Page 78 of Where Shadows Bloom
“Don’t listen to him,” Mother pleaded beside me. Her words were broken up with sobs. “Don’t take another step closer to her, youbastard—”
My heart was crashing against my breast, louder than thunder and rooting me in place.
“The gods have a bit of a sense of humor, I’ve found,” he continued, his voice smooth and utterly confident. It would be so easy to believe him. So easy to fall under his spell. “So often, they use this mirror to tease me. To shake my faith in them.”
Mother slammed herself against the mirror, begging, “Please, Ofelia,run!”
Françoise inched closer to me, fear glistening in her eyes, too. “He told me he loved me, Ofelia,” she entreated. “He threw me parties and lavished me with gifts. I set aside my friends and my family; I thought his favor was all that mattered in the world. But his sweet words meant nothing—he trapped me here—”
“Enough.” The king held out his hands for mine. “This is why I didn’t want you to come here alone,” he said. “Themirrors can frighten as much as they delight. I didn’t want you to feel afraid in this place. This palace is your home now. It’s safe.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to return to a world of glittering parties and men and women fawning over me.
But it was a lie. A lie Lope warned me of. I’d set aside everything else for this place, for the king’s favor. My home. My loyalty. The girl I loved.
More than anything, I wanted her to hold me now. I wanted to be brave like her, and I wanted to be with her again, smelling her rose-and-smoke hair. The king was wrong. No place was safe if she wasn’t there with me. No place was home if she wasn’t there.
I raced away from the king, toward the back of the room and through the door to the garden. The night air was bracing and relieving; I gulped it down hungrily and dashed down the gravel path.
Anywhere, I thought,go anywhere; get beyond these gates and go find her.
To my left was the garden, stretching onward into darkness. I’d not been far beyond this path; I hadn’t even been here long enough to explore a fraction of this beautiful garden.
At night, it was so different. Sharp angles, twisting branches. All the green in the world had turned black. The perfect place for Shadows to roam.
I didn’t have time to search for an escape. I had to run and pray.
I bolted into the garden. Walls formed out of hedges. I ducked down one path, only for it to end abruptly. I darted down another, hoping for an exit, begging for some wall for me to scale, like on a night at the manor, long, long ago. How I’d jumped the wall and found Lope waiting for me on the other side.
Rounding one corner, I found another dead end, decorated with torches and a statue of a man screaming as he was swallowed up by the earth. I yelped and spun around, darting into the next corner. Empty, as well. I turned and found myself back at the statue, and then turned again, ducking through the winding, endless corridors of leaves.
Footsteps crunched on the gravel behind me. I dashed forward, passing groves of fragrant orange trees, the various bosquets dedicated to our faceless gods—
More footsteps. Faster now. Like metal grating against stone.
Gods, I begged,gods, help me!
I spun past a corner and jolted to a stop. In front of me was a tall iron fence. Behind it was another bosquet, surrounded by marble arches, with a small, domed temple of marble at its center. Four guards stood within, their silver uniforms illuminated by torchlight.
Guards. Servants of the king.
I whirled around but found myself face-to–metallic face with another soldier. He pinned my wrists together and yelled, “Over here!” to the other guards.
I screamed and kicked against him, my dancing shoes clanging against the metal of his shin guards. “Let me go, youmonster!”
Behind me, the fence groaned open. Metallic arms grabbed me around my middle. I screamed and screamed, shouting the name of every courtier I knew—but nobody was coming.
Lope was long gone.
A third soldier used thick, rough rope to tie my wrists in front of me. Immediately, I tried to wriggle out, but any effort only made the bindings burn.
I frantically looked about the grove that had been locked away. There were no altars here, but in the middle of the temple was something else—a door. Its frame was made of stone, its middle made of twisted wood and vines. From afar, I could see both sides of the door. It made no sense, a gateway to nowhere. Then with a gasp, I remembered what Lope had told me. What the woman in the mirror had said.
There really was a door to the Underworld, right here in the palace gardens.
And that’s where I would go.
I pulled against the soldier who kept his hands locked around my arms. Cold panic spread through me as he steadilymoved me closer and closer to the door.
