“I don’t remember anymore. Old.”
“And Bellinor? He was human once…”
“That he was, though he doesn’t talk much about it.”
“He came here when he died?” she asked, popping the last bite of croissant in her mouth.
Rul cocked his head, confusion furrowing his brow.
“He didn’tdieearthbound. He was sent here.”
“Sent by who?”
He chuckled, shaking his head.
“You really are a curious little kitty, aren’t you? Finish up so I can show you le Jardin.”
Isabelle dutifully finished the last decadent sip, eyeing Rul with suspicion. She buzzed with peculiar energy, from the fabricated coffee or the new information, she wasn’t sure.
“Thank you. For the coffee, I mean.”
“Of course, my sweet. Anything forourprecious human.”
He stood, making his way around the table and holding his hand out to her. She took it, rolling her eyes, though a flush burned her cheeks. Every conversation with the demons just brought more questions, not least of which was her curiosity about why Bellinor had been so interested in her.
Rul escorted her around the expansive home, which he affectionately called le Jardin des Délices, though it was neither a gardennordelightful.
At least that’s what she tried to tell herself.
They followed a single, ostensibly endless passage, dark paneled wood doors lining the walls, intermixed with elaborate sconces that never seemed to extinguish. It was stifling, like she was an animal pacing its enclosure, like she could walk forever and never reach the end.
There were normal rooms, of course, ones that a person might expect to find in a grand house. Dining halls, both spacious and intimate, parlors filled with silken tapestries and intoxicating perfumes. Elaborate baths with heated pools and marble columns, extensive libraries with shelves of books reaching to the high ceilings, bedrooms with luxurious couches and hearths aflame with light, though no one was there to tend them.
Rul pointed out Bellinor’s study, whispering about how much time he spent there as they walked by without looking inside.
But there was more, too. Spaces her mind couldn’t quite comprehend. Rooms that defied logic and gave her a strange feeling, like she was in some sort of empty, in-between place, a place that no human should see.
When they entered one such room, they were greeted by a vast chasm, a dark hole in the tiled floor with no visible bottom. Two rows of alcoves on either side displayed near identical copies of the same white vase, the room stretching on as far as she could see.
There were doors that opened to expansive deserts, the dry heat hitting her as she gazed upon the sand-covered mountains in the far distance. The sky was black, a bright white moon hovering strangely on the horizon. Some had fountains, the trickle of running water the only sound in the eerie space. Others contained glimmering pools, marbled archways, and architecture that didn’t make sense.
Many of the spaces seemed frozen in time, pristine marble statues staring into the abyss with no loss of polish or deterioration. Some were slightly over life-size, like the one back in Celeste’s temple in Marilet, and some were enormous, easily over fifteen feet tall and stretching to the high ceilings. Most of them were lifelike images of beautiful humans, though others were distorted into eerie, misshapen figures that almost seemed to shift when she glanced away.
Another room held nothing more than an empty plinth, a bright light shining on it from an unknown source. Finally, they reached the end of the seemingly endless corridor–though they had skipped many rooms to do so–a great metal door inlaid with swirling panels. An exit?
“What is all this?” Isabelle asked, the initial awe subsiding and a million questions lying in its wake.
Rul gestured back toward where they had come from.
“Endless corridor,
the museum of mysteries,
esoteric wisdom
enclosed within its undiscovered walls.
Beckoning onward, onward,
