I shuffled backward as fast as I could, nearly falling over. The House provided a little alcove just in time for me to scramble into it as Colin came back to life and walked inside the throne room.
When the door closed behind him, I crawled back to the keyhole, my heartbeat thundering in my ears. I saw Clarissa standing before her servant, smiling into his blank face.
“It’s easy, Sylvester,” she was saying. “No need to be squeamish. It doesn’thurtthem.”
To my horror, she shook back her sleeve so that her hand and arm were exposed almost to the elbow, her fingers curled like the petals of a flower, and thrust her hand into her servant’s chest.
“Of course, most of his heart has been taken already,” she said conversationally as she twisted her wrist in his chest, and he writhed around her hand. “I’m careful to do a little bit at a time, if it’s a really good one. It’s surprising how long you can make them last, if you’re frugal.”
Colin’s face contorted, but he made no sound. His eyes were closed. He looked almost drugged. Perhaps he was—or perhaps she had bespelled him.
I watched in horror as his mouth made the shape of a scream, but no noise came out. I still couldn’t see Sylvester’s face. Was he bored? Yawning while he lounged in his chair? Watching avidly? I had no idea.
His sister withdrew her hand with an awful, incongruous “pop,” as if she had pulled a plum from a pie. Her servant’s heart was in her hand, a pocked and shrunken thing, clearly not whole.
She pulled an empty jar from the pouch at her waist and shook it. The shaking must have been part of a spell, because the jar filled with a golden liquid like runny honey. She dropped the heart into it and screwed on the lid in a businesslike manner.
“A pity to use him up all at once,” she said. “I was planning to hold onto him for a while. It’s better if the heart is freshly plucked. Still, I hope the demonstration will prove worth it.”
Colin swayed and staggered but did not fall. I could not see his chest. I wondered if it was a sunken cavity, like the boy’s I had seen at the secret society meeting. I knew Colin couldn’t have long to live.
But did Sylvester know that? Did he imagine I would survive the harvesting just fine, and keep on living in his House and cooking his meals as if nothing were wrong?
Well, I wasn’t sticking around, waiting to be mutilated. I turned from the door so quickly that I slipped on the slick floor and fell on my backside, the hard black substance sending a jolt up my spine. It made quite a thump, and I hoped they hadn’t heard me. I scrambled away, pushing myself along the floor with my feet, before getting up and running as best I could along the corridor.
I was trying to get to the heavy front door and out into the courtyard, to run out into the city, but the House undulated under my feet and would not let me. I almost sobbed in frustration, but could not keep my already unsteady footing, and so I obeyed it and turned around, cursing. I had to pass the throne room door again, but thankfully, it was still shut.
“Hide me, hide me,” I said under my breath as if chanting a spell. I couldn’t go to the kitchen, or my bedchamber. There was nowhere to go. Perhaps the House had decided to betray me after all—another of its whims, and a dangerous one this time.
Cornelius appeared at my feet.
“What’s going on?”
“She’s coming out to harvest me,” I said. “I need to hide.”
I scooped him up.
“Oi!” he protested.
“I’m sorry. But I have a bad feeling about you, too. I think it’s better if we’re both out of her sight.”
He wriggled in my arms. “Put me down.”
“I told you, it’s better that we both hide.”
“No, put me down, I can help.”
“How?” I looked around wildly at the black walls. “Why can’t you open one of your doors for us now, damn you?” I pleaded to the House.
“There are other ways,” said Cornelius.
“What other ways?” I put him down.
“I’m a cat,” he said, as if this explained everything. “There are always other ways.”
“Yes, well, I’m not a cat, and I can’t fit in your little spaces.”
“You won’t need to. You just have to sort of think sideways, like I said. Remember? To get to the Other House.”
