and his eyes, which were sunken and ringed with a purplish hue. An ugly gash on his right cheekbone had been cinched together with butterfly bandages.
“Holy shit!” she cried. He looked as if he’d gotten into a bar fight with the entire Columbia crew team.
His smile never faltered. “I’m going away for a while.”
“Away? You mean like back to Columbia?”
“Away like out of the country.”
“Why?”
He waved her off. “Nothing big. Just a little bit of trouble at school.” His smile deepened as a dreamy, faraway look swept over his face. It was the same smile she’d seen at his graduation, when he and his buddies were discussing their party plans, and it was the same smile that had been on his face when he was taking photos of the mutilated remains of a half dozen rodents in the family guesthouse.
Her voice hardened. “What did you do?”
“Nothing. Big,” he repeated. “I’ll be fine.”
He wasn’t the one she was worried about.
Her brother bent down and zipped up the suitcase. “Tell Mom I’ll call her this weekend,” he said. “When I’m settled.”
“They won’t believe me,” Persey said. “When I tell them what happened here.”
“They will eventually.” He dragged the suitcase toward her and placed a hand on her shoulder. It was a paternal gesture, but one that made her whole body tense up. “I’ll tell them the truth. You won’t get blamed.”
Don’t be so sure about that.
“But look…” He leaned closer, and Persey fought the urge to back away. “If anyone comes looking for me, you didn’t see any of this, okay? As far as you know, I’m still in New York.”
What did you do?
He squeezed her shoulder when she didn’t respond. It wasn’t gentle. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You good?” His grip lessened, but his hand remained.
“I’m good.”
Then he smiled and stepped around her. “Take care, little sis. Don’t let Dad get to you. He’ll leave you alone. Someday.”
THE BRIGHTNESS OF THE COLLECTIBLES ROOM DISAPPEARED above her head as Persey slid down into the abyss. She dropped for what felt like an eternity, and when she finally landed (crashed), she felt the floor beneath her feet give slightly with the force of her impact. Balancing against the pole, Persey wondered if she’d slid far enough to make it underground. Because this room—if you could even call it that—was more like a cave than a man-made structure.
The walls and ceiling were made of rock, dark and textured, and if Persey didn’t know better, she’d have thought this room had been hewed into the side of a mountain. The orange glow she’d seen from upstairs came from a dozen torches mounted on wall sconces, their comforting light dancing off the textured walls. It almost looked as if the walls themselves were rippling, like a flag in a strong wind, and it made the room feel alive. Sentient. Intelligent.
The rock walls curved toward each other, creating an egg-like oval with the fire pole at one end and a massive marble structure at the other. It looked like a tall kitchen island made from gleaming white stone, like something on a home improvement show. An altar. Persey had only been to church once—for a funeral—but she had been entranced by the heavy, ornate table the priest spent most of his time standing behind. As if to hammer the church-like point home, a large wooden cross hung behind the altar, so dark it blended in with the granite walls, yet big enough that you couldn’t miss it.
“Persey, be careful!” Riot waved at her from the front of the room, where he was examining the altar top. “Someone might land on you.”
“Right. Thanks.” She hobbled away from the base of the pole. The floor wiggled with each movement, and the soles of her Toms buckled against an uneven surface.
Once clear of the pole, Persey crouched down, examining the floor. The unevenness was the result of a composite surface made of what appeared at first glance to be large slabs of stone, irregular in shape, with thick gaps between pieces like oversize cobblestones. Persey grazed her fingers against floor, expecting to feel smooth, textured stone. Instead, she found that the floor was made of customized pieces of wood, porous and flimsy, painted to look like stone.
It was bizarre that someone would make a floor like this—the wooden slabs were huge, two feet wide at least, and the seams between them were deep, as if the faux stones themselves were pushing upward through mesh with no discernible material holding them in place. And Persey