Chapter Forty-Three
Amelody filled the grand hall, coaxing and a little bit wild. Upon entering it, the sound immediately set Alora’s heartbeat to a faster pace and her head to muddling. Suddenly, she wanted to experience things. Exotic things, tempting things, dangerous things.
Gone were the golden cloaks, checked at the door.
Without them, the members of Opulence Mansion were dressed in all sorts of finery.
From silken trousers and laced cuffs to satin skirts and glittering bodices.
Everything she could see, clothing and jewelry and eager eyes, were set to further brilliance by the yellow glow of endless gilded chandeliers.
The scent, too, had changed. Alora smelled hints of wine and wax, cinnamon, amber and vanilla.
It was an intoxicating blend to be sure, and everything and everyone so very beautiful.
She breathed heartily, her lip caught between her teeth.
Don’t be tricked, she reminded herself. Don’t be swayed by this place.
Doors clicked quietly near her: Door One and Door Two.
A woman with a luxurious golden robe rounded the spiral staircase to her left, up and up until Alora knew with certainty she would sail into the Room of Forgotten Memories and bathe away her deepest regrets.
What changes would she undergo by its end?
An unfair one no matter what, considering what she didn’t understand.
A handsome employee dressed in Opulence crimson and painted in Opulence gold met her there, turning the knob and beckoning her in.
A soft smile exchanged. Alora shuddered and looked away.
She found instead Door Two, remembering above it waited the Room of Reward, a place of gambling and vice.
She startled upon meeting the equally startled expression of Mr. Pottenbaum.
A sheepish wave was all he offered her, along with a parting study of the man beside her, until he, too, made for the stairs.
He thinks I’m like them. A member.
Bash set a steadying hand on her wrist. At first, she did not know why. Then a disoriented and disgruntled Marshall Merridon spun toward them. “We’re open,” he said, scathingly, accusatory eyes spearing his head of management.
“Of course we are. It’s passed dusk,” huffed Madam Feebledire. “Mar—ahh, Master. Shall you begin the tour with your office? You have a little—” Madam Feebledire motioned to her own temple, pausing when her brother’s scowl deepened.
“No! We’re open and Miss Flowers is right here. And my captain is wearing…silver.” Merridon’s throat worked as if he fought back a gag. “Get to your door—”
Alora’s mouth parted at the hostile words directed at Lennox.
Merridon, noting this, halted at once, easing into a false, rich laugh.
“I’m sorry, Miss Flowers. I have quite the headache all of a sudden.
But your partner is likely waiting on you, as are our many well-paying patrons.
Let’s not disappoint them! After all, that is not Opulence’s way. ”
Lennox looked down at her dress; while not unsightly, it was decidedly drab in the changed environment. Not to mention there would be no partner awaiting her, either, should she obey. “Erm…”
“Thank you for helping me out of the rain, Miss Flowers. I won’t forget your assistance in righting my skirt. Perhaps I will see you again.” Alora stared pointedly at Lennox and then down the hall.
“What rain?” said Merridon with a scoff of disbelief. “Outside?”
Lennox chose to ignore him. Alora had dried them each and he didn’t need the insight. “My deepest apologies, Master. I’ll perform beyond perfection to make up for my tardiness.” Her quick curtsy transformed into a scurrying walk, and soon she was lost to the hall’s expanse.
All at once Merridon was at Bash’s ear. She heard the words “change” and “immediately” before he turned toward Alora with affected cheer.
“Miss Jones, you seem to have caught us at a rare—nay—I’ll say singular moment in which we aren’t quite at our best. But you are dressed exquisitely.
May I say again how fated I feel this meeting is? ”
Alora could see it writhing inside him, that greed. It was what stilled his tongue, she thought, over questions as to how she came to be here to begin with. “You may,” she said.
Merridon chuckled at that. “What a wit. I admit this is going to be a shade more difficult, touring with a full house, but if you insist—”
“I do.”
“Well, we will become inventive then.” His dark gaze left hers for the man beside her. “Captain. I thought you had to be elsewhere?”
“I do not, actually. But here you are. All the silver I possess.”
Alora watched him shrug the patterned vest from his broad shoulders much the same way Marshall Merridon had watched her on the front steps. With unabashed want. She couldn’t even pull her gaze away to see what look might have been exchanged between father and son.
Instead, Bash’s gaze landed on her, cool with warning.
Right. We are in the thick of it, you loon.
She made to grant her attention back to Merridon, only to have it stolen from her.
“You there! What need do you have of me?”
Alora saw the man jump at Merridon’s voice, his fist prepared to gift another knock upon Door Zero. He hurried over toward them, his skin gold and shining beneath the abundant candlelight, and slid to a halt.
“My apologies, Master. I didn’t see you.”
The silence stretched. “And—?”
The employee had taken to examining Merridon’s head wound with obvious distaste and equal confusion.
At his master’s sharp word, however, he glanced over Alora, his painted face creased with worry.
Whatever information he had, he clearly didn’t want to part with it in front of her. “May I speak with you in private?”
Merridon’s mask began to crack. He bared his teeth, his fist clenching around Bash’s discarded vest. “If you must.”
The man backed away, and Merridon, incensed though he was, immediately followed.
“What do you think you’re about?” whispered Madam Feebledire in a harsh voice. “Fine if you want to rid him of the summer’s decisions. What is done is done, and heaven knows what he did to Miss Pennigrim was wrong on several levels of morality, but a tour? For what reason?”
“Apologies, again,” said Marshall Merridon, shocking his sister into leaping away from Alora and Bash.
“My employee was under the impression we’ve a Door Twenty-five opening tonight.
Not tonight, I told him, but hopefully soon.
” He looked at Alora with meaning. “Shall we begin there in our grand tour?”
“In an unfinished room?” said Alora, her voice wavering. True, Lennox had the skull hidden away, and Alora’s contract was burned, but knowing that didn’t halt the bout of nerves come upon her at remembering that long corridor and windowless room.
“Unfinished though it may be, it is soon to be the greatest offering of Opulence: the Room of Desire.” Merridon’s features turned wolf-like. “You remind me of someone. Someone I noticed some time ago in Enver. You have the same—”
Scent? thought Alora.
But Master Merridon struggled. His eyebrows dipped, and he rubbed at his bearded chin. “Hmm. Anyway, what do you do for work, Miss Jones?”
Alora cleared her throat, fighting a glance at Bash. “A decorator…of cakes.”
“How nice,” said Master Merridon. “Have you tried your mind at anything else?” With two fingers he motioned Bash to him. When the Urchin captain neared, he said, “Fetch that latest crystal artifact. I’d like to show our guest.”
“No, I haven’t,” said Alora, her blood boiling away.
Not even a false contract and a month of work this time!
Marshall Merridon could remember his plan for Door Twenty-five and he remembered Alora, or at least the feel of her enchantment. She’d apparently been the one to trigger the room’s planning and purpose, however long ago. And here she was, about to replace herself with Germania Jones.
“Would you like to?” said Merridon to her. To Bash, he hissed a whispered, “And cover your face!”
Bash obeyed, his eyes so flat Alora thought it must be purposeful, hiding away his rage. From the pocket of his trousers, he removed his mask. He pressed it over the lower half of his face, clasping it at the back.
“Better?” he rasped.
The owner of Opulence was less careful at concealing his anger. His eyes sparked, his lip curling. He glanced between Bash and Alora, at how she watched his masking, heard his voice change with its enchantment. “For now,” he ground out.
For now. Until he was left alone with him.
“Master,” said Madam Feebledire. “I really must insist on—”
“Patrice,” spat Merridon. “Leave us.”
“But—”
“See to your duty! There are people milling about the front doors. Why is that? Go away, now, and find out.” Madam Feebledire cast a wounded look toward her brother, but it was only a flash, one that quickly solidified into something more.
Her face hardened as she spun away, her heels clicking soft on the marble.
“Now then,” said Merridon with a shake of his head. “Captain, fetch what I asked. You may meet us at Door Twenty-five when it is done.” With a charming smile, he turned to Alora and proffered an arm. “Shall we?”
Alora watched as Bash melded with the bodies behind him, his eyes on her, wholly black above the fabric.
He inclined his head by the smallest fraction moments before she lost him, but she understood.
He’d disappear, would follow them, and beneath her breath, where no one could have a hope of hearing, she whispered, “I trust you entirely.”
And oh, how good that felt.