Page 19 of Enchantra (Wicked Games #2)

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If Genevieve had thought an air of shame might cling to the spectators as they pried themselves away from their bacchanalian activities to gather around the ballroom and watch the upcoming spectacle, she was very mistaken. Half of Knox’s guests looked more smug, in fact, and under any other circumstances she would have been thoroughly entertained by the gossip that was sure to come out of an event like this.

Instead, as each of Rowin’s siblings began to remove their masks, Genevieve felt that it was as if they were losing a bit of their armor. She might have preferred to strip herself bare than show everyone her flushed face.

She glanced over at Rowin’s taut expression. “What happened? Upstairs?”

“Now is not a good time to talk,” he told her.

“The Hunting Blade will now choose the first Hunter,” Knox declared to the enraptured audience.

The Devil lifted a sparkling dagger into the air like it was a sacred offering before simply…letting it go. The enchanted blade hovered there as Knox and Barrington cleared out of the circle, and Genevieve held her breath as they all waited for the dagger’s decision. The blade slowly turned itself horizontal, its point spinning around the circle, past Ellin and Wells and Covin, until finally stopping on…

Grave.

Rowin stiffened at her side.

The Hunting Blade shot through the air like an arrow, aiming right for Grave’s heart. His eyes locked with Genevieve’s as he grabbed it by its hilt mere centimeters before the tip pierced through him. A vicious smile broke across his face as equal cheers and groans of disappointment sounded from the onlookers.

“The masquerade is over,” Knox announced to his spectators. “I would like to thank all of you for another wonderful equinox celebration. If your last name is not Silver, please head back to the Hellmouth now .” The Devil’s smile turned vicious. “If I find you lingering, you will not like your fate.”

The crowds dispersed. A few of the masked revelers called out wishes of good luck to their favorite players, and it jarred Genevieve to see them act as if Rowin and his siblings were famed entertainers instead of hostages trapped in a tragic curse.

“What’s your choice of game, Gravington?” Knox requested.

“Roaming rooms,” Grave declared.

All the siblings groaned at once. Except for Rowin, whose expression was as smooth as stone.

“Fuck you, asshole,” Covin grunted in Grave’s direction.

Genevieve was sure that Rowin had explained this version of the game to her earlier during their brief tour, but the rules were evading her now. Too much had happened in such a short time for her to keep track of every little thing he’d said. And it didn’t help that she always had the urge to tune him out.

“Roaming rooms grants you ten minutes to hide—which begins now ,” Knox declared, his eyes flicking pointedly to Genevieve.

Grave stayed planted in place while Covin and Remi dashed across the room in a single blink. Ellin and Wells ran off next—in opposite directions as the first two. Only Genevieve, Rowin, and Sevin lingered.

Rowin turned to her, leaning his mouth down to her ear to murmur, “Wait for me in the foyer. There’s something I need to do.”

“But—” Genevieve sputtered in protest as she watched him take off for the staircase.

“One tip, sweetheart?” Sevin offered as she gaped after Rowin. “If Grave is smiling, you should be running .” With that, he strutted from the room.

One final look in Grave’s direction was all it took to make Genevieve’s feet finally start moving. She dashed in the direction of the foyer, pushing past the remainder of the exiting patrons.

A spectator in a white bear mask whistled at her from down the hallway. “If you and Rowin give us a nice little show, I’ll vote you for Favored. I want to see if it’s true that he’s got five piercings in the head of his?—”

“Choke and die,” Genevieve sneered at them with a dismissive flick of her hand.

As the last of the rowdy guests disappeared, she paced back and forth in the foyer, counting down the minutes in her head as she waited for Rowin to appear. When she was down to the final two without a single sign of him, however, she became too anxious to wait any longer.

Damn him. Was this all a trick?

She wasn’t going to wait to find out. No matter what she shared with Rowin—vows, kisses, beds—it was important for her to remember that she had to trust herself first and foremost.

She strode for the front door and plunged outside into the cold before the final minutes ran out. Despite the fact that she was likely going to contract hypothermia without her magic to help stave it off, hiding outside felt like a good strategy for that exact reason. Plus, whatever roaming rooms meant, the others had not seemed thrilled, so avoiding any semblance of a room seemed like the best way to go. Maybe.

She made for the labyrinth.

As she took in the snow-covered greenery, she was equally surprised to see it had been covered in mirrors at some point. Their gilded frames held up by the twisting branches and vines every few feet along the walls.

“Nosy f-fucks,” she stammered aloud as she rushed through the outer hedge’s opening, the chill already piercing down to her bones.

Has it gotten colder? she wondered, but she had a feeling she’d just been too preoccupied with her wedding to notice how cold it was the night before.

Her breaths came out in billowing, white puffs as she delved deeper into the maze, trying to commit its twists and turns to memory. Finally, she emerged into the square at its center and spotted the grand silver fountain. She nestled herself into a dark corner, against the shrubbery, ignoring the uncomfortable way the branches dug into her bare arms and shoulders as she settled back as far as she could. She tucked her underskirts tight around her legs like a blanket while using the top layer of her gown’s fabric to wrap around her torso as best she could. The tips of her nose and ears had already gone completely numb.

She wasn’t sure how long she could last out here without freezing to death. And the irony that she had been suffocating from the heat of the passion fruit just hours earlier was certainly not lost on her. The Devil and his audience must be laughing now.

The footsteps came what felt like an hour later. Followed by Rowin’s signet nearly melting the flesh of her frostbitten finger.

Her head snapped up from where it had been resting on her knees, and she listened for the sound of someone approaching.

Footsteps.

There was someone else in the maze. And they were hunting for her.

Lurching to her feet, she found that the cold had seeped into her very core and drained almost every ounce of energy she had. She tried to take a step, the movement brittle.

The footsteps grew closer.

Genevieve took a deep breath and hauled her feet forward. Her joints loosened and her heart began to race, slowly thawing her out. She kept her steps as light as possible while she retraced her path, listening for whoever was pursuing her as she wove her way back out of the labyrinth. Glimpses of her reflection flashed next to her from the mirrors lining the walls within. And just as the exit, and the house, came into view…

“I know you’re in here.” A gruff voice, calling from somewhere behind her.

As she suspected. Grave.

Genevieve began to run.

As she broke free of the maze, it became instantly clear that she could not make it all the way up the stairs, across the porch, and inside the house in time. Worse, she realized exactly how Grave had tracked her from the house—her footprints. How could I be so stupid?

Grasping one of the branches protruding from a hedge to her right, she bent and twisted it until it snapped away in her hand. She hastily swept away the footprints in the snow behind her. It wasn’t perfect—there was still a trail—but at least it wasn’t a set of sharp, fresh tracks. Turning back to the house, her eyes snagged on a small gap between the house’s walls and the giant lattice holding the vines that covered the facade. She lunged toward it and, sure enough, there was a hollow space just behind the crisscrossing woodwork.

She swept away the last of her footprints leading up to the lattice and, biting her tongue as hard as she could, wedged herself into the impossibly tight gap. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as the thorns ripped through her hair and skin. Holding her breath, she squinted through the slivers of space between the vines to watch the maze’s exit.

Grave emerged.

The Hunting Blade was clutched in his white-knuckled grip as his calculating eyes roamed over the front porch. Then the ground. He prowled forward, and Genevieve forced herself to regulate her breathing as he got closer to her hiding spot. She swore the ring on her finger began to vibrate.

Knox’s little test in the mirror-realm came back to her now in perfect clarity. The way that imposter version of Grave had said killing her would be so easy…

Except he walked right past her, along the outside of the lattice. He looked at the house’s facade for a moment. Then he pivoted on the balls of his feet to head back inside. A single tear of relief ran down Genevieve’s face.

And then he paused.

Of fucking course.

As he turned to face the crisscrossing lattice once more, Genevieve pressed herself back into the stone behind her, as if this would help her remain invisible. Holding her breath once more, she tracked every movement Grave’s silhouette made.

And when the dagger plunged through the lattice, about three feet to her right, it took everything within her not to let out the scream of terror crawling up her throat.

He pulled the blade back out, ripping away some of the vines and letting moonlight spill into the shadows of her hiding place. A beat later, he plunged the dagger in again, closer.

The third time the knife came through, it nearly speared her right in the face, missing her eye socket by mere inches. Her hands shook as she ducked out of the way of the new hole while Grave continued stabbing into the trellis. He seemed to pick a few more random spots before finally deciding he could move on and go back into the house.

She waited a full ten minutes as the ring on her finger cooled down before trying to move. Despite the ring’s reassuring temperature, she cautiously put her eye up to one of the small holes he’d pierced in the web of vines to see if the coast was clear, before squeezing out of her hiding spot and creeping along the house toward the porch.

Dashing around the corner for the steps, she ran headfirst into something warm and solid.

No, not something. Someone.