I got up and rushed out into the hall—moving too quickly made me light-headed, but that was the least of my worries. The random table and rug in the middle of the hall didn’t seem so random anymore. The small wooden table was heavier than it looked, but I shoved it over with my shoulder and kicked away the rug. The shocked, fossilized face of Edward stared back at me … the man whose kind eyes had greeted me that first night and had undoubtedly vanished that first Waking.

I threw the rug back over him and rushed to the wall, shifting over a tapestry. Nothing. I rushed down the hall, shifting every piece of wall décor I came across until I snatched away a basket that seemed to be hanging too low and found a hand reaching out to me as if begging for help.

I stood in the hall, trembling.

Emma had been right, in a way. The house was holding victims hostage, but I had a feeling there weren’t going to be any happy reunions after the Evil Eye was cleansed. The house was consuming them. Sucking the corpses dry and—my God—regurgitating the victims’ blood? I dry heaved at the thought of it, and then looked down the hall.

“Magnus?” The hall was quiet, and so my voice sounded far too loud, even without yelling. I didn’t hear the hopsicar, so went straight to the library. Magnus was drawing in his regular chair. He paused to throw a dart at the portrait of his father. It stuck firm into the canvas, joining a cluster of darts just below the man’s belt.

“Castrating your father?” I asked.

“A perfectly therapeutic way to spend the morning.” Magnus slapped his sketchbook shut and left it on his lap, giving me his full attention. He was grinning, seemingly clueless as to what had happened the night before. I would’ve been grateful for that, except that now I had to explain my gruesome findings.

“You slept in, Andromeda,” he said, shaking his pencil at me in chastisement. “I honestly didn’t know it was possible.”

God bless him, he was so cute, raising his thick eyebrows at me with such sweet curiosity. I felt overwhelmingly pleased to see it.

“The drugs made me do it,” I said stupidly, sitting beside him. He immediately reached over and took my hand. I accepted it, squeezed it too tight. His lies should’ve mattered to me, but they didn’t. At the moment there were bigger things to worry about. “I have to talk to you.”

His eyes widened as he saw my bandaged hand. “God. What happened?”

I took a deep breath. “People in the house aren’t vanishing. They’re being killed.”