Chela could practically smell the condescension seeping from beneath the door and rise above the cold, wet stench of death in the room. She had to interrupt in order to keep from pummeling at the door in outrage. “Who even are you,” she whipped.
Her outburst held back the jailer’s rambling thought, and once again the room felt about to burst with a silence that carried discomfort, mistrust, and incivility. Chela felt a tinge of pride in dispatching with propriety, fully knowing the act to be one of the only weapons belonging to the powerless.
“K-K-,” the voice cackled or choked, stumbling over its speech impediment, keeping the air buoyant and crushing with uncertainty. “Kelpie,” it finally uttered, releasing them all from one spell of bewilderment, then barreling them once again with another. Kelpie? I don’t know a Kelpie.
“Kelpie,” Chela addressed the door with a name, “why are we here?”
“I was getting to that,” Kelpie snapped without a stutter.
Kelpie cleared their throat in an attempt to regain a sense of decorum they apparently felt standing at a bolted asylum door, speaking to a room of prisoners and the dead, but it spiraled into a spasm of faint wheezing. “You are here because I b-brought you here because the mistress wants you here.”
“What mi-“
“Y-you are outsiders and there is much you would not know. Kelpie brought you here. K-kelpie g-gave you the b-b-blood. We missed you but you’re finally here!” Kelpie sounded jubilant. “You-you’re all here!”
“What do you mean?” Chela demanded. “Kelpie? How do you know me?”
“There’s not much time now. It’s starting. Just remember – you’re all from the city. All of you. That is what you need to know all you need to know all s-she told me to tell you to get that far.”