My skin crawls as he hauls me down with murderous hands. I almost expect to see the bodies of the children strung to the back of our saddle. I’d been too scared to check before, however there are none. Perhaps he already harvested what he wanted from them after he put me under his spell. Am I under some kind of spell now? Will I even be able to tell?
I trail behind him a few steps as he leads me to a large, arching, black-brick entrance. He looks back periodically to make sure I’m still there and eventually ushers me to his side with a ‘come nought.’
While the outside of the castle is a dreary black, the picture of doom, the inside is its opposite. He opens the door to reveal a spacious foyer with gleaming marble floors and several towering pillars. A gray stone statue centers the room, standing at a massive height: the naked form of a man with goat horns protruding from the top of a stern face.
Two marble staircases wrap the room, opening up to a second floor with a golden gated balcony. As though mocking the extravagance, a large crack has sprouted across the marble, running all the way up to the middle of the horned statue’s thigh. I count several more significant cracks sprouting across the walls.
There are only a few witches coming and going. He stops to greet no one, moving swiftly as he breaks off toward one of the marble staircases. He takes them two at a time, and I hitch my dress up in my hands, huffing to keep up with him. I try to make note of the twists and turns we make down hallways carpeted in red velvet and quickly lose track.
Those same orb lights hang against the walls. They blink on as we approach and fizzle out behind us so it feels like we’re walking further and further down the shadowed throat of a great beast.
Frowning faces line the walls in gaudy golden frames. Lords and ladies, I presume, and some more angelic-looking figures. I sneak glimpses of him from the corner of my eye. With the dark rings around eyes more red than white and his large brow furrowed down, he’s every bit the dark witch I imagined. I was crazy to think it’d be any different.
He stops abruptly, turning toward me. I stumble back, hit the wall, and flatten myself against it. He raises his brows with a sigh before stepping past me to make a practiced symbol over a wooden door on my right. “Wait here,” he says before disappearing behind it, leaving me alone in the dimly lit hallway.
A few minutes pass before he returns, and my anticipation dials up the daemon to an unbearable level. He holds the door open for me, and I hesitantly step inside, with every bone in my body screaming at me to turn back. The floors are polished hardwood, and dark wood crown molding frames the golden-patterned walls.
There’s a large window along the back wall. Every square inch of the sill overrun by a wide variety of plants, a few of them vining up the window and wall. More potted plants, even some small trees, are dispersed around the chamber.
A small tufted black sofa centers the space, and to my left are shelves upon shelves, filled with an array of jars and glass vials labeled with titles I can’t even begin to pronounce. I spot one filled with teeth and another with the eyeballs of something…or someone, and my stomach twists violently.
The room is much larger than my own, elaborate, lavish even, yet a complete wreck. A table so crowded with mortars and pestles still holding the remnants of ingredients and chopped plants, you can’t see an inch of its surface. I spy the gleam of a blade in the mess, and my heart leaps. Along the walls rests several wooden chests, trunks, and a huge fireplace. Cauldrons in all shapes and sizes hang on hooks above it.
Clothing and other bits of rubbish litter the floors. He shuffles around, moving his fingers in patterns to collect the various items. They float up into his hands until his arms are stuffed full.
I watch, slightly awed. Mostly terrified by the casual display of his power. He slips behind a door, and I hear the various items thump to the floor as he tosses them. When he appears back in the doorway, I still haven’t moved from my defensive position by the door. “Sorry, I would’ve cleaned up if I’d known I was coming back with a uh—“ He trails off, unable to bring himself to say, wife. “nought,” he finishes.
He leans back into the door frame, puffing a breath as he scratches at his nose. “Look, I know we haven’t had the um, best start here, but you should know you will be safe—“ He breaks off. “No, I can’t even say that because it’s not true.” My heart drops as he makes a disgruntled noise and drags his hands aggressively over his face.
Penetrating green eyes find me once more. “I imagine you would like to bathe, yes? And you’ll need clothes. Unless you’re intent on continuing to wear that awful curtain?” I stand there stiffly, blinking. “Not speaking to me?”
A long moment passes. My best option is to play it calm and collected for now, until I get a better idea of my surroundings and their plans for me. I work a swallow and say, “I would like to bathe.”
“Okay,” he sighs. “And would you like different clothes?”
I look down at my rumpled dress. “Yes.”
“Good,” he says, pleased. “I’ll have the seamstress come up at some point, but for now, I’ll fetch something. Here, let me show you.” He gestures to the space behind him, and I cautiously tread in after him. A huge bed with ornately carved wooden posts, silky black bedding, and an array of pillows similar to the one we shared in the tent claims the center of the room. Against the far wall, a large armoire and a desk. My eyes however are ensnared by the huge map decorating the wall. ‘The Ouroboros’ is labeled across the top. I’ve never seen one. Eden had long since destroyed any evidence of what lay outside the Wall.
It’s hard to tear myself away from it as he leads me toward another door. “The bathroom.”
The space is a white marble, similar to the foyer. The bathing basin is massive. Several golden knobs hang over the side of it, and there’s another smaller basin already filled with water. My brows crumple, trying to make sense of the foreign space. There’s no mirror, however stretched across the back wall is a large black cloth.
“Do you even know how to use this stuff? I don’t imagine you’ve been exposed to plumbing behind the Wall?” He looses another sigh when I stare at him blankly. Walking over to the basin, he twists the golden knobs, and my eyes widen as water hisses out into the tub. “Hot water and cold,” he says, pointing to the different knobs.
He straightens and gestures to the smaller basin. “This is where you…” He looks at me pointedly as if searching for some kind of recognition, and I look at the basin that’s oddly chair-shaped and back to him. “Oh, you’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? Never imagined I’d have to explain to someone—it’s where you dispose of--”
My eyes widen further as it dawns on me. “I understand.”
He looks slightly relieved and pushes a lever, and water flushes into the bowl. “You’ll figure it out. I hope.”
“Are there no servants?” I ask something I was starting to piece together by the disheveled state of his room.
“No, slavery has been abolished for four hundred years here so no, there’s no servants. The castle does have some employees, but no one’s going to bathe you and brush your hair, princess, if that’s what you’re after,” he sneers. “I’m surprised you didn’t try to bring a whole posse with you, though I wouldn’t have let them join us.”
I grimace. It’s not as if I’d been forbidden from bringing my handmaiden, Dorine. But I’d refused to subject her to my fate.
“Alright, I’ll leave you to it and find you something to wear. I’ll hang it on the knob.” His gaze drifts over my form, and my blood turns cold, wondering if he might change his mind on the notion that he has no interest in me, but he only says, “It might be a bit large,” as his eyes dart back up to my face.
