Now I wondered if the agency had put a restriction on us hooking up? Was that why she’d been awkward when I tried to talk about how we’d kissed? I expected that lots of guys would feel hurt or betrayed, but I actually found it kind of funny. She had a lot of explaining to do when we did meet again, that was for sure.

Looking at the mansion again, I moved on to the fourth and final bedroom. Unlike the others, this one was completely empty of furniture and decoration, right down to the unpolished floorboards. There was a single item lying in the center of the empty room, though. It was a multi-tiered vanilla sponge cake that wouldn’t have looked out of place at a wedding. It looked delicious, and I found that I could actually smell the scent of vanilla that rose from it.

I’d only briefly looked over the farmhouse kitchen downstairs, but I remembered now that I had noticed a lot of dirty cooking utensils and vanilla icing splashed over the benchtops.

“Who’s room is this one?” I asked Kyrine. “It seems kind of random that the only item they own is a wedding cake.”

“It’s yours,” she answered. “Astrid created the dessert. She has done the same for every Keeper who has entered my depths.”

“That’s a whole lot of wasted cake, then,” I said.

“Oh, no, not wasted. Astrid has quite an appetite. Yet another trait we share.”

My stomach sank as I recalled the previous Keepers. “What did you do with them? The Keepers who didn’t pass your test? Am I right in saying that you killed them?”

“Their bones lie at the bottom of the lava pit where you first encountered me. But I didn’t kill them. They all died at the first trap. I had no hand in it. Although I did consume their essence. ”

“Well, that kind of makes it better, I suppose. At least you didn’t intentionally kill them.”

“Not them, no.”

I raised a mental eyebrow but didn’t question Kyrine further. She was obviously no stranger to killing. As well as giving me a level of dedication to protecting her, our merging had also made me understand her better. As she’d said before, she was a dungeon, and by her very nature she killed things. She may have looked like a beautiful woman to me, but she was not human. It would be good for me to remember that. In my new role as Keeper, I might help curb those murderous desires of hers, but I would never change her fundamental nature. Nor, I thought, would it be right to do so.

“Well, I guess I’ve seen enough for the moment,” I said, drawing my focus back away from the empty bedroom with the cake.

“Now that you have seen what I have to offer,” Kyrine said, “what is your assessment?”

“Of the mansion?”