reason why I came here at the same time you did. Now, if you could just sign here?"
He handed me a pen and pointed at the bottoms of the pages, all asking for my signature. I put it down where instructed, but I felt something biting into my finger as I moved toward the last page.
"Ouch," I snapped, looking down to see something jutting from the pen had dug into my finger, drawing blood.
"Are you all right?" Rog asked, taking my hand immediately to inspect the damage.
"Yeah, just a... small cut." I narrowed my eyes as he squeezed my finger gently to the point where a droplet of blood hit the page.
Rog immediately pulled out a small case with some bandages inside, cleaning the cut and wrapping it up. "Not to worry."
"I'm just... some got on the page."
"No need to worry about that." Batten pulled another pen out and handed it to me. "Just your signature should be fine."
Almost without thinking, I put my name down on the final page.
"Perfect." Batten snapped the pages up with a smile. "Now, Mr. Dobre, since our business is finished, I will remove myself."
"Your... business with him?" My voice was slurring. There was no telling why, but suddenly the light bulbs felt like they were glowing just a little too brightly.
"Quite," Rog answered, ignoring me. "Have a pleasant flight back to New York."
I shook my head, but that only made the feeling worse, and I reached out to the table to regain my balance. It was only a momentary reprieve, as it felt like my knees turned to rubber.
The world was spinning, and I started to drop, feeling the fall being stopped quickly by a pair of powerful arms.
A look upwards told me, in a blurry fashion, that Rog had caught me.
"You're... strong," I murmured, reaching up to run my fingers over the bristle on his chin.
"You have no idea," he answered with a smile, making the perfectly white teeth the last thing I saw before the world turned black.
Chapter 4
I was dreaming.
The fact that I knew that I was dreaming was an oddity on its own, but there was no way that anything that I was looking at was real. I stood in a large, white room, mostly empty of furniture except for the full body mirror in front of me. The iron chandelier overhead sparkled from the lights flickering every now and then.
"It's annoying that the beautiful crystal mirror is the most realistic part of all this," I whispered, looking down at a brilliant-white , strapless dress that I wore. Lined with tiny diamonds, it glinted against the light, especially the line across my bust. My dark hair was curled, cascading down over my shoulders.
Looking this good was really the dream of any bride-to-be, but being a bride had never really made it to my bucket list.
"Being a bridesmaid, on the other hand, is," I was talking to myself. Still the least crazy thing happening in this place. "If only to see if everything that I've heard about those male strippers is true."
"And what, pray tell, does Lady Kane hear about male strippers?"
The voice came before any kind of visual origin to it. It was vaguely familiar, with the same thick, breathy Romanian accent that Rog had, but it felt like his voice was vibrating from the walls all around me, even making the mirror visibly shudder.
I turned around, feeling a dryness fill my mouth as I met the eyes of the creature standing across the room from me amid shadows. Mostly because the eyes were about all that I could see of its body. Bright and red, contrasting the thick blackness that surrounded them, matching the gleaming teeth showing as the creature grinned at me.
"Well... look who got their visual cues from the fucking Cheshire Cat," I growled, trying to take hold of my courage, which was trying to slink away.
"In fairness, I was here before Lewis Carroll was a gleam in his father's eye," said the disembodied voice. "His nightmares showed him what his creations should be. I humbly credit my toying with him as a boy as inspiration."
I cocked an eyebrow. "You have got to be kidding me. You're really saying that you inspired Lewis Carroll?"
"What can I say? The 19th century was a dull time in the world."
"So I guess that means that you're no transmutationist?"
The smile felt like it was growing. No, the blackness was coming closer, making me take a step backwards. My mind whirled with