But this was not that kind of darkness. This was forced. Captured darkness. Left stale and stagnant for far too long, with no cycles of sun to take its place and give it rest.

Chrysanthemum led me into that darkness, and once we had gone a ways, she stopped, bent, and lifted something.

“Hold on,” she said, fumbling with something in her hands. “I have all the steps memorized, but this part is always tricky.” Finally she managed.

The familiar strike of a match, and the lantern she had picked up flared with light. All at once, metal bars I could not have seen before were met with the rattling of bodies. Arms and hands outstretched through those bars. Skin so pale it was gray-blue.

Dozens of pyres. In cells. In cages.

They made no sounds. How could they have? Except for the noise of trying to force their way to the light. A gnashing sound. If one could hear suffering, I heard it then.

Chrysanthemum giggled. “Oh good! You are thoroughly frightened!” She put a hand on her hip, looking around with glee. “I thought this little set up would get you, Aurelie. You are so sensitive about such things. One has almost no choice but to poke a little fun at you now and again.” She sighed, fully happy with her scheme. “Now then, let’s hurry back up before the boys realize we’re gone. They are both so in love with you, they will never forgive me if they knew I deliberately gave you a fright like this.”

But I did not leave with Chrysanthemum. Instead, I walked forward. Deeper into the dungeon. Most of the pyres turned their attention to the light, ignoring me as I passed by them. They could not reach me, nor did they try to.

Some of them were too weak to reach out. They slumped in the corners of their cells, their eyes half closed, their mouths gaping open. It was said that pyres could not die. That they lived forever in their haunted manner. That such endless living was akin to dying, and so they hovered over graves and took the lifeblood of humans. Out of spite. Or out of longing.

But the pyres who were unable to move at the backs of their cells did not look spiteful to me. Or haunted. They look tortured.

I imagined Vincent there, clanging against a cage for a drop of light. I imagined Rosemary, our gardener, the one who could make flowers bloom with nothing but simple regard, hunched against a stone wall, her mouth agape and her body stiller than foul air.

“Aurelie,” Chrysanthemum said, unwilling to follow me deeper into the dungeon. “Aurelie, come back here. We are not to remain. This is where the naughty pyres are kept. The ones who have not been civilized. Or who have lost their civility. They are not the same as the pyres who serve us upstairs.”