Emeline’s footsteps creaked on the wide staircase leading up from the front entry. She paused at the top of the stairs whereyellow wallpaper hung in ribbons down the walls, shredded. As if something had scraped sharp claws down it. Portraits that once hung along the corridor were smashed and discarded on the floor, and a sour odor lingered.
Emeline searched room after room and found more of the same: destruction. She pulled out rotting drawers and looked in damaged cupboards. Finally, Emeline stepped into something that looked like a conservatory. A wide glass wall faced the back of the house, giving her a panoramic view of the Stain. Inside the room a harp lay overturned in the corner, and a guitar had been twisted until it snapped, its fragments scattered across the stained carpet.
She searched through the mess, but all she found were a few crumpled scraps of paper and a waterlogged notebook. The writing inside was smudged so badly, she couldn’t read a word.
“Emeline?”
Grace’s voice sounded faint and muffled from the floor below.
“You might want to get down here.”
Emeline retraced her steps back downstairs. Grace stood in front of the fireplace, clutching a matchbox in one hand and a match in the other. Frowning hard.
“There’s dry ash in the fireplace,” she said. “And dry logs over there.”
Grace motioned with her chin towards a basket of kindling. Beside it, a dozen cut logs were arranged neatly in a pile.
“These should be too damp to light.” She struck the match and a flame immediately flared. Her eyes met Emeline’s. “Someone’s been here recently.”
“The Vile?”
Grace stared at the dying match, saying nothing.
Maybe coming here had been a bad idea.
“There’s something else.” Grace glanced down to the floor,where a rug was folded back, revealing an iron latch secured to the floorboards underneath. Crouching, she reached for the cold black ring and pulled.
A section of the floor lifted up. Beneath it, wooden steps led down into the darkness below.
Emeline and Grace exchanged glances.
Lifting an oil lamp from the shelf above the fireplace, Grace struck a new match to light it. When a flame glowed softly within the glass, she handed it to Emeline. “After you.”
Taking the lamp, Emeline started down into the damp, heavy darkness. A feeling of foreboding settled over her skin and she had to run her hand down her arm to flatten the rising hairs there.
To keep her mind off her fear, Emeline whispered to Grace, “You never answered my question in the crypt.”
“What question was that?”
A familiar smell wafted towards them. Like fermenting grapes in Pa’s cellar.
“Why do you stay here? With the king being the way he is, and the curse coming … why not escape the city?”You’re supposed to be studying at Oxford.
For a moment, the only sound came from the wooden steps creaking beneath their feet. “I don’t want to escape,” Grace said.
Emeline glanced back in surprise. The light of the lamp made Grace’s eyes shine and her skin gleam. When she tucked a curl of hair behind her ear, the ring on her left hand winked.
“Even if I did want to, I can’t. I tithed my old life to the king. I can never go back.”
“Why would you do such a thing?”
Grace ducked her chin, a secretive smile adorning her lips.
“For love, of course. What else?”
Love?
Grace continued on. “Humans aren’t allowed to reside in the King’s City anymore. The curse makes it too dangerous, and few exceptions are given. So, I made the Wood King an offer he wasn’t likely to refuse. I tithed the most powerful thing I owned: my entire life beyond the woods. My family. My education. Myfuture.” She swallowed softly. “For love.”
