Chapter Forty
Alora could breathe. She knew they were in the main hall purely by the sensation of space around her, but she didn’t dare ask Bash what he planned next.
She didn’t want to risk anyone hearing her.
The captain’s pace quickened, his hand laced with hers, and Alora soon felt the change around them.
The coolness, the slight downturn, the enclosed feel.
They were headed down the hall, straight for Door Twenty-five.
Minus the monumental loss of her contract, at least everything else seemed to be going according to plan. Alora heard another knob being turned, another door quietly creaking inward. A frightened, “H-h-hello?”
“It’s only us, Miss Flowers,” said Bash and eased them from the darkness. The slow transition was all for her sake, she knew. He’d told her once that his plunging and returning from enchantment didn’t disorient him in the slightest.
She wished she could say the same. She blinked tears from her eyes, the dim lamplight feeling like the summer sun at high noon. When she could once again see the room she’d created, she didn’t notice another soul inside it. “Lennox?”
At her name, Lennox shrugged off her coat. She sat on the chaise, her fingers forming a trail against the velvet fabric. “I love the seating in here. I want one for myself. Where did you find it?”
“Ichibald’s Fanciful Furnishings, a shop in Thistledown Square. I’ll take you there, when this is all over.”
Lennox smiled at the idea of it, though Alora sensed a shadow about her.
Like she wouldn’t allow the hope to delve further than her expression.
She was draped in melancholy, the hour growing late and minutes away from opening, and it made Alora say, “You weren’t able to go to Door Eleven this afternoon. ”
Her friend shook her head, her smile drooping. “It’s all right, Alora. This is much more important.”
Alora wanted to reach out and hug her. Tell her that soon, she wouldn’t have to worry over a pool with a muzzled mermaid to bring her a happy memory because she would be out in the world making new ones all for herself. But the time never came as a horrific crack rent the room.
Alora sucked in a breath and Lennox yelped, both turning to Bash and the skull he held, the box in pieces on the floor. “Apologies,” he said. His hood shifted as he bent to examine the artifact, careful to keep the rubies from their line of sight. “He’d nailed it shut.”
Lennox rose from the chaise. “Okay, Alora. Are you ready?”
Alora took her friend’s place on the chair and shed her own coat. “Ready.”
Bash handed the skull to Lennox with care.
Alora wished she could see his expression, to see if it bothered him at all that she’d chosen Lennox rather than him as the one to entrance her.
He’d acted fine about it when they’d come up with the idea, but she knew him well enough now to understand when he hid some emotion from her.
Only, she didn’t know what it was—hurt or something else?
The truth was that she couldn’t even placate him even if he were upset.
At the base of it, she realized she cared for him—quite a lot—but he’d done so many things, held so many secrets, and a small part of her didn’t know for certain that he would choose her at the end of everything. That was it. Unfair or not, that was her truth.
Lennox’s face twisted. “Gracious, it even feels evil.”
Alora scowled and swung her gaze to Bash, only for him to shake his head at her. She knew it.
“We’re running out of time,” he said.
“Yes. All right. Well, look into it, I guess.” Then she shoved the ruby eyes straight in front of Alora’s gray ones.
The sensation was the same as before, of diving into an enchanted red sea. She yearned to be there, to see the very depths of it. To never leave. In the far away distance, she heard a male voice say, “That’s enough. Command her to do something.”
The eyes disappeared. Alora almost protested, but then Lennox was there, standing in front of her instead, demanding, “Stand on one leg. Please.”
Alora promptly did as told, wobbling in her golden gown. “It’s worked!”
“It should have erased every command from before,” said Bash. “Picture me stealing you away now. Does it hurt?”
Alora didn’t need to obey him, but she did anyway, imagining herself on horseback, her arms around Bash’s middle, rushing through the gate. “Nothing,” she said, and grinned.
She could visibly see the tension leave them both. She felt it leak from her too. “Lennox? My leg is tired.”
“Oh! Stand on both legs, please.”
Alora sighed in relief at having both feet planted again. “All right. Should we give it a go?”
Lennox nodded an enthusiastic agreement, hugging the skull to her. She said, “Alora, I command you to be disentranced.”
Alora closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She didn’t exactly feel the same unwinding sensation as she’d felt from the physical commands, but she’d had other commands forced upon her by Merridon, too, that she’d not felt. It might not mean anything. She blinked her eyes open.
“Well?”
“I don’t know,” said Alora. “Try to have me stand on one leg again.”
Lennox obliged, and Alora immediately returned to her awkward pose. Her abdominals strained and her thigh burned. Her eyes filled, and no matter how hard she blinked them away, they wouldn’t recede. A tear trickled down her cheek. “That’s that, then.”
Bash lowered his hood, his expression tormented. He took a single step forward before stopping.
“No,” said Lennox. “I refuse to just give up. Alora, I command you not to listen to me.”
The world immediately quieted to silence. Alora, properly horrified, observed Lennox’s mouth moving, and said, “I can’t hear a thing!” She didn’t know for sure if the words had even left her mouth at all, but both Lennox and Bash startled, and then Lennox’s mouth was moving again.
Alora’s hearing returned. “Well. That was terrifying.”
“Sorry,” said Lennox, visibly shaking. “I didn’t think it would be so literal. How about, I command you to disobey me.”
Alora stood still.
Lennox frowned. “You’re still on one leg.”
“Don’t I know it,” groaned Alora.
“Stand normal, please.”
The foot held aloft, unwound. Alora slowly lowered it to the floor. “It won’t work. It won’t let me escape it.”
“What if I break it?” said Lennox.
“I’ve tried,” said Bash, his eyes no less distressed above the mask. “At the coast. I tried smashing it against the rocks. It broke the stones apart and didn’t so much as scratch the skull.”
“You didn’t want to bring it back?”
“I thought it would release the family from their entrancement and rid the world of it all at once. It did neither.”
“So they are still beholden to their frightening witch of a grandmother?” Alora shuddered at the idea of someone wishing her into an early death.
“No. In holding it out and demanding they not obey the old woman, I transferred that power. They’re beholden to me. But I’ve no plans to ever see them again. To ever issue out any command they would need to follow. They’re as safe as I can make them.”
Alora couldn’t help but turn to Lennox, as the realization dawned upon her the same moment it did herself. Never see them again. “But…”
Lennox’s mouth opened and closed, a protest she couldn’t voice. Then determination hardened her. “Destroy the skull, Alora.”
She tried. She tried everything. She set flames to it, imagined it melted.
Turned it freezing, willing it to shatter.
She even tried to imagine it vanished. Whomever had created the skull to begin with had been thorough.
Just as the clause in her contract, she could cause no harm to what mastered her. She growled in frustration.
“Alora.”
Her gaze met Bash’s, and he moved toward her until their chests nearly brushed. His scent enveloped her, and she breathed deeper without meaning. “Let me do it. Burn my contract and allow me free. I promise to stay at the opposite end of the world to give you your own will.”
“Bash…”
But Lennox was already obeying his outstretched hands, his gloves enclosing the skull. “Burn them. Make them disappear. Whatever you can or want.”
Her hands, shaking, pulled free the pages.
The enchanted ink shimmered, black to red to gold, warning her.
She fanned the trio of contracts in her hands and knew her second contract wasn’t at all like her first. Her first had been plain ink and paper.
Her second would keep her chained for eternity.
Burn to ashes, she thought and imagined, and when she blinked next, they were gone, dusting from her fingers.
“I feel different,” whispered Lennox. “Lighter, almost.”
Bash said nothing, staring directly at Alora. He waited for her decision. And beyond him—the only sound to ever echo throughout Opulence—rang a bell.
Lennox paled, swinging around to the closed door. “Opening,” she said.
“Time’s up,” said Bash. “Which is it to be, Alora?”
But Alora could only shake her head. “Don’t. I can’t. I can’t make that choice.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Nobody will be making any choices soon enough if we’re caught,” hissed Lennox.
“Alora—”
“Bash! I said I can’t! Aren’t you listening?
I will not choose! I will have you both or nothing!
” A stunned silence settled over the Room of Desire.
“I’ve not had a true friend since I was a child, and I won’t give Lennox up.
And I haven’t felt like—well, I’m not sure how to describe what I’m feeling when I’m—” Alora felt herself blushing.
Always at the worst of times. “Once, you said that if you were a betting man, you’d say I smile at everyone.
You’re right. I do. And I think it was easy then because I knew that was as close with someone as I’d ever allow myself to be.
But that’s not what I desire. I won’t give you up, either.
I’ve been told to abandon this project, to run, to hide, to do this and that and to choose, and I’m sick to death of it.
I want to win. I want to beat Marshall Merridon, that old pond scum, at his own twisted game.
Now, kindly allow me to move, Lennox. I have things to do. ”
“O-oh,” stumbled Lennox. “Well, let’s… Goodness, hold on! How about...Alora, I command you to move about the mansion at will.”
“And the grounds.”
“And the grounds.”
“Thank you. I would go and pack your things,” said Alora, and then she flung open the door.