“You’ll be my wife,” he continues as if I hadn’t stammered my feeble attempt at a response. “It would be strange if I didn’t know your name, don’t you think?”

His wife?

I peer closer. This is Santiago De La Rosa? Why is he wearing that cloak? The mask? It's for ceremonial purposes only. Worn by the male founding family members and only when tradition dictated it. They'd lent my father a similar cloak when he’d attended one such event. I still remember his excitement even when my sister and I had been terrified to see him in it.

But there’s a more pressing question. What the hell is Santiago De La Rosa doing in my room in the middle of the night?

Then I remember hearing Abel out in the hallway at some point tonight. I remember being irritated that he was making so much noise he’d woken me.

Did Abel let him in here?

“What do you want?” I ask.

I can just make out how his eyes roam over me, and I look down at myself. I’m wearing a T-shirt and panties, one foot up on the bed, the other dangling off it. I pull both in and gather up the blankets.

“No need for that,” he says, stepping closer still to take the edge of the blanket and tug it slightly off me. “I came to give you something.”

I press harder against the wall when he steps to the edge of the bed. He takes a moment to look at the ornate frame and all the pink.

“A bit childish, isn’t it?”

“What do you want with me?”

He looks down at me, and I don’t know if I see or imagine a grin. Don’t know if I imagine the skeleton that peers closer as I back into the corner.

“Oh, that’s no way to behave with your husband-to-be, sweet Ivy.” He sits on the edge of the bed, inching closer.

“What do you want?” I scream it, thinking surely, Abel will come. Surely someone will help me.

But nothing. No one comes. I am alone with this man.

He exhales like he’s disappointed, then reaches out, touching the tips of his fingers to my cheek before he slips them to my neck where my pulse beats wildly.

I keep the back of my head pressed to the wall.

I’m dreaming. I must be. But he feels so real.

“What do you want?” I ask, this time in a quieter voice, a frightened one.

“I already told you that,” he starts, voice low and deep.

He takes my hand, his fingers like a vise around it, and pulls it toward him. His touch is ice-cold. Maybe it is the Grim Reaper after all.

“I have something for you.”

He stretches out my hand, reaches into his pocket and I watch in shocked silence as he forces a ring onto my finger.