Black feathers
It's corpses. If I agreed on that bet, I would've lost, because I hoped for a laboratory. I *needed* to hope for something better than it turned out to be.
Thankfully, most of these corpses are buried. The cellar is built on the dirt floor, with no solid foundation beneath—it's just a hole in the ground, and the Time Eater dug deeper holes that could only be graves. Black feathers lie on top of some of them.
I count the graves—there are fewer than there are disappeared people. There could be other graves somewhere…
Despite the lack of visible corpses, their stench stays. I breathe through my mouth and focus on Zeke more than on anything else.
"I wonder why the slug didn't just throw the corpses out back where he took the people from. Or at least outside the castle. Or buried them in the courtyard," I say.