I slowed down, my heart thumping so hard it reverberated through the room.
Cillian was such a drama queen, his personal area barred, as if a sign would deter anyone. And besides, the only ones who resided up here were his staff, me, and whoever the rotating people in the spare rooms were. Though he could house a large portion of Peregrine City with the sheer volume of empty rooms in the Spires.
I sucked in a sharp breath and slipped under the velvet rope.
Into the West Wing.
What I searched for was beyond me. I didn’t want to dive into his personal life or endeavors. I simply wanted to uncover anything that would signal a way out. A way to escape.
Unlike the rest of the corridors, where some of the doors remained open, everything here was shut.
I walked up to the nearest one and turned the knob. Locked. Right. That should be expected. Dust coated areas around here, as if Charles wasn’t allowed to come clean, which again felt a bit ridiculous. What was Cillian hiding here that he had to keep from those closest to him?
A slight scuff was clear on the floor from the lack of cleaning, and I followed the trail, which led deeper down the corridor. One trail stopped in front of a door to my right, and the other went to the end of the hall, where a massive black door loomed. It looked forbidding and all-consuming, as if it held every secret trapped inside this place.
When I tried the door to the right, it opened. The room before me was an ornate bedroom, featuring more of the twisted black branch décor Cillian seemed to love. Mirrors on the ceiling and along the walls reflected scraps of light from the windows. The contrast of his white pillows and black silken sheets stood out, intimate in a way that made me shiver, and the bed was far larger than a king size, but demons had their own businesses that catered to them. This room wasn’t what I searched for, but I was mesmerized nonetheless.
On his nightstand stood an odd sculpture of a rose, metal and flattened, and his shelves held books and oddities, glass cases that gleamed and snagged my curiosity, some with demonic runes imprinted on them, but I couldn’t be deterred.
I pulled myself away from the room and shut the door behind me. My goal had to be behind the hulking door at the end of the corridor. The tension grew the closer I neared, as if the secrets and power inside it grew so immense they could barely be contained.
I stopped in front of it, a chill settling inside my bones. I was at the point of no return.
I tugged, but of course it was locked.
Disappointment fluttered through me. Had this all been for nothing? I traced the carvings across the front of the doorway, ornate and detailed.
One was deeper than the others, right beneath the doorknob.
I crouched and squinted at it, trying to discern its shape in the dim lighting. I traced my fingers along it again, trying to commit the shape to memory—a bulbous top, a long line beneath it.
Like a rose.
My heart thudded hard, and I sucked in a sharp breath. Should I try it? My whole body felt jittery, as if I’d downed too much coffee on an empty stomach. I stood and pulled away from the door, my footsteps careful and quiet as I headed back toward his room. When I stepped inside, a sense of the forbidden washed over me. This was intrusive and invasive and wrong. Yet so was holding me captive in the upper Spires.
I picked up the flattened metal rose on his nightstand, its weight hefty. Yet the shape of it reminded me of what I’d just traced with my fingertips. It was worth a try. I strode back down the corridor, my senses on hyperalert. Each creak or whisper of a breeze from outside made me stiffen as I slowly approached the massive door.
Cillian wasn’t here. He was at a business meeting.
Yet I couldn’t shake the sense I was being watched. The thickness in the air, as if I stepped through fog. I swallowed, but my mouth became dry as I reached the door. This time, I placed the metal rose where those deeper divots were. It sank into the space, fitting there perfectly.
A click resounded throughout the corridor.
My heart in my throat, I turned the knob.
The door creaked open.
An enormous room spread before me. It was filled with computer servers, wires, and screens—a large one hung on the right side of the room. The bookshelves were filled with a tightly packed mixture of files and hardbacks, all neatly coordinated. This must be the heart of his operation. My pulse sped as I stepped inside. The air in here was crisp, as if this area was better maintained than the rest, and the hum of electronics was ever-present.
On the other side of the room lay a darkened doorway, which piqued my interest. I took out the printed layout—which didn’t extend past here. I wasn’t sure where it headed, but it wasn’t listed in the information I’d been given.
The main screen held a set of numbers on it:52 days, 12 hours, 45 minutes, 32 seconds.
What the hell did that mean? I stared at it, watching the seconds count down until the minutes changed to forty-four. Something seemed vital about it, and I wandered over to scrutinize it closer. The screen was navy blue, the numbers in bright white font that glared against the gloom through the rest of the room, just barely lit by the electronic screens that were still running.
“The Rose Protocol” was written at the base, but what the countdown was leading to mystified me.
I wandered over to the files—they were company files for the Spires, which wasn’t of any interest to me. When I neared the largest computer tower by the black desk overtaking the left corner of the room, it was clear from the blinking blue light that it was on and connected to the major screen hanging on the far wall.
