Chapter Thirty-Four #2
Alora thought she might vomit all over her shoes. “Yes, Madam Feebledire.”
“Apparently you’re to be escorted to all shifts,” said the older woman, like the idea was distasteful and unnecessary.
“I can only imagine it is because of your unique abilities. Abilities managed to be kept from me until you decided membership didn’t suit you so much as becoming a performer yourself.
” She arched an eyebrow at Alora, clearly hankering for answers.
These truths Alora would have happily given had she not been entrapped by an entrancing skull. A terribly dark artifact if she’d ever seen one. Where did someone find something wicked like that? Surely not in Enver.
An obscure chirp permeated her mutilated memories. The scent of vetiver. Those blasted, lovely eyes. Again.
It was maddening, but Alora took solace in one thing: Madam Feebledire didn’t enjoy the idea of Alora and Merridon in cahoots behind her back.
Even realizing the depths of Alora’s enchantment now, she clearly did not know of all that he had done.
Of all the details of the contract, nor the trickery currently at play.
Alora didn’t know for certain that Madam Feebledire would care even if she were made aware how different it all really was. But it was worth a try. She said, “My contract is as unique as I am. You should read it.”
Madam Feebledire didn’t pause in her walk down the glittered path. “Why would I do that? I’m not in the business of contracts.”
Alora couldn’t say more. The ideas wouldn’t even form in her head, so thick was the entrancement placed upon her. But she thought she caught a waft of curiosity about Madam Feebledire at the suggestion. It would have to be enough.
Memories fluttered as she neared the dwellings at the back of the property.
Alora knew she had been here before, and seeing as how the only performer’s name she recognized from Marshall Merridon’s mouth had been Lennox Flowers, she thought that must be why.
She must have visited once or twice. She thought maybe she could have visited Bash Merridon here, but for some reason, she just couldn’t believe he was a performer. It didn’t feel right.
“I take light and break it, Miss Pennigrim.”
Alora stumbled in her steps. “Good god,” she breathed beneath the wind.
The memory was only that. Only words. But the voice behind them had been deep and rasping. A voice the same as the hooded, masked figure who fetched her from behind Door Twenty-five.
“Captain”, Madam Feebledire had called him. A title the hidden man once called himself.
To her.
He lied about not knowing me!
Which meant he must be in Merridon’s confidences.
He wished to keep her buried in the confusing dark of lost memories.
The sudden urge to enact terrible things upon him, upon Marshall Merridon, too, overcame her, but her imagination wasn’t there to greet it.
She could go no further than the feeling of it.
These new inadequacies infuriated her. Alora fairly vibrated in her rage.
Because she could do nothing but dutifully follow Madam Feebledire, she sank her teeth into her lip instead, setting it to bleeding.
Her nails, too, dug so deep into her palms they threatened to puncture skin.
She didn’t want to hurt herself; she didn’t deserve it, but it was all she had.
They passed by smaller dwellings, with fake windows and bulbous bushes. Alora wondered about the windows, confused by them. She quickened her pace to near Madam Feebledire. “Why tack on fake windows to these buildings? It looks strange.”
The older woman tipped her head in their direction. “What do you have against illusions, Miss Pennigrim?”
“Nothing, if they serve a purpose.”
“And so these do.”
They didn’t though. Except perhaps to create the illusion of a real home.
But Alora had a real home. With real windows and a real terrace and many plants, and not a single one bulbous or dangerously close to an over-trimming.
How dare they try to take it all from her?
A lifetime of servitude, relaxing prettily, dumping desires into the world?
Once upon a time, her dream had been to make everyone else’s come true. But not like this. Never like this.
Behind the rows of smaller buildings rose larger ones.
Now these could almost be deemed acceptable.
Though there still weren’t any actual windows, at least they seemed to have more than one cramped room.
The houses rose two stories, and the hedges were no longer bulbous but coned.
Madam Feebledire made for one at their right, on the far edge.
“You’ll find your accommodations already furnished with everything you should need, including a bath.
You’re lucky you’re deemed so special. Most other performers have to use a communal.
” At the white door, Madam Feebledire produced a key from her bodice and fitted it to the lock.
“Someone will be by shortly to assist you in readying yourself. Dinner will be delivered at six. Afterward, you’ll be escorted to your door. ”
Alora remained on the strange house’s threshold. “To my door? Tonight? But I’ve only just finished it.”
For the first time Madam Feebledire seemed to really look at her. At the circles that must have assuredly deepened, the unkempt hair, and her swollen eyes. “Master is a very ambitious man. Once he decides on a course, he does not take it at a walk. You’ll do well to remember that.”
“But—”
Madam Feebledire held up a hand. “I won’t hear an argument. You signed the contract of your own volition, Miss Pennigrim. If Master has decided on surprising the public with an early opening of the Room of Desire, then that is his prerogative. Opulence Mansion belongs solely to him, after all.”
Alora noted the sneering quality of Madam Feebledire’s last words even as the rest of what she said left her knees quaking. Tonight? It is already late afternoon! “How am I to know what to do?”
Madam Feebledire sent her a side-eye full of meaning. “Figure it out, Miss Imagination.” Opulence’s management skirted around her and pushed through the door. She laid the key upon the entryway table. “Good luck.”
The door latched closed behind her.