Page 32

Rosemary was right: a guard is waiting inside the room, his eyes widening when he spots me but growing empty as the butt of my gun meets his head. The sound of his body thumping to the floor masks the creak of the door as a woman steps inside, basket in hand.

I raise the gun again, but my stance loosens when I see her face. “Mirabelle?”

She jumps at my voice and brings her hand to her chest. “Wha—”

She pauses, her eyes trailing from my face to the gun pointed at her, her expression turning from confusion to fear.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

I hold both my hands up, gun pointed at the ceiling.

Mirabelle simply looks to the body at my feet.

“Okay, I know how this looks, but I said I’m not going to hurt you.”

I give her an uneasy smile. “I didn’t say anything about him.”

“How are you…”

She trails off, placing the basket down next to her and moving a strand of hair off her forehead.

“Alive?”

I don’t hide the disgust in my tone. If her surprise tells me anything, it’s that she knew what they planned to do to me. Yet she said nothing as she weaved me into the perfect victim.

Guilt shadows her features, her head ducking and her eyes avoiding mine. “I’m sorry. If I had warned you, then I’d be the one to end up…”

Her mouth snaps shut.

“To end up what, Mirabelle?”

She shakes her head, retreating to a pile of laundry and bundling items in her arms before walking over to me. She places my clothes on a crate in front of me. “I can’t say. Truly…”

She pauses, her eyes meeting mine. “I can’t say.”

She pulls her collar down ever so slightly. Dark veins stretch down from the nape of her neck beneath her blouse. “Some of us welcome it willingly, thrive on it. On the darkness. For me, it took my fear and turned it into something deadly. I can hardly remember myself some days.”

Someone is controlling her. Someone is controlling all of them. It’s infected them like a disease.

My features soften and I place a gentle hand on Mirabelle’s arm. “Who is doing this to you?”

Her eyes turn ghostly. A wave of something shines in them. She blinks twice before it’s gone. “I’m sorry, what were we talking about?”

I tilt my head, my eyes narrowing. “Mirabelle, do you know who I am?”

She scoffs. “Of course I do, dear. It took me three hours to comb the bird’s nest out of your hair. How could I forget?”

“And who asked you to get me ready for dinner?”

“Vince, of course.”

She frowns as if I asked a stupid question.

“And who does Vince take orders from?”

Every emotion fades from Mirabelle’s face as she’s reset again. Her eyes glaze over, then blink twice to regain her focus. “I’m sorry, what were we talking about?”

Clever. I’m almost impressed at the wickedness of it. Whoever pulls Vince’s strings, whoever has orchestrated this perfectly curated illusion, has weaved their minds to forget them. To keep their secrets by simply not remembering who they are.

“Here.”

Mirabelle holds out the bundle of clothes for me. “I kept them, just in case I saw you again. Your weapons are in the boots.”

“Have you seen…”

I hesitate, his name lost on my lips as always. “My companion?”

Mirabelle’s features harden, the lines in her forehead deepening as she shakes her head.

I only nod. Wishing I could repay her, regretting my disdain towards her earlier when she tugged at my matted hair. Longing for a way to undo the spell cast over her mind. “Thank you, Mirabelle. I won’t forget this.”

Mirabelle waves a hand to dismiss me. “Hurry. We won’t be alone in here for long.”

She gestures towards the door.

I hope that when I turn this place to dust, she’s not buried beneath it.

I’ve never been so happy to be wearing pants. I’ve never been more grateful to have the comfort of my blades strapped to me as I make my way through the estate on quiet feet.

It’s relatively easy to go unnoticed. They think their patrol patterns are clever, but it only makes them predictable. There is always a thirty-second blind spot between rotations – thirty seconds for me to weave my way through the halls towards the gardens.

The moonlight shines brightly at this hour, casting monstrous shadows through the wall of windows. I hide within them, waiting for my chance.

A guard passes by, looking around before he walks the line of the house. When he disappears from view, I creak the door open slowly, making sure I’ve counted right.

Then I run.

The perfect image of the estate begins to unravel. The grass crunches beneath my feet as if it’s dead. The bricks appear cracked and dishevelled. Each window is consumed by so much darkness that I’m convinced that there’s nothing else within them.

I run until I reach the archway Vince led me through earlier, and then I duck.

Footsteps trail past on the other side of it, giving me ten seconds to catch my breath.

As the guard disappears, I run again, through the gardens and past the fountain. The cupids’ features are tortured under the moonlight. I don’t stop until I pass the threshold of the area Vince deemed it appropriate for me to see.

I move more cautiously into the part of the garden that he so carefully skirted around, that he assured me was nothing but fallen leaves and weeping trees. I look for whatever he was so careful not to get too close to. Following Rosemary’s direction, I run until the fantasy they’ve curated starts to wilt.

And I find a greenhouse.

It’s not well kept like the rest of the estate. The glass is shattered; a fallen tree rests atop its left side, discarded bricks and rubble scattered outside. Moss curls over the remaining windowpanes. A blanket of green trying desperately to consume the wreckage beneath. It’s dark inside, the only light coming from high above.

Carefully avoiding shards of glass, I manoeuvre my way in. My heart pounds with every step, fear fighting for its usual place in my mind.

The crunch of glass beneath my feet is the only sound that pierces the silence. My stomach twists with every shattering step. I don’t know what it is I’m looking for, but the hairs that stand at full alert on the back of my neck tell me that this is where I’ll find it.

This is where I’ll find Jeremy.

There’s nothing here but the ruins of an immortal war, though. I walk every inch of it within five minutes. There are no doors to secret villainous lairs, no hidden rooms, nothing but the bones of a place that would have once been filled with beauty.

I breathe slowly, but it does nothing to tame my temper.

Days. It’s been days since he was taken. If I don’t find him soon…

I pick up a discarded brick and throw it at one of the few walls left standing. It thumps to the ground, the sound hollow.

Lines forming between my brows, I bend to pick over the rock, one hand sweeping away shards of glass as I do. I wince as a piece cuts my skin, but I ignore the pain.

A small latch, almost unnoticeable under the blanket of dust, marks the floorboard in front of me. Despite the rubble and moss swallowing the greenhouse whole, the latch remains untouched. Moveable. Recently used.

I flip the mechanism and pull, hoping that whatever it’s connected to will open. The floor creaks as I fight with the heavy boards, and I dig my heels into the ground for extra support.

A square the size of a large man lifts high, and I fold it over to rest against the wall.

The scent of rotting flesh causes me to cover my mouth and hold in a retch. I’m wary of blindly looking in.

I peer over the edge into the darkness, gripping my blade so tightly my knuckles turn white. A sigh of relief escapes me when a small staircase is softly illuminated by emergency lights leading into the darkness.

I should turn around and find the archangel, bring him back here so we can look for Jeremy together. There could be any number of monsters hiding beneath the floor, and the archangel is my only chance of surviving. But I tuck away my knife and climb down.

I have to go backward, leaving my back completely exposed. The dim light grows brighter when I reach the bottom, and I jump down. The clang of steel echoes beneath my feet. With one hand on the ground to steady myself, I use the other to draw the gun from my belt.

Lights flicker above me and scatter at intervals down the long tunnel. No doors, no signs, no markings, nothing at all that indicates that another soul has ever stepped down here. Nothing at all that shows me which direction to stumble towards.

I don’t know how long it takes for me to reach the door at the end. After a few hundred steps, I see the rusted red metal and the small window in the centre of it – if you could even call it that. The glass is so frosted over that nothing but shapes are recognisable through it.

Something deep within me whispers at me to run.

Something wicked within me tells me this is exactly where I should be.

My breaths are short and sharp as I grip the door handle with one hand, the gun held ready in my other. A breeze rushes over me as the door creaks inwards slowly.

I inhale a sharp breath, freezing in the doorway.

I knew from the moment I saw Vince that this place was an illusion. I knew there were bodies buried somewhere, both literally and metaphorically.

Never did I expect to see something so sinister, so hellish.

Never did I expect to see this.