Forbidden Name
The servants lock me in my room like a disobedient child.
I stand in the center of the space, chest heaving. My skin still crawls from the memory of leather tight around my throat. The collar is gone, yet its weight remains, pressing against every breath.
The room stretches wider than I first noticed.
A vanity waits against the far wall, crowded with brushes, combs, and glass bottles of perfumed oil.
A wardrobe stands open, with silks, velvets, and laces in shades I have never worn.
I cross the floor. A writing desk holds parchment and ink.
Beside it lies a single book. My fingers trace the cover.
Black leather. A red circle stamped into the surface, its center hollow. I open it.
The Rules of the Crimson Order’s Pets
My stomach clenches. Pets. That is the word they use. That is what I have become.
I flip the pages. Rules about behavior. Rules about dress. Rules about speech, touch, when to kneel, when to rise. The list never ends. Each line another chain.
I shut the book and push it aside.
Other things sit on the desk. A small set of paints and a roll of canvas. Tools meant to busy my hands and silence my thoughts.
But no books. No stories. Nothing to feed the part of me that craves escape.
I twirl the pencil between my fingers. Drawing would help. Writing, perhaps. Anything to drag my mind away from the dark. But my thoughts drift to my father.
Is he safe? Has he eaten? I sold myself to keep him free, and I don’t even know if he still lives.
I press my palms hard against my eyes until the urge to cry fades. I have given them enough tears. I will not hand them more of my weakness.
I move to the window. Below me the gardens sprawl wild and overgrown. Beyond them the forest presses close. Somewhere out there is my father and the life I once lived.
It feels like a story I read long ago about a girl who lived in a cottage and dared to want more.
Mama would tell me to stay strong. To stay brave. But what would she say if she saw every humiliating thing I have already allowed?
The room stays silent.
I turn from the glass. My gaze catches the vanity mirror. In its surface I see myself—pale, hollow-eyed, hair a tangled mess.
And behind me, the portrait.
I spin around. The wall is bare. No frame hangs there. Yet the image burns clear in my mind: Luminous violet-blue eyes, the sculpted lines of his ruthless face. I saw him in the hall, standing in the deepest shadow. I know I did.
His name hovers on the tip of my tongue, just out of reach.
I close my eyes, and I whisper it.
“Blake.”
The name falls from my lips like a secret I didn’t know I was keeping.
I freeze. How do I know that name? Where did it come from? I have never heard it spoken. I have never read it in any book. And yet it feels familiar, like a dream that refuses to fade.
I open my eyes, half expecting to find him standing in the corner.
Only ordinary darkness answers.
A soft knock sounds at the door. My heart jumps. I cross the room and open it..
Lady Vesper stands in the hallway. Gray hair pinned into a severe bun. Icy eyes weighing me in silence.
“Miss Lucy.” Her voice is soft, almost gentle. “I came to check on you. Are you well?”
I nod.
She studies me. She notes the flush on my cheeks, the tremor in my hands, the way I hold myself too still.
“I have been here for ages,” she says. “I know every game and every trick you girls invent. None of this is new to me.”
She steps past me into the room. Her hand hovers over a silver spoon on the desk and a shadow of memory crosses her face.
I watch her and the question rises. “How long have you been here, Lady Vesper?”
“Ages,” she answers, voice distant. “I was one of the girls once. Young and frightened and full of dreams.” She turns to me, eyes glassy. “I won the Masters’ trust. They decided to keep me. I never went to the auction. I stayed. I served. I have been here ever since.”
I frown. The Masters—Thomas, Cain, the others—can’t be more than thirty. Lady Vesper is at least eighty. The years refuse to match.
“How long?” I press. “How long exactly?”
Her gaze drifts to the window. “Time moves differently in Bloodgrove. You will learn that.”
She is not telling me everything. A fevered brightness lives in her eyes. She is broken in a way I can’t name.
“The Masters have ordered that everyone remain in their rooms for the rest of the day.” She moves farther inside, eyes sweeping the space. “The bats were a sign. A warning. There is risk of attack. The protocol is to stay indoors.”
“Attack?” I echo. “From whom?”
Lady Vesper doesn’t answer. She arranges the items on my desk, straightening the book, aligning the pencils. Servants enter behind her carrying trays of food—bread and cheese, roasted meat, a carafe of dark wine. They set the table and leave without a word.
“You will be comfortable,” Vesper says, gesturing to the food. Then her voice drops. “The bats came for you.”
I stiffen. “For me?”
Her lips curve. “Lies taste bitter, Miss Lucy. I have been here sixty years. I know you girls.” She continues without pause.
“Master Thomas mentioned you spoke of shadows moving in your room. Then the bats appeared. I know you left your room last night. You ended in the west wing. Coincidence? Whatever games you girls think you are playing—talking of shadows and the ghost of Count Rochester—stop. You don’t know what you are walking into. This is a warning.”
I think of the portrait. The man with the violet-blue eyes. Count Rochester.
“Blake?” I breathe. “That is his name?”
Lady Vesper goes completely still.
“How do you know that name?” Suspicion hardens her eyes. “The Dark One.”
“I… I think I heard some of the girls speaking. I can’t remember. I—”
“The girls don’t speak of him. No one does. It is a forbidden name.” She makes the sign of the cross. “You must never speak it. Ever.”
The name settles in my chest like a stone dropped into deep water. Blake. The name I whispered without knowing why.
“I heard—”
“You heard nothing.” In three swift steps, she reaches me and clamps her hand around my wrist. Her grip is stronger than it should be. “You will forget that name. You will forget everything you think you know. Do you understand me?”
I pull back, startled. “I understand.”
She releases me. The fevered light in her eyes fades. She smooths her skirts and steadies herself.
“I will lock the door,” she says, voice calm again. “For your safety. Do not dare leave this room tonight.”
She approaches the door and pauses, hand on the handle.
“Be careful, Miss Lucy. This house takes what it wants. Doesn’t release what it claims.” The lock clicks into place with final, absolute certainty.
I stand in the sudden silence, heart pounding.
—
When I wake, the sky is orange and pink, bleeding into violet. The sun is setting.
I don’t know when I fell asleep. The exhaustion perhaps. The weight of everything pressing down on me.
I dreamed of shadows. Of purple eyes. Of a name that shouldn’t exist in my memory.
I rise from the bed and cross to the balcony doors. They open easily, swinging inward. The stone railing is cold beneath my hands.
The gardens stretch below, drowning in twilight. The air smells of earth and night-blooming flowers. Somewhere, a bird sings its last song of the day.
I think about the portrait.
Where is he? Where is the room where his portrait hangs?
I scan the windows of the manor—dozens of them, dark and gleaming. Somewhere in that labyrinth, he is waiting.
I close my eyes and silence my mind. I simply whisper to the wind like a wish.