded. Zoe was fairly certain that it was only her imagination, but she could have sworn she had heard his bones creak as he rose to his feet. “I’d better go sit with her. She shouldn’t be alone and it isn’t like I’m doing anything productive here.”
Zoe nodded and stepped to one side. Watching him leave brought up whole new feelings of despair. He had his shoulders hunched and drawn close together, making him look even smaller than he normally was.
She slapped her own cheeks once he was out of sight. There was no room to be depressed. Zoe had to hold her head high or there would be no one left.