Chapter Five
WHEN WRITING, THERE ARE TWO INSTANCES WHEN time gets away from you.
The first is if you’re in the flow, so lost in the creative current of the work that minutes turn to hours, and when you finally stop, you discover you’ve traded the day for a thousand words you don’t remember typing.
The second is when you’re stuck.
Sienna groans and flings the notebook down.
It’s not that she doesn’t have an ending—she has several, and they’re . . . fine, but write long enough and you learn the difference between a fine idea and the right one.
The kind that sparkles, sends a heady shiver down your spine.
She’s managed to fill her notebook with the same ideas that are probably populating every message board. The kind of endings keen-eyed fans are betting on, which is exactly why Arthur Fletch wouldn’t have written them.
Fletch was infamous for pulling the rug out from under readers, for taking them by surprise, not with a quick gimmick but with a long con, the kind seeded over entire books.
Sienna runs her hands through her hair and feels herself cracking. That old familiar fear seeps in, the one what-if that no writer wants to think, and few ever manage to avoid: What if I’m not good enough?
Suddenly claustrophobic, she pries herself free of the chair—it takes two tries, the leather cushions clinging to her—and stands, surprised to find the windows dark, the library empty. She didn’t notice Cate leave, didn’t notice her limbs growing stiff or her stomach growling.
A quick glance at her watch sends a fresh spike of panic through her. It’s late.
Tick-tock, whispers the traitorous corner of her head as Sienna scoops up the notebook, desperate for a snack.
And a very strong drink.
She steps into the hall and shivers.
There’s a cold draft, like the wind has gotten in through the castle’s many cracks, but that’s not what frightens her. The lamps that cast a soft yellow glow last night are off, as if no one’s been through since the sun went down, and an eerie stillness has settled over the house.
She strains to hear something, anything. Cheerful banter rolling down the stairs. The sounds of cooking in the kitchen. Even in a house this size, seven people take up space. They make noise. So why does Sienna feel like she’s the only person left in the castle?
It’s silly. They wouldn’t just up and leave her. Not even Malcolm—she thinks.
So maybe it’s some kind of game.
Maybe everyone just decided to play hide-and-seek. Without her.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she whispers, but the sound of her voice, and only her voice, makes the surrounding silence even worse.
Sienna turns on the lamps as she goes down the hall, feeling a little better with each pool of light.
She reaches the kitchen, hoping to find someone—Priscilla or Kenzo; hell, even Jaxon—sitting at the kitchen table, lost in work.
But no one’s there. The only sign of life is on the counter, where someone has dumped the contents of the pantry as well as a selection of meats and cheeses from the fridge.
But as Sienna reaches for a wedge of cheese, her senses prickle.
She can’t shake the feeling that she is being watched.
She remembers the figure on the cliff, and can’t decide which scares her more: the idea that it is Arthur Fletch, still alive and scheming; or that it’s someone else, watching, waiting—for what?
She eyes the window over the sink, the darkness beyond making a black mirror of the glass, reflecting Sienna and the kitchen at her back. The open doorway, and a figure peering out.
Sienna lurches around, snatching up the nearest knife.
But it’s not a person. The hall lamp glances off the metal shoulder, the head . . . not a head but a helmet. The suit of armor.
Sienna sags.
She looks down at the weapon in her hand—a cheese knife, all two inches of impotent steel—and laughs. Not because it’s funny, just to convince her heart, her lungs, that everything’s okay.
But she doesn’t put the knife down.
She turns back toward the window over the sink, takes a long, steadying breath, before forcing her feet toward it.
She leans in, cupping her hands around her eyes so that the flat reflective black dissolves back into glass, revealing the night beyond.
The grass rippling in the wind, the cliff, and the bench facing it. Movement twitches in the dark, and—
“What are you doing?”
Sienna nearly jumps out of her skin. She turns to find Millie, elbows on the counter, as if she’s been there the whole time.
Sienna considers telling her that she saw something—well, that she thinks she saw something—but given Millie’s hysterics over the note on her desk, she’d probably never sleep again.
“Nothing,” she says, as Millie’s gaze flicks down to the cheese knife in her hand and then back to her face. “Just getting a snack.”
“Me too!” says Millie, a little too loud, a little too bright. Her face is flushed pink, and Sienna realizes she’s drunk.
“Great minds—and stomachs—think alike,” she hears herself say, still caught in the whiplash between the awful stillness and its unceremonious puncturing.
Tipsy laughter bubbles from Millie’s lips as she stacks alternating pieces of salami and cheddar on a cracker.
“Where is everyone?” Sienna asks as Millie pops the whole thing in her mouth.
Millie tries to answer, fails, chews several times, and then manages to get the words out. “Games room.”
Sienna looks around. “I didn’t know there was a games room.”
Millie bobs her head and swipes two bags of chips. “Follow me!”
She sets off like a tour guide, leading Sienna briskly down the now-lit hall and into the foyer, around the table with its antler centerpiece, and down another hall. By the time they reach a pair of heavy wooden doors at the end, Sienna can almost hear the muffled voices on the other side.
Millie shoulders the door open, revealing a massive room, another motley array of furniture, along with a billiards table, a dartboard, and a wall-length bar.
Cate and Jaxon are playing pool, drinks perilously perched on the rim of the table.
Kenzo is stretched out on a sofa, hands tucked behind his head and journal face down on his chest, two slips of folded purple paper sticking out.
Priscilla is leaning against the bar, glasses tucked into her hair, and Malcolm’s behind it, making a considerable dent in a bottle of Macallan.
Of course.
“Look who I found!” announces Millie. Five heads swivel toward her.
Malcolm’s expression darkens. “Ah, there she is,” he says, slurring slightly. “My murderer.”
Sienna sighs. Malcolm has several modes when he’s drinking, depending on how much he’s had. There’s chipper, bawdy, horny, and maudlin, which is by far her least favorite.
“I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration,” she mutters.
Millie flops down on a sofa near the pool table. “I have hunted, I have gathered,” she declares, depositing the chips onto a low table.
Sienna looks around. “What did I miss?” She tries to keep her voice light, even though the sight of them all makes her feel like the least popular kid in school.
“Not much,” says Priscilla, pouring two glasses of wine and drifting over. “I saw you working in the library,” she says, handing her one. “It looked like you were really lost inside the work.”
Sienna knows she should put on a brave face, pretend the words are flowing, but she’s too tired. “More like just lost,” she says, hoping the words don’t carry to the bar.
Luckily, no one else seems to be listening.
“Rituals are bullshit,” Jaxon’s saying as he lines up a shot. “They’re just excuses not to write.”
Kenzo’s sitting up now. “Says the man who runs and meditates and fasts instead of working.”
Millie giggles. Jaxon scowls. “Those aren’t rituals,” he says, hitting the ball too hard, so it skips. “I’m talking about scented candles and special cups and all that stuff.”
“Pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to,” says Kenzo.
Jaxon straightens, flexing the cue across his shoulders. “Interesting choice of root vegetable, given that potatoes are the main ingredient in the fermentation of rock juice. Which you know, of course.”
Kenzo rolls his eyes.
“What’s going on?” Millie asks in a stage whisper.
Sienna smiles. “Jaxon suspects that Kenzo read his book.”
“He did!” snaps Jaxon, leveling the pool cue like a gavel.
“Innocent until proven guilty,” declares Kenzo, lying back down.
“Speaking of guilt,” growls Malcolm, and Sienna knows her husband well enough to see him working himself up, a train threatening to go off the rails.
“Malcolm,” she says through gritted teeth, but it’s too late.
“You tell me, Sisi,” he presses on. “Did you always plan to knife me in the back?”
Jaxon and Cate stop playing. Everyone’s attention swivels toward Sienna.
“What’s this about?” asks Priscilla.
“Go on, Sisi,” sneers Malcolm. “Tell them.”
Sienna bristles in annoyance. She wanted to wait until she had her ending, something to show for herself. But Malcolm never lets her get what she wants. “You want to do this? Fine.” She looks around, raises her voice so everyone can hear it loud and clear. “We split up.”
Millie’s hand flies to her mouth.
Jaxon cocks his head. “Like, personally? Or professionally?”
“Both.”
“When?” asks Cate.
“Don’t make any rash decisions,” says Priscilla. “Pressure makes people say and do things—”
“Oh, no, we called it quits last month.” She looks around.
“Malcolm made me come along because he worships Fletch, wanted one last hurrah, but Penn Stonely was over way before we got here.” She shakes her head.
“I tried to make it work, I really did.” She’s talking about this book, sure, but also them.
She holds Malcolm’s gaze. “But I can’t.”
He stares back, wounded. “You could have tried harder.”
You, not we, not I, and that’s the problem, isn’t it? Suddenly, Sienna feels unbearably tired.