Winged

Chapter 14: Imprisoned

When Leo's captor removed the bag from his head, Leo instinctively closed his eyes to protect himself from the sudden change in light, even though it was very faint, coming from a small skylight on the ceiling. Though most of the room was so dark Leo couldn't even tell how big it was, the skylight had been placed where it would always illuminate the cage in the middle of the room, into which Leo was thrown.

The cage had a very specific design. It was a narrow cylinder, hanging from the ceiling by a chain: a human-sized birdcage. A brief glimpse of light reached his eyes when the soldier opened the door to leave. Most of Leo's stuff had been taken from him as he was dragged into the cage, including his sword, the bag with potions, his armour, and the Queen's crystal.

Leo showed his claws and tried ripping the cage bars open, to no avail.

"Stop it, Leo," a voice said from the darkness. "Your talons are mighty but even they have limits. This is no ordinary steel, you know."

Ephideus emerged from the darkness, no longer bruised and shirtless, but wearing fine elven clothing and a triumphant smile.

"Ephideus?" Leo couldn't believe it; Ephideus was annoying, but he had never come off as a traitor. "You are on their side?"

"Please, Leo, think a little harder," he laughed. "The elf knows the location of your hideout; if he were one of my allies, there would not be a hideout anymore."

Leo tried not to frown in confusion. Ephideus was too eloquent to refer to himself in the third person.

"Wait, you are not Ephideus?"

"I hoped you would realise it in time," he said, clasping his hands together with a condescending expression. "But I suppose my appearance could be deceiving. Allow me to show you something."

The next few seconds would be engrained in Leo's brain for as long as he lived. From under Ephideus' left sleeve, a dagger jumped into his hand. It was the same dagger the White Mask had wielded when he disappeared from Leo's tower. The supposed Ephideus brought the dagger to the left side of his face and buried it under his skin, cutting from the chin to the temple.

Ephideus didn't scream, cringe, or flinch, and there was not even a drop of blood. Instead, Ephideus, or whoever he was, slid the dagger from one side of his face to the other, slowly detaching the skin from his flesh. As he did so, his body and clothing began trembling and morphing, transforming into different ones. The body shortened, the arms and legs changed, the elvish armour turned into a lilac overcoat with a yellow vest, and the straight blond hair was covered by the coat's hood. When Ephideus had dragged the blade to the other side of his face, now nothing more than a piece of skin placed on his head like a mask, he removed it and threw it away. What hid underneath was an artificial white smile.

"You," Leo said. "The White Mask."

"Yes," he said, monotone. "But only one of the seven."

Leo recalled the last time he heard that featureless, indistinct voice. There was no way the man in front of him was human.

"So...what are you?" Leo mumbled, barely above a whisper.

For a moment, the White Mask said nothing and remained motionless. He could have been mistaken for a statue, but he eventually spoke again.

"I'm a White Mask."

Leo stared at the lifeless smile, expecting some kind of elaboration on that useless answer, but none was given.

"Do you have a name?"

"No. But you do know me as someone else. In fact, many others."

The White Mask put a gloved hand over his mask and paused, once again still as a statue. When he moved, he took the mask off his face, and from underneath it came a horrific sight, a face Leo didn't know, yet was completely familiar. Ephideus' blonde hair almost covered Father Halford's saggy ears. Laurel's charred eyebrows and the distinct, crooked nose of Ron, the missing egg smuggler made up the front, and below all was Heiron's triangular chin. An uncanny collage of people.