Chapter 41
CAT
The room was a box, covered on all sides by shards of mirror glass.
As I turned on the spot, searching for an exit, hundreds of disjointed, unsettling pieces of me moved, too.
Even the ceiling and the floor I stood on were like a disco ball.
It reminded me of when Honey and I went with Byron to a gay club the one time he was brave enough to socialise, but minus the rainbow lights and Kylie Minogue playing loudly enough to make my heartbeat jolt.
I was surrounded on all sides by shining mirrors, the ceiling uncomfortably low, the space just about big enough for me to stretch my arms on either side of me, but no larger. I was trapped, in the world’s shittiest fun house, and I was alone.
“Tor?” I called, turning again, fine hairs standing on the back of my neck as the mirror shards copied my movements. “Death? Pain? Madde? Miz?”
My voice echoed, as if the ceiling towered over me, the mirror ball room a cavern instead of a shoebox.
But there was no reply, and no hint of how to get out.
How did I even get here? I remembered the chessboard, the dying light, the opposing set full of Nightmare’s robed cultists, but nothing after that.
Did Cruelty attack us? Was this a horror story spun into existence by Violence?
No, he preferred to use his fists, not his words. Cruelty, then. But what was cruel about a tiny, glittering room?
You’re alone, a little voice pointed out, thready with panic. Your husbands aren’t here, and you’re all alone.
I curled my hands into fists and approached a wall, scanning it intently for some hint of a seam.
When simply looking for a hidden door failed, I ran my fingers along the cut mirror, hissing when the edges sliced into my skin.
Now that was definitely Violence’s touch.
He was like a vampire the way he thirsted for my blood to spill.
I walked around the small room, step by step, running my hands over the parts of the walls I could reach. Unless there was a door in the ceiling above me, out of reach. Or on the floor…
I dropped to my knees, my black skirt splaying around my knees as I ran my fingers along the mirrored floor, searching every edge and corner for a way out. My panic mounted with every minute, that voice in my head getting louder until I could have sworn I heard it instead of imagined it.
Will anyone even notice that you’re missing, or will you die forgotten and alone like I did?
I flinched, my mouth parting in horror as I recognised the voice. Honey…
I shook my head hard. This was just Cruelty messing with me, using her voice again.
Honey wasn’t here. Even if the words she spoke were nothing but truth.
Would anyone know if I died here? My men would know I was gone, but no one would know what had happened.
No one would know about this twisted room of mirrors and that I’d slowly suffocated to death as I used up all the air and—
Something clicked, and a hatch swung out from under my fingers. I exhaled a shaky breath—there was an exit—but it expelled from my lungs in a screech when a force seemed to grab me and drag me down through the hatch.
I fell, my arms wheeling through the air, a scream rattling my throat, hair whipping my face. Any attempts to tuck into a ball were thwarted by whatever force had pushed me. All I could do was screw my eyes shut and hope at least some of my bones stayed intact when I crashed into the ground.
The sound of air rushing past, hammering my ears, drowned out the sound of my screams. My heart skipped beats, crashing frantically around my chest, when I heard a low, sad voice speak in my ear.
No one will ever know that you died here.
Byron. I opened my mouth to call his name, the fear, the falling making me irrational.
When I parted my eyelids, it was in time to see the ground rushing up to shatter me.
Except the ground was carpeted in a plush red velvet, and I didn’t break apart on collision: I landed on two feet with little more than a jolt.
I wavered on legs as strong as noodles, and splayed against the wall, every gasping breath that left me taking a whimper with it.
I didn’t dare move for a long time, shaking against the wall, my heart gradually slowing, my breathing calming.
I’d been so braced for pain and fatal injuries that my body being intact and aching, not excruciated, took me a long time to process.
“I’m alive,” I rasped, testing the words out. I scrubbed my hands down my face and pushed off the wall, testing the strength of my legs with a step. They didn’t collapse under me; that was good news.
The corridor I’d been dropped into was narrow and long, with glossy doors the colour of wine stains spaced out along it, the same shade as the carpet and the ceiling above. It gave the impression of being enclosed in a beating heart, and I had to push through my unease to take another step.
This had to be part of the chess game. A test, a trial to overcome.
Unless I got out of this place, I couldn’t make another move, and my bonded ones were relying on me.
Peach was relying on me. I thought of the smile she always put on Miz’s face, of the way she peered up at me when I held her, guileless and intelligent.
I threw open the closest door, or at least tried to, but the handle jammed.
I tried the next and got the same result.
The next, and the door swung open on a void, like the total blackness of a starless universe.
The next, and I found another void. I crossed to the other side of the hallway and found a void, two locked doors, and a single door that opened on a forest.
Sunlight slanted through verdant treetops, dappling the mossy ground, setting pink wildflowers, red roses, and rich purple tulips aglow.
You’ll be lost here forever, Byron said, right behind me.
I swung around with a gasp, my heart racing, but the hallway was empty and eerily quiet. Inside the doorway, birds tweeted, the scene like something out of a fairy tale.
If Cruelty was using Byron’s voice to make me falter, it meant I was doing something right, so I stepped through the doorway, leaving it open behind me.
I was ready for the door to slam shut and lock me inside, not for the branches above me to rustle and for a hundred golden strings to unfold, rolling like spider’s strings. But it was keys on the end of every string, each one gilded and bright.
I glanced over my shoulder at the corridor, the locked doors. Right.
I took a breath, gritted my teeth and ignored my fear. And I started pulling down keys.