Finding Life | ✓

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Finding Life

Part 39 • Death

"Won't you ask about Madili? About me?"

—Aart Raybould, Criminal & Prince of Seelie Court

••••••••••••••

Lunch at an E.A.O jail is, kindly put, not one of the best meals I've ever had. I stand in line with a plastic tray in my hand, waiting to be served. I stare at the orange glob they call soup and feel like I'm ready to vomit. I've been rarely eating, mostly because I decide to sit by the tiny window and sulk as people whisper about me.

It doesn't matter to me. They can say whatever they want, but I am Death, and I will forever be more powerful than them. They can't hurt me.

The lady scoops up a generous amount of disgusting soup and places it on my tray with a side of bread. I don't really pay attention to her doing this until she yells at me to get off the line. So, I go to my usual spot.

I stare out the window. There are thin metal bars blocking most of the view, but even so, I can make out the blue sky and the city. In the distance, I can see the tall skyscrapers of The Demon District, Hell's capital. If only I can be there, rather than in this jail.

I will get out.

Ashton left to find me an alibi and I trust that he won't come back empty handed. He's an excellent Agent and he knows what he's doing.

I take a bit of the bread. Stale.

I hear the scraping of a chair against the floor, so instantly I turn around from the window and see a man taking the seat opposite me. Throughout this month, I've became sick of seeing his powder blue hair. Not that I've seen him in particular, but I've seen his brother. I usually refrain from dealing with fairies, but here is the fairy prince, sitting across from me. In jail.

"Aart."

"Death."

"It's been long," I say.

"One hundred and fifty years, to be exact."

"Oh," I say, "I don't keep count."

Aart chuckles. "Well, I've also been in jail for all those years."

"Does the time pass quickly?"

I ask the question for my own needs. I've only been here a few days and I'm already rotten. I never knew how good freedom felt until now.

"Yes," Aart says, "and I have my wife here to pass the time."

I completely forgot. Aart and Madili were convicted for their crime against Heaven together.

"Is she here?" I ask.

"Madili is sitting with a friend she made, while I decided to talk to you," Aart says. 

I nod.

"Why are you in jail?"

"Queen Irene accused me of abusing her," I say, "which I did not do."

"Did you have your trial yet?"

"No."

"Then you still have a chance," Aart says, "to get out."

I smile at him. For the first time in days, I smile; it feels fake, but not forced.

"I hope so."

We don't say anything to each other. Aart eats his orange soup and I nibble on my bread. He meets my eye and looks away.

Aart stares out the window. "Won't you ask about Madili? About me?"

"Of course," I say, "Tell me about her. How is she doing?"

"Lots of anxiety," Aart says, "Madili gets panic attacks all the time now."

"That's tough," I say.

I think back to the time Madili and Aart were out of jail. How was their life back then? I know they were hopelessly in love, that Shaylee didn't approve of a fairy marrying an Angel, that Aart wanted to be King of Seelie Court, that his desire costed him greatly. Most importantly, Madili was pregnant.

"Was the baby ever born?"

Aart's eyes close and he sighs. "Yes, they were. They were twins."

"What happened to them?" I ask.

"An Agent took them away two days after birth and promised they would be looked after," Aart says.

"I'm so sorry."

"No need to be. It was in their best interest to be taken away. What life could I have given them in jail?"

"What where their names?" I ask.

"Arden and Elliott Raybould."

•••••••••••••••••••

I have to find Aart later.

I couldn't ask him a single question about Arden and Elliott because lunch had finished and we had to leave. I don't think Aart will know much. After all, the twins left him when they were babies. But maybe he knows something- maybe that Agent who took Arden and Elliott away sneaks in information.

Like how Ashton sneaks in to talk to me.

What should I ask Aart? Should I ask if he knows that Lucifer and Lucinda adopted the twins? That their working for Lucifer now and possibly starting an uprising?

He won't believe me.
I know that.