“He tried to break free. He failed.”
“Now he rots.”
“Trapped. Just like me.”
It was the first time I heard the Unbidden talk like this. Emotional. I dropped the page, my breath uneven. The air felt heavier now, thicker as if something unseen had stirred.
“He said he cannot leave. That the wards are keeping him in. Who trapped him? And why?”
The Unbidden let out a sound similar to a sigh. “That’s why I don’t respond to your inquiries, Daphne. They’re so limited. Who do you think trapped him here?”
I wrapped my arms around myself. It got so cold. “The one who…sent me to steal his secrets? Cagliostro!”
The hairs on my arms stood up. A whisper—not from the Unbidden. From behind me.
The candles flickered violently, casting long, stretching shadows that moved when I did not.
I was not alone.
A breath on the back of my neck—cold as the grave.
I ran.
I bolted opposite the door, my skirts catching on the jagged stone floor.
The tiles shifted, and I yelped.
The floor beneath me groaned.
Then it collapsed.
A split-second sensation of falling—air rushing past me—
“Ah, sweet little Daphne. Now you’ll understand. Now I’ll get what is rightfully mine—a Draymoore child! You outsmarted me before. But not now, Daphne. Not now. Now, I’ll be free.”
And then I landed in water. When the cold weight squeezed the air from my lungs and darkness swallowed me, the Unbidden laughed and laughed.
Daphne
The Lady in the Lake
Icy water slammed like a hammer in my breastbone, stealing my breath. Its weight pressed me down, its cold needles prickling my skin. The sheer panic stole the last flicker of thought, and I became a mindless beast—unable to tell above from below. My dress soaked and dragged me to the unseen depths like an anchor. I kicked and fought, tore at the buttons and peeled it off my skin, while the Unbidden laughed, its voice growing stronger. Somehow, I got the damned thing off me. A current caught me and propelled me forward, and the darkness melted.
I broke the surface with a gasp, dragging in air so sharp it burned. Thrashing to stay on the surface, my body remembered the moves. I hadn’t swum since that night at the lake when the Unbidden became a part of me.
The taste of damp earth, the crisp bite of spring morning, the faint trace of rotting leaves—so sweet, so real. Above, the world waited, eerily calm. The sunlight was more distant, its warmth a memory. I was somewhere behind the greenhouse.
But something was off.
The silence.
No birds. No insects. No whisper of wind through the reeds. Even the Unbidden got suddenly quiet. Listening.
Only my ragged breath, the drip of water sliding from my hair, and beneath it—
A sound.
Not the Unbidden’s voice.
