16. If It Were a Better World #2
It looked less like a home and more like a mausoleum. A place that didn't just hold ghosts but bred them.
Kalemon's jaw tensed.
Allora blinked. Once. Twice.
The carriage rolled to a stop. Leira hopped gracefully off the driver's bench, sweeping her cloak behind her as she strode to the door and swung it open.
Allora didn't move. She kept her eyes locked on the chateau. Then, very deliberately, she reached up and shut the carriage door again.
"Nope."
Leira blinked at the closed door.
From inside, Allora's voice came flatly. "I am not staying in there. I don't do ghosts."
Leira’s laughter cracked through the frozen air, rich, a cutting note of delight woven through it. She doubled over, gripping the edge of the carriage as if Allora had just confessed the funniest sin she'd ever heard.
The door flew open again and, in one swift motion, Leira seized Allora by the wrist, yanked her forward, then scooped her up bridal-style like some victorious pirate hauling treasure.
"Leira, no! NO!" Allora shrieked, kicking the air. "Put me down! I don't do haunted! I won’t be caught in the exorcist! I watch horror movies, I know how this ends!"
"Relax," Leira purred, grinning like the devil. "If anything in there haunts us, I'll marry it."
"I'm serious! If a ghost touches me, I will piss on your floors!"
"Bold of you to assume the ghosts will touch you first and not me. They have taste."
Kalemon stood at the foot of the carriage, bags piled high in her arms, staring at them with the expression of a woman reconsidering every decision that led her here. She glanced at the looming chateau, then back at the absurd spectacle before her.
"I hate both of you," she muttered, trudging forward.
Leira kicked the massive oak doors open with her heel and strode into the foyer, dropping Allora onto a polished obsidian floor with a graceful plop. Allora scrambled upright, ready to spit fire, then froze.
The words died on her tongue.
The interior was worse than the outside.
The walls were painted in shades of shadow, black brushed with deep royal purple, silver veins gleaming in the moldings.
Velvet curtains swallowed the tall windows.
Gothic furniture of blackwood stood like solemn statues, their carvings twisting into serpents, ravens, and moons.
Above them loomed a chandelier of wrought iron bones, draped in black chains and studded with crystal skulls that caught the candlelight like a net of tiny stars.
Kalemon set down the bags slowly, her head tipping back. "This is a villain's lair."
Allora's mouth parted. "We just walked into a serial killer's house."
"Yup," Kalemon deadpanned. "Ten outta ten. We're definitely dying here."
They turned in unison.
Leira was already standing by the grand fireplace, now draped in a black silk gown and opera gloves she had somehow changed into within the last two minutes. A massive goblet of wine glimmered in her hand. She raised her pinky delicately as she sipped, every inch a queen in mourning.
"Welcome to my sanctuary," she said with theatrical grandeur.
Allora pointed at her. "How did you change that fast?"
"Magic."
"That's not an answer!"
"Learn to live with disappointment, darling." Leira retorts in a flat tone with no aggression but all the snarkiness.
Kalemon dropped the bags with a heavy thud. "I'm sleeping with a knife under my pillow."
"Good idea," Allora muttered, eyeing the chandelier warily. "I'm sleeping with my eyes open."
Leira sipped her wine, utterly unbothered. "You're both being dramatic. The house is perfectly safe."
As if on cue, a door upstairs slammed shut.
Allora and Kalemon whipped around, eyes wide.
Leira didn't even flinch. "That's just the wind."
"There is no wind in a closed house!" Allora hissed.
"Then it's a draft."
"A HAUNTED DRAFT!"
Leira set down her goblet and clasped her hands together.
"Ladies, if you're going to survive here, you'll need to embrace the ambiance.
Think of it as atmospheric, also only children believe in ghosts.
" She scoffs as she takes an elegant sip of her wine that Allora was assuming could be blood from a poor small animal that happened to come across Leira’s path.
"Atmospheric my ass," Kalemon grumbled, already inspecting the nearest doorway for exits. "This place screams 'ritual sacrifice.'"
"I redecorated last season," she said, voice smooth and mocking. "Death-decor is in."
Allora narrowed her eyes. "Did you drug us?"
"Not yet."
Leira glided forward, her gown whispering against the floor as though shadows themselves were carrying the hem. "Now that you've had your dramatic entrance, let me show you around."
With reluctance carved into every step, Allora and Kalemon followed, their boots echoing against the glossy obsidian.
Leira swept a hand toward each cavernous room as they passed.
"This is the Grand Study, not to be confused with the Lesser Study, which is really just a library for books unworthy of my attention.
Beyond that archway is the Black Garden.
Don't go there after dark unless you enjoy being devoured by your own nightmares.
And this hall—" She paused dramatically, glancing over her shoulder with a wicked smile.
"This is where my sixteenth husband died of boredom. "
She winked.
Allora did not laugh.
Kalemon leaned close, whispering, "Sixteenth, was that a joke?"
Allora whispered back without moving her lips, "Do you want to ask and find out?"
They walked on in uneasy silence until Leira stopped before a massive black door trimmed with silver filigree. With theatrical flourish, she pushed it open.
Inside, a figure stood.
A Canariae man, or what was left of one.
He was gaunt and hunched, his skin a leathery brown like old wood left too long in the sun.
A faded tunic clung loosely to his frame, his hands trembling as they rested on the edge of a table.
His eyes were pale, clouded, but startlingly astute.
They fixed on Allora and Kalemon with a quiet, disarming intelligence.
He looked ancient. Older than memory itself like he had been born in the time before light.
Both women froze.
"This is...?" Allora asked carefully.
Leira lifted her goblet in a dainty salute, her voice flat as stone. "My aesthetic."
Kalemon blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"He goes with the decor," Leira said simply. "And he doesn't complain."
Allora hesitated, then turned toward the man. "What's your name?"
Before he could answer, Leira waved her free hand dismissively. "I call him whatever I feel like at the time. Last week he was Dustpan, this morning, Regret. Today? Let's go with Thing."
The old man straightened, as much as his crooked frame allowed. In a raspy voice, wheezing yet proud, he said, "My name is Authur. I was a scribe, once. In the Age of?—"
"Thing," Leira cut in, swirling her wine with practiced indifference. "Take their bags to the White Room."
Authur paused, his cloudy eyes flicking toward her, then bowed. His joints cracked like breaking twigs as he bent, gathering their bags with trembling hands.
Kalemon instinctively stepped forward. "We can carry our own?—"
"DON'T." Leira's voice snapped like a whip, freezing the air in the room.
Both women jumped as though they were the ones being chastised instead of Thing.
"He's in perpetual punishment, he knows what he did and he is paying for it," she said smoothly, sipping her wine.
"Anyone who disrupts that arrangement will become my next target.
Let him earn his sleep." A smile curved her lips, soft and almost fond, as though recalling a cherished memory.
"I've been giving him my blood throughout the years just to keep him alive long enough to continue his punishment.
Did you know that he will be almost one hundred and thirty five years old this spring? We should celebrate, Thing!"
Allora and Kalemon exchanged a wide-eyed look, their throats tight as they swallowed. Neither spoke.
Leira turned without waiting for a response, her voice light again as she glided down the hall. "Now, follow me. I'll show you to your rooms. Mind the staircase, it bites."
They rounded the final corner and came to a tall, arched doorway painted the pale shade of milkbone. Leira pushed it open with one gloved hand.
What waited beyond made both Allora and Kalemon stop in their tracks.
It was, quite literally, a white room.
The walls were ivory stone, marbled with delicate veins.
The floors gleamed birchwood, bleached and polished to a silver shine.
A mountain of bedding—furs, silks, and down—spilled across the great bed in shades of pearl, cream, and ash-gray.
Sheer curtains drifted from the arched windows, glowing faintly in the spill of moonlight.
Black wrought-iron chandeliers and candle sconces cut elegant contrast, while in the corner a white vanity, its trim shimmering silver, gleamed beneath the soft halo of a crystal lamp.
It was opulent. Ethereal. Hauntingly beautiful.
Like the kind of room a ghost might weep in.
Leira gazed around the space thoughtfully, her expression turning distant. "I come here when I'm depressed," she said to no one in particular.
Allora and Kalemon slowly turned to stare at her.
Allora's gaze swept slowly from the curtains to the chandelier to the carved detailing along the bedframe. Her voice came out flat, wary. "Okay. What the hell."
Running on stunned autopilot, she turned to Leira, eyes narrowing and hands clasped together as though she was ready to lay out the important details. "Real question."
Leira lingered near the door, sipping her wine with a raised brow. "Yes, dove?"
"Are you planning to feed us until we get fat and then eat us?"
For one suspended beat, the room swallowed itself whole.
Then Leira burst into laughter, rich and unrestrained, almost wickedly musical. It was so genuine that even Kalemon blinked.