Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
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.