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Regardless, it was time to get back to the lord, and this time, no more lies.
Opening the door, I stepped into the hall.
Something was… different. Had that enormous vase been there moments ago? In my haste to get to the washroom, I’d probably missed it. I turned right, heading back down the corridor. My reflection in the vast windows followed. The world outside was dark, not a single star in the black sky.
I’d already fled through the forest once before, and I did not relish the thought of doing so again. But that wouldn’t happen. I had everything in hand.
The dining room door waited ahead.
I’d plunge straight into facts, confront Adair with them. I pushed through the door and stumbled into a stairwell, not the dining room. Had I gotten turned around? The route to the washrooms had been straightforward; I’d walked it before.
A little nervous laugh tittered free. I’d taken a wrong turn, that was all. My reflection in the big windows followed me again, drifting like a ghost in a sea of darkness. The big vase was up ahead, but where was the washroom door? It had been directly opposite.
Another small laugh slipped free. What was this?
A clock chimed deep and loud, striking the hour somewhere far off in the house.
I hadn’t missed the turn to the dining room, because there hadn’t been one. I marched past the vase, onward down the hall. Corridors could not move. Perhaps I hadn’t been paying attention when the maid had brought me here. I hurried on, down a few steps, around a corner into another corridor exactly like the one I’d left. How anyone found their way around such a labyrinth was beyond me.
I carried on toward the door at the end, passing several like it that I assumed were bedchambers, and slowed as I caught sight of a slip of silk poking out from beneath one of those closed side doors. Purple silk like Devere’s coat lining. The same color silk, like the ribbon he sometimes wore in his hair. I stopped at the door. Nobody was about. No maids, no noise even, just the sound of my own heart.
Another clanging chime sounded, this time closer.
The door was probably locked.
I turned the handle, and the door clicked open an inch. I had to look. There was no other option. The door opened inch by inch, and the hallway light crept in, pouring like golden liquid over a dozen slumped bodies. Cold, brown, unblinking eyes peered back. Heads lay crooked on their shoulders, arms wedged at odd angles, legs turned away at the knees. They’d been… tossed inside. Men, a dozen or more. Discarded.
Were they… dead?
Strange, how their faces all looked the same.
Slowly, the horror of what I saw built, then slammed into me.
They were Devere, but different in subtle ways. The eyes were too close on one. On another, the hair was wrong. Another had the wrong-shaped mouth—I knew because I’d kissed his lips, and these were not him—but they were uncannily close.
Mannequins.Toys.
My heart lurched up my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
Another ringing chime—so loud it was surely in my head.
Arms swooped in and griped my waist from behind. “I see you have found my obsession,” Rochefort said.
I stumbled as he pulled me back, away from the closet of dolls. “Unhand me.”
“I would.” His breath whispered across my neck. “But I fear your fragile state of mind may further crumble.”
“My mind is fine.” Tremors stuttered through my bones. I couldn’t look away from them. Their glass eyes stared. “I know what you are. Devere told me everything.”
“I doubt that.” He laughed, and the sound stroked across my skin and plunged into my soul. “There is too much Devere does not know for him to tell all. Dear Valentine, you’re asking for answers from the wrong person. Do you ask the toy for its truth, or its master?”
“You’re not his master. He’s not a possession.” I bucked and tore free from his grip. “You are the broken one, and by God, I will not let you hurt him a moment more.”
“I’ve never wanted to hurt him or you. But this game is a delicate one.” Rochefort raised his hands and swept them over his head. The blond-haired and blue-eyed devil that was Rochefort peeled away, and like a snake slithering from its skin, the fae Adair emerged in his place. Slim to the point of being rake-like, with long black hair and arresting eyes. The finely tipped ears proclaimed him unhuman, and there was the truth of it, the truth of the monster right in front of me.
A surge of revulsion rocked me back, but it was more than that. I could taste him, his richness, his magic—whatever it was. It beat the air like thick, oily heat.
“I believe you know who I am.”
