WHEN WRITING, THERE ARE TWO INSTANCES WHENtime gets away from you.
The first is if you’re in the flow, so lost in the creative current of the work that minutes turn to hours, and when you finally stop, you discover you’ve traded the day for a thousand words you don’t remember typing.
The second is when you’re stuck.
Sienna groans and flings the notebook down.
It’s not that she doesn’t have an ending—she has several, and they’re... fine, but write long enough and you learn the difference between a fine idea and therightone.
The kind that sparkles, sends a heady shiver down your spine.
She’s managed to fill her notebook with the same ideas that are probably populating every message board. The kind of endings keen-eyed fans are betting on, which is exactly why Arthur Fletch wouldn’t have written them.
Fletch was infamous for pulling the rug out from under readers, for taking them by surprise, not with a quick gimmick but with a long con, the kind seeded over entire books.
Sienna runs her hands through her hair and feels herself cracking. That old familiar fear seeps in, the onewhat-ifthat no writer wants to think, and few ever manage to avoid:What if I’m not good enough?
Suddenly claustrophobic, she pries herself free of the chair—it takes two tries, the leather cushions clinging to her—and stands, surprised to find the windows dark, the library empty. She didn’t notice Cate leave, didn’t notice her limbs growing stiff or her stomach growling.
A quick glance at her watch sends a fresh spike of panic through her. It’s late.
Tick-tock, whispers the traitorous corner of her head as Sienna scoops up the notebook, desperate for a snack.
And a very strong drink.
She steps into the hall and shivers.
There’s a cold draft, like the wind has gotten in through the castle’s many cracks, but that’s not what frightens her. The lamps that cast a soft yellow glow last night are off, as if no one’s been through since the sun went down, and an eerie stillness has settled over the house.
She strains to hear something, anything. Cheerful banter rolling down the stairs. The sounds of cooking in the kitchen. Even in a house this size, seven people take up space. They make noise. So why does Sienna feel like she’s the only person left in the castle?
It’s silly. They wouldn’t just up and leave her. Not even Malcolm—she thinks.
So maybe it’s some kind of game.
Maybe everyone just decided to play hide-and-seek. Without her.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she whispers, but the sound of her voice, and only her voice, makes the surrounding silence even worse.
Sienna turns on the lamps as she goes down the hall, feeling a little better with each pool of light. She reaches the kitchen, hoping to find someone—Priscilla or Kenzo; hell, even Jaxon—sitting at the kitchen table, lost in work. But no one’s there. The only sign of life is on the counter, where someone has dumped the contents of the pantry as well as a selection of meats and cheeses from the fridge.
But as Sienna reaches for a wedge of cheese, her senses prickle.
She can’t shake the feeling that she is being watched.
She remembers the figure on the cliff, and can’t decide which scares her more: the idea that it is Arthur Fletch, still alive and scheming; or that it’s someone else, watching, waiting—for what?
She eyes the window over the sink, the darkness beyond making a black mirror of the glass, reflecting Sienna and the kitchen at her back. The open doorway, and a figure peering out.
Sienna lurches around, snatching up the nearest knife.
But it’s not a person. The hall lamp glances off the metal shoulder, the head... not a head but a helmet. The suit of armor.
Sienna sags.
She looks down at the weapon in her hand—a cheese knife, all two inches of impotent steel—and laughs. Not because it’s funny, just to convince her heart, her lungs, that everything’s okay.
But she doesn’t put the knife down.
