Chapter Eight Saylor
Chapter Eight
Saylor
Someone is humming Beethoven, and it’s pissing me off.
The melody drifts through my skull like smoke, each note stabbing directly into the base of my brain, where a headache is
throwing its own personal rave. My mouth tastes like I’ve been licking the inside of a chemistry lab, and every inch of my
body feels like it’s been wrung out and hung up to dry.
I’m folded into something that smells of lavender and old leather, my knees pressed against my chest in what I slowly realize
is the same steamer chest from the safe house. Except now it’s sitting in a room that looks like Versailles had a baby with
a haunted mansion.
Everything screams wealth and old-world elegance. Deep sapphire velvet curtains hang from ceiling to floor, their fabric so
rich it seems to absorb light. The walls are covered in damask wallpaper the color of dried blood, interrupted by oil paintings
in heavy gold frames—aristocratic faces with pinched expressions that look like they’re judging my life choices. A four-poster
bed dominates the space, its carved mahogany posts twisted into spirals that reach toward a ceiling painted with cherubs and
clouds.
“There we are, honey. Easy now.”
A plump woman is helping me unfold from the chest as if this isn’t her first time extracting a confused person from antique
luggage. She’s maybe sixty, with steel-gray hair pulled back in a bun so tight it could cut glass. Her black dress is perfectly
pressed, her white apron spotless, and her bearing carries a maternal authority that makes you want to confess sins you haven’t
even committed yet.
“Wren,” she introduces herself, steadying me as I try to climb out of what I’m now thinking of as my temporary coffin. “Welcome
to Maison Rouge.”
I step onto the marble floor, my heels clicking against the polished stone. I’m still wearing the same green dress I wore while singing, now wrinkled and reeking of chemicals, lavender, and the rank smell of that filthy couch from the last house.
“Where am I?” I sound like I’ve been gargling with broken glass.
“Blue’s estate in Grimlock. You’re safe here.” Wren moves to a massive mahogany armoire and pulls out a simple sundress. “Let’s
get you out of those clothes and into something more comfortable.”
“Safe?” The word comes out strangled. My brain is still catching up, memories filtering through the chemical haze. Years of
hiding, and then they found me. Blue rescuing me from the safe house. Men with dead eyes in Crowshaven. Blood splattered across
the walls. “He drugged me. He put me in a trunk.”
“Yes. The travel arrangements were rather unconventional.” Wren speaks with the same tone she might use to comment on the
weather. “But you’re here now, and that’s what matters.”
The casual way she dismisses my kidnapping makes my stomach lurch. Either this woman is completely insane, or this sort of
thing happens here on a regular basis.
“I need to leave. Right now.” I push past her toward what I hope is a door leading out, but the room tilts sideways and I
have to grab the bedpost to keep from falling.
“I’m afraid that’s not advisable in your current condition. The chloroform needs time to clear your system completely.” Wren
sets the dress on the bed with infuriating calm. “Blue has instructed me to ensure you’re properly cared for.”
“Blue can go fuck himself.”
Wren’s eyebrows rise slightly, but her face doesn’t change. “I’ll be sure to pass along your sentiments.”
Anger cuts through the remaining fog in my brain with startling clarity. This isn’t just about being kidnapped—although that’s
bad enough. It’s the presumption, the casual dismissal of my choices, the way everyone seems to think they know what’s best
for me better than I do.
I straighten up, ignoring the way the room sways. “I’m leaving.”
“Are you?”
The condescending tone in her question makes me want to scream. Instead, I head for the door—massive and made of dark wood
with iron hinges that look like they belong in a medieval castle.
Wren doesn’t try to stop me. She just watches with the patience of someone who’s seen this movie before and knows exactly how it ends.
The door opens into a hallway that stretches in both directions, its length disappearing into shadows. The walls are paneled
in dark wood, broken up by alcoves holding marble statues and ornate candelabras. The ceiling arches high overhead, supported
by carved beams that create pockets of darkness between pools of warm light.
I choose left arbitrarily and start walking on the Persian runner that stretches down the center of the hall. Every few feet,
I pass doorways—some open to reveal rooms draped in dust covers, others closed with heavy doors that could hide anything.
The hallway ends at a balcony overlooking what has to be the most dramatic staircase I’ve ever seen. It spirals down through
the center of the house in a graceful curve, its wrought-iron banister twisted into patterns of thorns and roses. The steps
are white marble veined with gold, and they seem to go down forever.
Stained glass windows line the stairwell, each one telling part of a story I can’t quite piece together. There’s a woman with
long hair climbing a tower, a man in a boat surrounded by sirens, another woman dancing with a beast. The colored light they
cast paints everything in jewel tones—emerald and sapphire and deep ruby red.
I start down the stairs, my hand trailing along the banister for support. The metal is cool under my palm, and I can feel
the intricate details of the roses carved into it. Some of them have thorns sharp enough to draw blood if you’re not careful.
Halfway down, the staircase opens onto the main floor, and I get my first real look at the heart of Maison Rouge.
The entry hall is enormous, its ceiling soaring up three stories to a dome painted with scenes from fairy tales. The floor
is a mosaic of black-and-white marble arranged in intricate patterns that seem to shift and change as I move. Probably a result
of being so overwhelmed, overstimulated, and still drugged as fuck. A massive chandelier hangs from the center of the dome,
its crystal drops catching the colored light from the stained glass and throwing rainbows across the walls.
Furniture fills the space—not the kind you’d expect to see in a normal house, but pieces that would be in a palace.
There’s a grandfather clock that’s easily ten feet tall, its face showing not just the time but the phases of the moon.
Tapestries hang from the walls, their threads telling stories of knights and dragons and ladies in towers.
A piano sits in one corner, its ebony surface gleaming under the chandelier light.
But it’s the portraits that make me stop and stare. They line the walls between the tapestries—dozens of them, all women,
all beautiful, all wearing visible emotions that range from joy to terror. Some are painted in a classical style, others look
more modern, but they all have one thing in common: They’re all staring directly at whoever’s looking at them.
There’s something unsettling about the collection, something that makes my skin crawl even though I can’t put my finger on
what it is.
“Quite a gallery,” Wren says from behind me.
I spin around, my mind racing. She’s followed me down the stairs with the silent grace of a cat.
Wren moves past me toward the front door, her keys jingling softly. She reaches the door and turns the key in the lock with
a decisive click.
I’m frozen on the stairs, staring at dozens of painted eyes that seem to watch my every move while the housekeeper locks me
in with them. This isn’t real. This can’t be real.
But the lock clicks shut with finality, and Wren is walking back toward me with the same pleasant smile she’s worn since I
woke up in a trunk. “Now then,” she says, “shall we go back upstairs? I have a lovely dinner planned, and Blue should be home
soon.”
That breaks the spell. I bolt.
I run toward what I hope is a back door. The entry hall branches off into smaller rooms—a library with books stretching floor
to ceiling, a dining room with a table that could seat twenty, a parlor with ornate furniture . . . palace-type furniture.
I find a door that leads to the kitchen, all gleaming copper and modern appliances that look strangely out of place in the
gothic manor. Another door leads to a small pantry. A third opens onto a narrow staircase that probably goes to the servants’
quarters.
Finally, I find what I’m looking for—a door with glass panels that shows trees and sky beyond. I grab the handle and pull, expecting it to be locked, but it opens easily.
The evening air hits my skin like a slap, cold and harsh with the trace of pine and ocean salt. I’m standing on a stone terrace
that overlooks the most beautiful and terrifying landscape I’ve ever seen.
Maison Rouge sits on a cliff overlooking the Pacific, the ocean stretching to the horizon where it meets a sky painted in
shades of purple and gold. The house itself is even more imposing from the outside—all towers and turrets and complex stonework
that makes it look like something out of a fairy tale. Gothic windows climb the walls, their arched frames decorated with
filagree and ivy.
Gardens spread out below the terrace in descending levels, each one more magnificent than the last. There are fountains and
statues, hedges trimmed into fantastic shapes, and flowers in colors I don’t have names for. Stone paths wind between them,
disappearing into groves of trees that look massive and wild.
And surrounding it all is a wall.
Not just any wall—this one is at least twelve feet high, topped with iron spikes and built from the same dark stone as the
house. It stretches as far as I can see in both directions, disappearing into the forest that surrounds the estate.
But there has to be a gate. There has to be a way out.
I run down the stone steps to the first garden level, my silk dress catching on rose bushes and my heels constantly getting