With his timing, though—impeccable as usual—Shirazi now presented another delay.

I descended the grand staircase, crossing through the very space Rastin occupied on the other side. I then drew back the parlor’s closed pocket doors in silence, once again exiting the splendor of my Moldavia for the ruin of the current-day one. Turning, I glanced to where Rastin stood with his back to me at the base of the steps, his gaze fixated on the landing I had vacated mere moments ago.

Ah, Rastin. Always rushing at me headlong. And always one step behind . . .

I waited for him to notice me. For all his meddling, he deserved, if nothing else, to see me coming.

FIFTY-FOUR

Stephanie

I still wasn’t ready to believe there was no way out.

Not even when, no matter what door I tried, I never got through to my side.

Worse, I never woke up. In spite of everything, I kept hoping this was just another dream.

Just like I kept waiting for the sun to rise.

Dawn never came, though, and I never opened my eyes to turn off my alarm or to find Charlie’s small nose two inches from mine.

The night he, Zedok—Erik—had brought me here, I’d run away into the snowy woods. My goal had been to put as much distance between us as possible, wanting to escape what I couldn’t accept. That my abductor and the beautiful boy I’d tried to free were one and the same.

Without a coat or shoes, I’d barreled through the frozen forest only to have my path loop back to the house again and again, no matter which route I took.

Finally, unable to stand the cold, I’d barricaded myself inside the freezing conservatory, surrounded by the vines of all the roses that, like Erik, had once lived here but were now dead.

Curling up under the mountains of furs I’d found on the settee inside, I couldn’t be sure if they, along with the mug of hot tea on the nearby table, had been meant for me. Like the house had foreseen my taking refuge in the conservatory. Like he had.

Lucas. God. He’d been right to suspect Erik. Because, on that boat, everything about Erik had changed so drastically that I now suspected this shift in him was what he’d been trying to warn me about all along. And I hadn’t listened. Hadn’t read between the lines. But how could I have ever anticipated this?

“Music,” Erik had claimed as his reason for bringing me here. But there’d been something more lurking behind his words. Something deeper, darker—and far more frightening.

The memory of our almost-kiss surfaced in my mind for the hundredth time. Only now, when Erik drew nearer to me, the perfection of his face deteriorated, skin shriveling and cracking, sucking inward to hug the skull of a long-dead mummy.

I banished the image before I could picture those papery dead lips pressing mine. Sickened, wishing I was far away from here—safe somewhere in Lucas’s arms—I wrapped my own around myself and walked to the window. Every day its frame showed the same scene of white grounds and darkness. I put my back to it, having already learned that it was useless to wait for the snow to stop. Though on the other side of the house this room was mine, on this side, the powder pink walls and pillow-piled bed told me that I now occupied Myriam Draper’s room. If she was here along with Erik, though, she had yet to show up.