Sylum straightened. “Is it prepared?”
She swallowed. “Yes. Cleaned and Furnished. Just as you asked.”
He nodded once, but something flickered across his features. Guilt? Determination?
Then Mrs. Ashby’s voice softened, trembling. “But… are you quite sure this is wise? Is it… secure enough?”
My throat closed. Secure? For what? For whom?
Sylum stepped closer to the fire, the orange glow cutting harsh angles across his face.
“It will be,” he replied. “I have someone coming tomorrow to reinforce the door locks. And bar the windows.”
Bar. The. Windows.
They were going to lock me away. They were preparing a cell.
A cage.
My mother’s fate was repeating…
Poe stiffened on my shoulder, his wings half-spread, feathers bristling. “Lest I should be impeded by the walls of a tomb,” he croaked quietly against my ear. “Darkness there and nothing more.”
I clamped a shaking hand over his beak before the sound could betray me. “Those are two separate tales, Poe,” I said in a hushed voice, shooting him a look.
His dead eyes stared back at me as if he didn’t care for my critique.
Inside the study, Mrs. Ashby bowed her head. “As yousay, Your Grace.”
“Good. You may go.”
She exited swiftly. I shrank deeper into the alcove as she passed, praying she would go the opposite direction. Only when her footsteps disappeared did Sylum emerge from the study.
But I did not see him leave.
A sudden, brutal wave of dizziness crashed over me so forceful my knees nearly buckled. The corridor tilted sideways, stretching, warping like melting glass. I pressed a hand to the wall, the cold stone biting my palm, but the manor kept swaying.
Too much. Too loud. Too bright.
Poe fluttered anxiously, clinging to my shoulder.
“Oh my Lenore,” he murmured, voice strangely soft.
I tried to steady my breathing, but panic clawed through me like a wild animal.
They’re going to lock me in the tower… they’re going to lock me away like my mother…
My vision blurred. The lanterns along the corridor guttered, bending shadows into reaching fingers. My head throbbed, each pulse a knife.
Then the crying started.
Soft at first, then sorrowful.
A woman’s voice, thin and distant, as though carried upward from the manor’s bones. The same weeping I had followed before. The same voice that had led me into the darkness.
My blood ran cold.
“No,” I breathed, stumbling backward. “Not again… please… not again…”
