Chapter Thirty-Five Saylor
Chapter Thirty-Five
Saylor
I slam through the front door of Maison Rouge like a hurricane with black feathers in a rage. Wren looks up from where she’s
checking window locks, her witch costume making her look like she could hex someone just by glaring at them. “Saylor, dear—”
“Don’t.” I rip off the thorny circlet and throw it onto the marble floor where it clatters like broken promises. “Just don’t.”
My wings catch on the doorframe as I storm toward the staircase, and I have to wrestle with the harness to keep from tearing
the damn things off completely. Everything about this costume that felt magical an hour ago now feels like theatrical dress-up
for Blue’s entertainment.
“The security team is on their way,” Wren calls after me. “Blue wants—”
“I don’t give a shit what Blue wants right now.” My defiance echoes off the vaulted ceilings as I hit the stairs. “Blue can
kiss my ass.”
Wren’s shocked silence follows me up to the second-floor landing, where I stop in front of the portrait gallery like I’m preparing
for war.
Cordelia beams down at me from her gilded frame, all platinum curls and radiant confidence. The same face I just saw at the
Dryad’s Dance. The same woman who was sobbing into Blue’s arms like her world was ending.
“What the actual fuck?” I whisper to her portrait.
Margaret’s portrait hangs next to her, then Eleanor, Vivian, Catherine, Penelope, Sophia. Seven secrets watching me from gilded
frames. Seven reminders of just how much I don’t know about Blue. Seven women who all look content in a way that’s hard to
define, all holding his signature blue roses. Seven mysteries I should have pushed harder about when I had the chance at the
Cavern.
I know what I saw. That was Cordelia—the same face, the same bone structure, the same platinum blonde hair styled in those perfect finger waves. I’d stake my life on it.
Which means Blue has deep, personal relationships I know nothing about.
“Who the fuck are you?” I whisper to her portrait.
But Cordelia’s painted expression offers no answers, no explanations for how someone can be both in a portrait here and crying
in a forest at the same time.
So many fucking secrets . . . like the third floor . . .
“No more guessing,” I say out loud. “No more wondering. No more being the clueless girlfriend who gets all her information
secondhand.”
I’ve never been the dumb girl in any story, and I’m sure as hell not starting tonight.
The third floor beckons from above like a challenge wrapped in Blue’s explicit instructions to stay away. Well, fuck his instructions.
I’m tired of locked doors and careful explanations and being dismissed whenever things get complicated.
The hallway of skeleton keys stretches before me, a curtain of metal that clinks softly as I push through. Keys of every size
and era hang at eye level, forcing me to duck and weave between them. Tonight they’re not mysterious or romantic. Tonight
they’re just obstacles standing between me and whatever fresh hell Blue’s been hiding up here.
I start grabbing keys at random, working my way down the hallway with systematic fury. The first key I try is too big for
any of the keyholes. The second is too small. The third fits the lock on the burgundy door but won’t turn no matter how hard
I twist.
“Come on,” I mutter, moving to the next key, my wings bumping against the hanging metal with each movement. “One of you bastards
has to work.”
The blue door. The silver one with carved roses. The door that is covered in black velvet. I try key after key, lock after
lock, growing more frustrated with each failure.
Some keys go in but won’t turn. Others are obviously the wrong size.
A few seem promising until they stick halfway, refusing to budge in either direction.
My hands start cramping from gripping the ornate metal, and my wings keep getting tangled in the swaying keys like some gothic obstacle course designed by a sadist.
Fifteen minutes in, I’m seriously considering finding something heavy and just smashing whatever door catches my eye first.
Twenty minutes, and I’m muttering curses that would make a sailor proud.
Then I reach for a key near the end of the hallway—an ornate thing made of tarnished silver with a head shaped like a raven
in flight. It’s heavier than the others, older, with a weight that suggests it was made to lock something important.
Something secret.
The door I try it on is painted the color of dried blood, with a keyhole surrounded by carved skulls so small they’re almost
hidden in the decorative woodwork. When I slide the key in, it fits like it was waiting for me.
When I turn it, the lock clicks open with a sound like breaking bones.
“Finally,” I breathe, pushing the door open.
And immediately wish I hadn’t.
The smell hits me first—dust and old stone, something stale and unused that makes my nose wrinkle. The musty odor of things
that have been locked away from air and light for far too long.
The room beyond is larger than I expected, with stone walls that look older than the rest of the house. I fumble along the
wall until I find a light switch, and when the overhead lights flicker on, what I see makes my stomach drop.
But I can’t look away.
Seven tables line the room like some macabre exhibition. Each one holds a single human skull, positioned with the same careful
attention Blue brings to everything else in his life.
The skull on the first table, according to a small placard written in Blue’s careful handwriting, belongs to Margaret.
Eleanor’s skull sits on the next table, arranged with deliberate care.
Vivian’s skull occupies the third table. When I look at it, my stomach churns thinking this was once the smiling woman from
the portrait downstairs.
Catherine’s skull is centered perfectly on the fourth table, the bone gleaming under the electric lights.
Sophia’s skull sits on the fifth table, placed with the same methodical attention.
The sixth table holds another skull with the name Penelope, set with reverence equal to all the others.
And then I see the seventh table.
A complete skull sits there like someone took their time polishing every surface. The bone gleaming white and perfectly positioned,
the empty sockets seeming to track my movement. A small placard at the foot of the table reads “Cordelia” in Blue’s neat handwriting.
“What. The. Fuck.”
But Cordelia was just at the Dryad’s Dance. I saw her. She was alive, breathing, sobbing into Blue’s chest like her world
was ending.
“Seven,” I whisper, backing toward the door. “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.”
Seven skulls. Seven women whose names match the portraits downstairs.
But if they’re all here, displayed in Blue’s private museum of horrors, then who the hell was crying all over him at the Dryad’s
Dance?
I count again, needing to be absolutely sure. Seven tables. Seven skulls positioned like trophies. Seven names on small placards
marking each display.
My stomach heaves, and I taste bile at the back of my throat. The air feels thick and wrong, clinging to my skin like I’m
breathing in secrets and death.
I should run. I should get out of this room, out of this house, out of Grimlock before Blue comes home and finds me standing
in his chamber of secrets. I should call the police, the FBI, whoever handles cases like this.
But my feet won’t move. I’m frozen in the doorway, staring at seven skulls whose owners I just saw smiling in portraits downstairs.
What the hell is Blue hiding? And how many more secrets does he have?
These are his trophies, displayed in his private museum where he can visit them whenever he wants. Where he can remember whatever twisted connection he had with each of them.
From somewhere far below, a sound rips through the silence that makes my blood freeze. Wren’s voice, but not like I’ve ever
heard it—raw, broken, animalistic. A howl of pure agony that echoes up through the floors and seems to shake the very walls
of Maison Rouge.
“No, no, no, no!” The words tear from her throat like pieces of her soul being ripped away. Not the controlled, capable Wren
who manages Blue’s household like a general. This is the sound of a woman’s world ending in real time.
The sobbing that follows is worse than the screaming. Deep, wracking sobs that speak of loss so profound it has no words.
The kind of grief that hollows you out and leaves nothing but an empty shell breathing.
I scramble to my feet, adrenaline cutting through my shock. Whatever’s happening downstairs is bad. Catastrophically bad.
But before I can even reach the top of the stairs, a shadow fills the doorway at the end of the hall.
Blue stands there, still wearing his plague doctor costume, but the leather coat is soaked with blood. Fresh blood, dark and
wet, covering his chest and arms like he’s been bathing in it. His face is a mask of something I’ve never seen before—exhaustion,
grief, rage all twisted together.
Terror floods my system so fast I can barely breathe. “What’s going on?” The question comes out high and thin. “What’s wrong
with Wren? Whose blood is that?”
His dark eyes find mine across the hallway, and for a moment he just stares at me like he’s seeing a ghost. Like he’s surprised
I’m real.
“Who are these skulls?” I demand, my voice getting stronger even as my hands shake.
“I saw them, Blue. I saw all of them. Seven skulls with the same names as the women in your portraits like some sick exhibit. Margaret, Eleanor, Vivian, Catherine, Sophia—all of them!” My pitch climbs higher with each name.
“What the fuck is happening? Where is Cordelia? What the hell is happening?” I take a shaky breath, trying to make sense of the impossible.
“I saw her at the Dryad’s Dance tonight—alive, breathing, crying all over you.
But her skull is upstairs with a nameplate that says she’s dead. How can she be both places?”
Blue steps into the hallway, and I can see the weight of whatever happened at the Dryad’s Dance crushing down on his shoulders.
When he speaks, he’s hoarse, broken.
“Hans is dead.”
“Hans?” The name comes out like a question, like maybe I misheard him. “What? WHAT?” I shake my head. “How?”
Blue looks at me with hollow eyes, then looks down at his gore-soaked coat like he’s just now noticing it. “There were too
many of them. I tried to . . . I couldn’t save him.”
Blue takes a step toward me, then another, but halfway down the hall his legs give out. He stumbles against the wall, sliding
down until he’s sitting on the floor, his back pressed against the stone. His head falls forward into his hands, and I can
see his shoulders shaking.
I’ve never seen Blue show weakness. Not once. He’s always been controlled, composed, dangerous in that careful way that makes
people step aside when he walks into a room. But this isn’t weakness. This is something much more powerful—grief so raw and
devastating that it’s stripped away every defense he’s ever built.