This time, she held the candle closer, and the flames seized the feathers, twisting and blackening them like shreds of paper. “He always chooses the hard way, doesn’t he?” The dove began to thrash wildly at the sound of her voice. The lady in the gray room held the candle beside her face, illuminating her beauty: beauty that looked at the beauty of a perfect summer day and scoffed that they should bear the same description. As quickly as it began, it abated, and he gasped silently. The pain in his chest gnawed and burned, squeezing his heart with a fiery touch. Biting his lip, he pressed his forehead into his arms, willing himself quiet. The lady smiled thinly and held the pale flame beneath the bird’s wing. The candle she held reflected the colors of the sun in the dove’s eye. The fingers gently tugged the dove’s wing outward from its body and offered the prone bird to the lady. “The wing,” she said softly, holding up a candle. When she spoke, her voice shimmered in the room, beautiful enough to draw tears. Somehow, slender hands took the pale dove from where it trembled at the bottom of the cage and held it out to a bright lady, oddly golden in this gray-green room. It was the worst kind of fear-the hopeless kind-and it sent the bird’s eternal heart racing until it seemed it would burst out of its breast.

It was a frenzy not of a desire to escape-the cage had no door-but rather of fear. Wings crashed into the bars, and claws scraped at the perch only to unsuccessfully seek purchase on the thin wire sides. Somewhere else, in a small, round, gray room of stone and moss soft as a fox cub’s fur, a dove beat furiously in a cage made of a net of the hair-fine wires. He reached down through the water to his pocket, withdrew two old, rusty nails, and held them tightly.

Deep in his chest, he felt the soft and curious rustling that meant They’d entered the cage room. God’s attentions were for those with souls, a status he’d lacked for a thousand years or more. Haven’t I paid enough? He prayed for Them to go back where They came from, but he didn’t expect an answer. Above the well, the howls fell away they’d lost the scent. How long had he been doing this? As long as he could remember. The water’s chilly touch crawled farther up his neck and he tightened his grip, looking up to the clear night sky. They’ll lose your scent in the stream and they’ll never find you here. He closed his eyes, concentrating on keeping his hold on the old well’s uneven sides, willing his heart to slow. Somewhere in the distance, the eerie wail of the hounds quickened his heartbeat. Long enough for his fingers to tire of holding his head above water. Long enough for the bone-cold water to drive the feeling from his legs. He didn’t know how long he’d been clinging there.

Lament by maggie stiefvater