The Games for Nihon (BOOK THREE)

Chapter 17 - Inside the Collection

"It's like being in a jewelry box," Ami said.

"Only that we're the jewelry," Sofia replied and shuddered.

Orì was looking around with a pinched expression on her face. She had protested very loudly and explicitly against their incarceration while the guards had been taking them away. And to add insult to injury, any form of magic was blocked, as if the particles had been sucked out of the air all around them.

"You can still do it, Sofia!" she had raged. "Do something! Turn them into stone! Or into frogs, or something!"

At first, Sofia hadn't even responded to that, only when Orì wouldn't stop, she had told her - quietly and firmly - that, first, she didn't know how to do that, second, it wouldn't help them, because there were simply too many very powerful people around, and, thirdly and most importantly, even if she did know how to do that, she would never turn people into stone or even into frogs.

Finally, Orì had relented, as Sofia had known she would. In the end, reason usually won out with Orì, only it sometimes took her a little while longer to get there.

"I'm nobody's jewelry," she grumbled now.

"You'd be a bracelet made of thorns," Sofia teased.

"And you, a lock without a key," Orì snapped.

Sofia considered it.

"I'd be okay with that. If I had to be."

Orì looked at her exasperated.

"How come you aren't angry?"

"Maybe I'm used to being a prisoner."

"Very funny. But seriously? I would have thought you'd never accept this."

"Who says I have accepted it? But right now, we haven't got any choice. I'm just glad she didn't get the Bayla. Thank you for playing along before."

"I wasn't actually sure what you were doing," Ami said, looking down at his feet.

Sofia couldn't believe it.

"So you two were serious??"

Orì and Ami were uncomfortably quiet for a moment.

"The important thing is that the Bayla got away," Ami said then, diplomatically. "Isn't it?" He looked pleadingly at Sofia to just let it go.

She swallowed her anger. He was right. There was no point in fighting among themselves now. They had bigger problems to solve. How to get out of this jewelry box, for one.

Since coming into Nihon, Sofia had been in a few weird places, especially since joining Orì and Ami. But this one - was something else.

The dimensions of the space were enormous - and yet its feeling was claustrophobic. There was some freedom of movement, but everything about their new dwelling was designed to make them feel their imprisonment. Each person had an allocated space that varied in size and furnishing. These slots were connected through narrow maze-like corridors through which they were free to move until, all of a sudden, they weren't anymore. Their feet would suddenly refuse to take another step as if they had come to an impenetrable wall even if none was visible. Some of the rooms were empty, and some were occupied by several people at once, as a kind of meeting space. They even saw a few people playing cards, not even looking at them.

Sofia, Orì and Ami had been placed into one room each, but they were close enough to be able to see each other and talk to each other. And they did, at first, as if they were alone in there. They could see some of the others. There were many, and even more out of their sight. But something inside of them refused to regard them as real people. It was the protective part of their brains that let them believe a little while longer that they might just be illusions. Because the truth was too horrifying.