CHAPTER FORTY FIVE
Ailsa
THE FIRST NOTE hit the air like a breath drawn too slowly.
Soft.
Delicate.
It curled through the vast conservatory, weaving between candlelight and glass, settling over the audience like a spell. I felt it before I fully heard it—the vibration of it in my chest, the way it hummed against my ribs as though my body recognised something my mind didn’t.
The stage was a dreamscape—pale silks cascading from the high beams like waterfalls caught mid-fall, drifting and swaying in an unseen current.
Lanterns hung at varying heights, their golden glow diffused through gauze so that everything looked softened, blurred at the edges, like a memory instead of reality.
Mist clung low to the ground, pooling around the performers’ feet as they emerged one by one.
They moved like ghosts.
Every turn impossibly fluid, their bodies bending and stretching in ways that seemed almost unreal. The fabric of their costumes shimmered with each movement, catching the candlelight and scattering it in fragments across the glass walls.
It was beautiful.
Painfully so.
A violin joined the melody, then another, layering sound upon sound until it filled every corner of the space. It pressed against my skin, slid beneath it, wrapped itself around my spine.
I couldn’t look away.
No one could.
Even my breathing slowed, syncing with the rhythm of it all—the rise and fall, the pull and release. For a fleeting moment, I forgot where I was. Forgot why I was here.
Forgot the fear.
But it didn’t last.
Because beneath it all—beneath the beauty, the elegance, the perfection—something felt really… off.
I couldn’t place it at first.
It was subtle.
A discordant note buried too deep in the music. A movement just slightly too sharp. A smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes.
My fingers curled into my palm, nails biting into skin as that familiar unease crept back in, slow and insidious.
The air felt thicker now.
Heavier.
Like it was pressing down on me.
I swallowed hard, my gaze flicking across the stage, searching for something—anything—that would explain the knot tightening in my gut.
The aerialists moved closer together, their formations shifting, tightening, their movements growing more intense. What had once been graceful now bordered on frantic, their limbs slicing through the air with increasing urgency.
The music followed.
Faster.
Louder.
Darker.
The soft gold of the candles seemed to dim, their glow turning amber, then something deeper—almost red.
The mist thickened.
Or maybe it was just my vision.
My heart began to race, each beat louder than the last, drowning out the music, the movements, everything.
Something was wrong.
The music crescendoed.
Then faded into almost nothing.
The silence that followed was deafening.
A single spotlight flared overhead.
My breath hitched as it cut through the dimness, slicing upward toward the rafters.
Toward the trapeze.
At first I didn’t understand what I was looking at.
My mind tried to make sense of it, to shape it into something harmless, something explainable.
But it couldn’t.
Because they were… they were hanging there.
Five figures.
Perfectly still.
Suspended from silks that had once looked so elegant, now twisted tight around their limbs, their torsos, holding them aloft like grotesque marionettes.
Their bodies were dressed in the same shimmering fabric as the performers below—pristine, untouched, impossibly beautiful.
Masks covered their faces, delicate and ornate, hiding everything but… their… their hair.
It fell freely.
Identical.
The same shade.
The same length.
The same—
My stomach dropped.
No.
No, no, no.
No.
My eyes darted between them, my chest tightening with every second, every breath becoming harder to pull in.
Same height.
Same build.
Same everything.
They weren’t just similar.
They were deliberately chosen.
My pulse roared in my ears.
One of them—
One of them had to be—
“Claire,” I breathed, the name barely more than a broken whisper as it tore from my throat.
The world tilted.
The beauty shattered.
All that was left was horror.
I was on my feet before I even realised I’d moved, the chair scraping loudly behind me as I stumbled forward, my vision locked on those lifeless forms.
“No—” my voice cracked, louder now, frantic. “No, no, no—”
I was vaguely aware that people had turned. Gasped.
But they fell away. I didn’t care.
“Which one is she?” I demanded, my voice rising, shaking, splintering apart from under the weight of it. “What have you done with my sister?”
The performers began moving again.
Everything just carried on.
And ignored me.
Until everything went still at the sound of something even more uncanny.
Laughter.
It cut though the silence like a blade.
Slow.
Unrestrained.
Amused.
I froze.
“Ah,” Valerius’s voice drifted across the space, smooth as silk and twice as suffocating. “I wondered how long it would take for you to notice.”
He stepped into view as though he’d been waiting there, emerging from the shadows at the edge of the stage, his gaze fixed solely on me.
On my panic.
On my fear.
His smile widened.
And something inside me broke.