After what felt like hours but was probably only thirty minutes, the car turned onto a private drive. The driver handed a slip of paper to a security guard, and a wrought iron gate swung open, topped with finials that caught the dying light like spearpoints.
The car tipped up a slight hill, and Daisy’s shoulders pressed against the leather seat. Beyond the privacy panel, the front windshield framed an enormous home. Her lips parted in disbelief as an enormous home came into view.
The mansion rose from manicured grounds like something from a film, the kind of place that existed only in dreams. Pale stone walls climbed three stories high, punctuated by windows that flashed gold in the setting sun. Columns framed an entrance grand enough to welcome royalty. Fountains whispered on either side of the drive, their spray catching rainbows in the fading light.
The car stopped under an awning protecting a carpet that traveled up the stairs to the front door. Topiaries carved into spiraling shapes lined the path.
This was wealth. Real wealth. The kind that built dynasties and bought governments and existed so far beyond her experience that it might as well have been another planet.
The driver opened her door. “This way, miss.”
She followed him up the wide steps, her footfalls silent on the carpet. The doors opened before they reached the top, and a woman dressed in a servant’s uniform nodded, then bowed her head.
Daisy was a lost mouse wandering into a cathedral. Marble floors. Crystal chandeliers. Priceless art on the walls. Everything gleamed, everything sparkled, everything whispered of money and limitless power.
“Miss Burdan,” the woman said, now at her side. “Please follow me.”
Like a balloon cut from its string, Daisy turned and fluttered uncertainly. The driver had abandoned her at the door. “Where are we going?”
“Just this way,” the woman said, leading her around the corner.
More hallways. More art. More flowers. The house went on forever, a maze of wealth designed to disorient and overwhelm. Finally, they reached a door. The maid opened it and gestured inside toward two upholstered chairs.
“Please wait here. The doctor will be with you shortly.”
Daisy stepped through the door and turned. “Doctor?”
The woman shut the door, leaving Daisy alone in the small sitting room, which was still twice the size of her entire flat. A desk faced the chairs. Bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes lined the walls. But what caught her attention most was the painting.
It hung behind the desk, dominating the room. A pair of masculine eyes. Just eyes, enormous and unblinking, painted in shades of blue and grey, surrounded by clouds or fog, staring down at her from the canvas with an intensity that pressed into her like physical presence.
The eyes of man, she thought. Or maybe God.
Watching. Judging. Seeing everything.
A door opened behind her. Daisy turned and quickly dropped into a chair.
“Miss Burdan?” The white lab coat hardly disguised the man’s expensive clothes.
“Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Tannhäuser.” His voice was cultured, but precise. “I’ll be conducting your medical examination.”
“Medical examination?”
“Standard procedure for all tributes. Nothing to be concerned about.” He sat on the edge of the desk rather than taking the leather chair behind it, and stretched his long legs out between them.
He was handsome, strikingly so, with thick black hair swept back from his flawless toffee skin, rich and warm, a sharp contrast to his penetrating eyes. Blue. Impossibly blue. The kind of blue that didn’t occur in nature.
She sucked in a silent breath, realizing whose eyes were in the painting.
Awkwardly, she fidgeted, failing to find a position that would hide her secondhand clothes and work-roughened hands.
“I’m sure you’re nervous.” He smiled in a way meant to put others at ease, but his eyes remained unchanged. “I find these moments are better when we dive right into business.” He tossed a file onto the desk and selected another one from a tidy stack. Opening it, he scanned the pages inside. “B-U-R-D-A-N?”
“Yes. Daisy Burdan.” On the file’s exterior tab, she read the number 1922.
He shut the file with a quick snap, as if he read everything he needed to see. “Please, follow me...Daisy.”
