“Who are you?” I demanded of the mask. Then, thinking better of it, I rephrased. “What are you?”

“I’m a dream,” said the mask as she took a descending step in my direction, her long train whispering after her. “I’m a falsehood. I am a beautiful lie that I can’t seem to help telling myself.”

“Don’t talk to Desire,” rasped Envy, grasping my wrist. “She’s not supposed to speak to you. You’re not supposed to know about her.”

Desire?

My scowl deepening, my panic building, I glanced between the two of them—ultimately settling my attention on my ghostly twin. The bride whose name strangely did not scare me half so much as the chaos within which she’d made her appearance.

“Erik,” I said to the veiled mask, ignoring Envy’s warning. “Where is he?”

“That untasted kiss,” said the white-masked figure. “The one we almost stole. The one he claimed in our stead. That is what killed us then. But . . . seeing you with him again. That is what kills us now.”

Pushing off from the stairs, I stood, my legs carrying me down the steps, away from the two masks and my abandoned lantern—toward the darkness of the foyer.

“Erik!” I cried, remembering how I’d left him in the dream. Dying. Just as the mask had said.

“Erik!” I shrieked again, hating this helplessness that I could never get away from here, no matter what I did.

But then I spun to see his crimson-clad form standing in front of the mantel clock and the fireplace, his back to me. Uncaring that he wouldn’t have his mask, I rushed over to him. Rounding him, though, I stopped, arrested by what waited for me within the hood of his cloak.

Nothingness. Wrath’s hood was empty.

Still, the hooded figure turned his head toward me, and as I stood in terror beneath his invisible gaze, the fear inside of me suddenly morphed into something more like alarm.

Wrath lifted a gloved hand. His fingers drifted toward me. Then his knuckles grazed my cheek with the softest of caresses.

“Wh-where is he?” I demanded in a whisper.

Somehow understanding, the cloaked figure shifted away from me to point to the dark smears of blood that marred the parquet floor, trailing past the piano, which glistened with wet handprints, as if he’d faltered against it.

Immediately, I spun from the phantom cloak to follow the blood trail into the hall, toward the back door, which stood open to the cold and the crimson storm.

Only scarcely visible through an upsurge of pinkish white, a long scarlet smear stained the snow, leading all the way to the conservatory.

Not caring that I had neither cloak nor coat, I rushed out, bare feet crunching in the snow as I began to run, chasing the scarlet path to the glass house.

SIXTY-SIX

Zedok

Never before had the world that encapsulated me so chaotically rebelled.

Never had this body, which could hardly be referred to as such, so violently revolted against me.