As we snuck down the hall, we peered into dark bedrooms. One was occupied by a group of fae playing a game that looked like a mix between cards and dice with too many sides. Another had two girls around my age dusting and making the bed. The sight of them flooded my body with adrenaline, which unfortunately didn’t go away even after seeing their faces were unfamiliar.
With my heart still pumping, we ascended a different staircase that curved around and unexpectedly poured us back out into the original room where we’d first arrived. Completely disoriented, I gestured to another tunnel with a heavy sigh. “Maybe this one?”
As we moved away from the party a second time, I expected the noise to die down, but on this level, the music bounced off the walls, following us along. Whenever it started to fade, a new song picked up ahead.
We searched room after room. Without any windows for a point of reference, I was all turned around.
As we traveled down yet another staircase, the music softened a bit, and fae mingled as they admired different kinds of art on display. In a large room, a life-size painting of a cheetah running shifted suddenly, turning into two painted human bodies. A few more moves and they locked into a new pose that turned them into a parrot. A couple fae murmured brief approval before accepting drinks from a human server. Squinting at both the painted people and the one serving drinks, I blinked back tears of frustration at not recognizing any of them.
I kept thinking I’d turn around and see Rissa or Olive, or that Dad would be the one walking by. But they were nowhere to be found.
This party didn’t seem to have any limits.
As we wandered down a long quiet hallway, we passed another statue, posed on one foot with arms stretched in an O overhead, like a ballerina. When I glanced at it, it blinked.
I squeaked and leapt back.
It was a living, breathing person, painted to look like a statue.
Pressing a hand to my chest to calm the panic, I thought back to the statues scattered throughout the rooms upstairs—had they all been human as well?
Though I peered hopefully through the face paint, it wasn’t Rissa or Olive. Her arms trembled, and sweat dripped down her face.
“Hey,” I whispered. “You know you can take a break, right? There’s no one else here.”
She didn’t move.
I couldn’t even tell if she’d heard me.
“Soren.” I said his name for the first time.
He turned abruptly from where he’d been surveying the other side of the room. “Yes, Brynn?”
“I—” I gave myself a mental shake. “The girl... We need to help her. Can you do something?”
Shifting his gaze to her, he took in the way she refused to move despite her shaking. “I can try.” Though her eyes stayed lifeless, Soren crouched low enough to catch her gaze. “What’s your name?”
As he talked to her, I kept an eye on the rest of the hallway to make sure no one was coming.
“Your name,” Soren demanded in a sterner tone.
The girl slowly surfaced enough to say, “Rosa.”
“Rosa,” he repeated. And the single word drew her eerie gaze to his with a tiny spark of awareness. “You’re done working for the night. Go find a quiet, safe place to rest.” Soren enunciated each word.
Her leg and arms lowered ever so slightly.
And then they gave out.
We caught her just in time, one of us on each side, and gave her a minute to compose herself.
Then, without a word, she pulled away and shuffled off, obeying Soren’s command.
I watched her until she turned the corner and disappeared.
“Will that work?” I whispered. Thin strands of music tickled my ears from somewhere upstairs, adding a weird upbeat soundtrack to my nervousness.
“Temporarily.” He turned in the direction where the girl had gone, and I followed. “Using her name helped, but her master’s commands will override anything I say eventually.”
