She hated feeling just as delicate. Her fights with Jack never lasted long, but this one was different. It wasn’t over an accident or bruised ego; this was something she wasn’t sure could be fixed with mere words.
Kallia wasn’t sorry, but the hardness inside her chipped away when she ventured to his workroom, only to find it unexpectedly empty.
Frustration reeled through her. It wasn’t like them to not speak, especially when he was about to depart for his trip. It wouldn’t be for long, yet Kallia couldn’t let him leave like this.
The door to his bedroom was the most beautiful of the House. Each one was carved and crafted like portals to different worlds. Wooden frames and panelings all soaked in a burgundy wine shade, designed with dramatic shapes that told stories across the archway. A forest of blooming trees over one door, scrolls of sheet music with sprawling notes over another. Kallia’s door possessed an archway of wooden birds in flight studded with gems across their wings.
Jack’s door frame rose tall, cased in black glass.
The farthest she’d ever gone. Each time she’d ever reached for the doorknob, he’d somehow been the first to open it. She’d had no problem avoiding it before when the room had been occupied by Sire, who’d hardly ever left his bed. At first Kallia had found it strange how Jack had settled into the room his father had withered away in, but she never questioned him. Having never known grief, Kallia couldn’t judge how it manifested.
For the first time, Kallia raised her fist over the surface and no one answered. Before she could knock, muffled noises burst from the other side. A gruff, heated curse on someone’s lips.
“I won’t be blamed for this. I’ve done my part every damn year.”
Jack. With someone, though Kallia was certain no guest had passed through the entrance today. She couldn’t quite hear the response, but Jack’s scoff was clear.
“That won’t happen. Of course she’s not going.”
Her. They were talking about her. Kallia’s heart thudded as she leaned closer against the door, worried the slightest creak would give her away.
“I was set to depart in a few days, but I’ll leave tonight.”
Kallia strained to hear what the other person said, but it was a gravelly murmur too soft to reach her.
“No, it’ll be quick. Always is.”
She flinched back at the sound of his feet, suddenly pacing, and nearly turned away to the wall—
“I never stay in Glorian longer than I need to.”
She froze, the air so quiet around her that it felt like a mockery. The words echoed again and again, the nausea twisting her stomach. Punching her heart with loud, brutal beats. Each hit against her chest, a realization.
Every year, once a year.
Not to vendors across Soltair.
To Glorian.
Ice entered her, fury following. She had to know who else was in that room. Her fingers trembled as she grasped the knob and shoved the door open.
Shards of a smashed glass scattered the floor, the room warm and barely lit except by the windows at the wall swathed in gray, a mirror hanging in between. And there was only Jack, looking at his reflection before whirling around at the interruption.
Kallia’s eyes were fixed on the mirror. Only it didn’t show Jack or his turned back, but something else, dark and shadowed.
A monstrous face.
“Kallia.” Jaw clenched, Jack began striding toward her, enraged. Or stricken. She suddenly couldn’t tell the difference as she backed out of the room, realizing she was shaking.
That face. The harshness of it branded the back of her eyelids each time she blinked. Whoever it was—whatever it was—it was too much. A million voices inside her suddenly screamed all at once to go. Run.
And one: stay.
“Kallia—wait.”
Jack’s voice ran circles in her head, over and over.
Glorian is not the sort of place for people like you or me.
Glorian had never been a horrible, forbidden place. Jack’s business trips led him there. No one but him, doing Zarose knew what.
All this time.
Hearing Jack’s feet pick up after her, Kallia took off down the hall. Stumbling, her vision wavering. It was instinct to run as far and fast as possible, but Jack didn’t need to in order to catch her. He could close the walls in around her, raise the floors until they blocked every path imaginable. Trap her, without so much as taking a step.
Panic hammering at her chest, she glanced over her shoulder and threw a slap to the wall. The force reverberated down the hall behind her,