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Apparently she’s remembered that, because the second I was dumb enough to join the stupid game tonight, she lasered right in on me.

“Scared, Milena?” she’d asked, a perfect little smirk painted across her glossed-up lips. “Maybe you should pick truth instead. Wouldn’t want to tarnish your tiara or crack those glass slippers.”

I chose dare. Of course. My pride is a stupid, reckless thing.

And what was the dare? “Go to Greymoor, alone, tonight.”

Take something.

Leave something.

And record myself in the primary bedroom on the third floor saying, “There’s no such thing as monsters.”

Which brings us to the present, and me standing alone, in my heels, at the front door to the place we used to dare each other to run past, screaming.

I look down at the keypad lock on the front door. Alicia had told me the combination with a smug little glint in her eye, saying a “friend” gave it to her. I have no idea what that’s supposed to mean.

But whatever. I’m here. Alicia is still a cunt, and I’m still more than happy to shove her shitty attitude in her face.

Let’s do this.

I enter the code.

There's a soft click, as if it’s been waiting for me.

I press my palm to the old brass doorknob, twist, then push. My pulse skips as the door opens with a deep, aching creak, before swinging into the darkness within. My nose wrinkles slightly at the smell of rust, cold stone and something else, old and forgotten.

Then I step inside and the door groans shut behind me, swallowing the last of the streetlight.

It’s dark in here, with the heavy curtains mostly blocking out the streetlight from outside. I fumble for my phone and turn on the flashlight. A pale beam slices through the dust-choked air, sweeping over the ghostly shapes of furniture covered in old sheets.

The wood floor creaks under my weight when I step forward, sending a ripple up my spine.

Ghosts aren’t real. Ghosts aren't real. Ghosts aren't real.

The Gilded Age mansion isgigantic. I remember reading once that the old manor is pushing fifteen thousand square feet. Columns line the entrance hall. Wallpaper that looks like it was once ivory and gold peels from the walls in soft curls. A cobwebby chandelier drips crystal from the ceiling like frozen tears.

Lady Greymoor had greattaste: great, andexpensive. Luckily, aside from being by all accounts abastard, Lord Greymoor—yes, they were an actual Lord and Lady—was grotesquely wealthy.

When he decided to ditch Lady Greymoor for a floozy half her age, his spurned wife took him to the cleaners and used that fuck-you money to build one of the most stately, grandiose mansions of its day in Manhattan.

And it's her bedroom in said grandiose mansion in which I’m supposed to record myself saying “there’s no such things as monsters”. A socialite from the Gilded Age who married into old money and then disappeared into rumor. Some stories say she went mad. Other, more grotesque ones claim she ended up murdering her ex and his new fling by walling them up in this very house.

Honestly, my bet—my hope—is that Lady Greymoor, God bless her, spent every last dime of that fucker’s money on food, wine, fun, and hot Gilded Age boys.

My thoughts on the former owner of the house fade as I drift deeper into it. I step into a grand salon room and slip past a grand piano swaddled in muslin, the yellowing and cracked keys peeking out from under the sheet.

There’s something romantic about it all. It's the kind of place where ghosts—should you believe in them—might linger. Not because they’re angry, but because they just loved it too much to leave.

I think about Alicia’s instructions again:Take something. Leave something. Say the words.

Without thinking, I walk over to an old armchair in the corner and sink down onto the sheet covering it. Dust bunnies float into the air like little ballerinas, dancing in the still, heavy air.

For a minute, I consider juststaying put.

Haunted or not, it's peaceful here, like the world has stopped screaming in your face. No Madame Kuzmina, the artistic director of the Zakharova, telling me to start from the beginningagain, or to put in more grueling hours perfecting my technique. None of the expectations that come with being the daughter ofone of the world's most powerful, feared, and respected Bratva kingpins.

Just me, and this old house.