act—her performance dress so different from the glittery corsets she’d once shoved herself into, her face bared for the whole world to see.
Applause rang in her ears once more, echoing as loud as it had on stage. The delicious, warm sound washed over her. A wave of sensation she longed for even more, now that she had a taste of it.
She drew closer.
Soon, her name became its own chant, vibrating throughout the room. The audience wildly cheering in unison, until they solidified into one voice.
Kallia
Kallia
Kalli—
She halted at an icy breeze. It brushed her temple, across her collarbone. Like the unwelcome edge of a knife.
A sudden slip of a shadow flitted across the carpet, and Kallia jerked back. Frantic. Finding nothing but dark, empty corners. The wind trailed over her again. Shivering, she turned to the window that had swung open. The sheer drapes rustled against the breeze, rippling like ribbons where the moonlight hit them.
In the quiet, she swallowed and stepped back.
The shadow returned, landing at her feet. Her insides seized in a panicked grip to find it was hardly even a shadow anymore, but a bleeding black mass, spreading like ink spilled over the carpet, forcing her backward. Her calf collided with a chair in a jolt of pain.
“Wh-who’s doing this?” She steadied herself. Surely this was nothing more than a prank. She swept a hand across the room, raising flames upon every candle in her suite.
Their light died almost instantly.
Kallia yelped at a hard brush of wind, her hair thrown over her shoulders. Fear caught in her lungs as the room went pitch black, but she forced herself to move. She rushed and fumbled her way to the door—only to find the handle rigid. Locked.
Kallia kept her back to the door, her chest tight. “Hiding in the dark is no way to fight,” she snarled. “Show yourself!”
She risked a glance at the mirror, and everything in her froze at the answering chuckle. The sound of hands clapping. Slowly, surely.
“I’m not one to hide, Kallia. You know that.”
Kallia’s pulse shattered at the breath grazing the shell of her ear. The brush of fingers traveling over her shoulders to her hip. Featherlight yet burning. She shivered and whirled around to—
No one.
Absolutely no one.
“N-not real,” she whispered furiously, eyes shut. Every muscle in her body shook with the need to run, but she couldn’t. It was worse than her nightmare of crawling away from a monster.
This was the part when the monster took her, once and for all.
As soon as Kallia thought it, the fingers drifted away. The air quieted. She dared crack an eye open, and blinked in disbelief.
Light warmed the room. The candle flames glowed as if they’d never gone out, and the fire crackled heartily, while the moon streamed in bright as a spotlight across the furniture. Even the mirror was covered. Undisturbed.
All looked as it had before, except for the imposing figure overlooking the closed window. From where she stood, he was just a tall silhouette carved from shadow, donning a familiar dark suit. Only when he moved out of the moon’s glare did the room’s light touch his warm-hued skin, glinting off the black brass knuckles on his hands she knew so well. The face, she knew even better.
Her first instinct was to scream. To run. To hide. But she would not give Jack a single morsel of fear. “Took you long enough to find me.”
“It wasn’t that hard, firecrown. You do leave an obvious trail.”
No anger in his voice. No fear, no relief. If she didn’t know any better, she would’ve thought he’d forgotten all about the way she’d left Hellfire House from his typical, cool manner.
But his eyes were too deep and expressive to play along. And Jack’s lingered on her for a long, burning moment. Like he wanted to say more, do more.
Blood thundered in her ears. She’d be lying if she said she felt nothing—she felt everything as she watched him in return, honing in on the familiar lines of his jaw, the set of his shoulder fitted against the black jacket. Slight shadows formed beneath his eyes, the only detail that made her believe he could be real. Here.
Until she looked down at his feet, swallowed in a mass of smoke spilling across the floor.
“You’re not really here,” she said evenly, still on edge. “If you’re not really here, why did you bother to come at all?”
“For you,” Jack said. “Because you must leave, while you still can. It’s not safe.”