An hour and a half later, and they had already searched three different places top to bottom for any sort of key, or clues that might trigger Blackwell’s memory as to its whereabouts. All to no avail. The plain room at the end of the secret corridor hadn’t had much to look at, so it was easy to rule out. The next place Blackwell suggested had been a drinking parlor, complete with a stocked bar and a hair-raising chill.
“Did you only bring me here so you could get a drink?” she accused.
“Of course not,” he had told her right before knocking back an entire glass of amber liquid in two gulps. “I brought you here for the romantic ambiance.”
The room had been slathered in cobwebs and grime.
The final place Blackwell had suggested was the library. The massive room was covered wall to wall in dark oak bookcases that were stuffed with novels and journals. In the center of the back wall of shelves was an enormous brick fireplace, a gilded oculus mounted above its intricately carved mantel. It smelled like charred earth and old books and was much less drafty than the rest of the manor.
Blackwell was lying back over a chartreuse chaise in the sitting area before the burning hearth, and after digging through two of the bookshelves by herself, Ophelia was ready to throttle the Phantom. While he had his nose stuck in some old fairy tale, she was choking on dust, pulling out tome after tome and checking to see if any might be hiding hollowed out spaces for stowing objects such as keys.
“Does anything here feel familiar to you at all?” she threw at him after another coughing fit.
“Maybe,” he said as he flicked his gaze leisurely over the book she currently held—a thick encyclopedia wrapped in distressed brown leather and embossed with gold foil. “Maybe not.”
That was it. She chucked the tome at his head with all her might. He switched into his non-corporeal state a second before the projectile would have smashed into his face.
How unsatisfying.
When he solidified himself once more, there was a lazy smirk on his face. “If you want to play rough,” he drawled, “I have better games we can play. Ones that involve less clothing—”
“Ugh,” she groaned, fists balling at her sides. “No wonder no one has ever been able to find what you’re looking for. You’re impossible to work with.”
“Have you ever thought that, just maybe, I’ve already looked through all of this before? I’d remember if anyone had ever found anything of interest in these books.”
“Would you? Because you didn’t even remember you met me and told me about it.”
“That’s because I met you before the competition. Which has never happened before.”
“So, you can remember everything within the competition, but nothing that you do in between,” she realized. The way he’d made sure to ask if their first encounter was agreeable suddenly made sense.
“Correct.”
She threw her hands up. “Then why are we in here getting my dress covered in dust?”
He blinked out suddenly and reappeared right in front of her, making her startle.
“Boo.” He grinned.
“Oh, I’m so glad to see that’s a habit of yours,” she said, tone dripping in sarcasm.
He gently pried the next book she’d been ready to launch at his head from her grip, discarding it to the floor as he explained, “I chose you because you have been able to see and find things none of the others could. But right now, you’re still looking on the surface. I need you to dig deeper.”
“Would it torture you to speak plainly for once?”
He reached out and placed a hand against the frame of the bookshelf at her back. “Something you need to understand if our partnership is going to work—we are on the same side. I want you to be successful more than you do, I promise. You found the Whispering Gate and you made that room in the secret passage appear just fine. That’s what I mean when I say ‘dig deeper.’ Find things I haven’t looked through a million times already. Look beyond the books, the obvious.”
“Fine, I get it.” She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to ignore the way every time he got this close to her, it sent her pulse into such a frenzy the only thing she could hear in her head was the roar of her own heartbeat. “In the meantime, it would be helpful if you made yourself useful in some way. Perhaps helping me get to know you? It seems when I find these places by accident, it’s because something inside me needs to at that exact moment in time. I need to feel… connected to whatever it is I’m looking for.”
Blackwell tilted his head. “Alright. What would you like to know?”
She looked him square in the eyes. “What’s your earliest memory of being here? Do you remember ever existing anywhere else?”
He contemplated her question for a moment, tapping his fingers against the shelf above her head as he searched through his memory. Once, twice. She reached backward and tapped her finger against the shelf to complete the trifecta he had started.
His green eyes tracked the gesture, but he didn’t bother to comment on it; he only answered, “No. There is no before in my mind. I remember every contestant I’ve worked with, and every city we’ve traveled to, but nothing outside of Phantasma’s competitions. A shame, too. I feel robbed of my first time laying eyes on you.”
Heat bloomed on her cheeks as a ripple of butterflies went through her stomach. He was too charming for her own good.
“What if…” She cleared her throat. “What if you died in Phantasma?” she pressed on. “Maybe you were a contestant at one point and that’s why you’re tied here?”
“I’ve thought of that possibility.” He nodded, his expression turning morose. “But a lot of Apparitions who are here were contestants who died in the competition. Yet I became a Phantom rather than a regular Apparition. Thankfully, the bargains I’m able to make ensure I don’t become a Ghoul.”
“Phantoms can be created in several different ways,” she told him. “Most often they are created when an immortal dies and does not pass over—something about the power of an immortal’s soul creates a stronger type of Ghost. But there are definitely other ways, too.”
Especially because immortals didn’t die often, given the fact that they never aged and were semi-invincible. But still, it wasn’t impossible, and she wondered if something of the sort was at play here. Unfortunately, Phantoms were elusive enough that her Necromancy studies hadn’t taught her much more about the subject than that. She wasn’t sure her mother had ever even met one.
“Hmm,” he said thoughtfully. “Perhaps that is it. I was an immortal in my past life. A Vampire, maybe. I do like to bite.” He clacked his teeth together in demonstration before giving her a wink.
She made a noise of surprise, her cheeks heating at the prospect of his teeth sinking into her skin…
He grinned at her involuntary blush with satisfaction.
She quickly changed the subject. “Maybe we should just start with the basics. What’s your favorite color?”
He lifted a brow at the mundane question but reached out with the hand that wasn’t propping him up and tugged at the tail of the velvet ribbon tied in her hair. “Red.”
The ribbon perfectly matched the rest of her ensemble: a high-collared, scarlet chemise with long gossamer sleeves that puffed at her shoulders and tapered then flared at her wrists, beneath a black velvet corset.
“That’s at least one thing we have in common,” she noted. “Do you have a favorite book?”
“There’s a book here about a doctor who uses a bunch of different dead bodies to create his very own monster. I enjoyed that one.”
She straightened up with excitement. “I know that book—”
Before she could finish her thought, someone else blinked into the room, humming a tune reminiscent of the jazzy melodies one might hear in the French Quarter. It was the man who had let her into Phantasma, his top hat and black-lined eyes unmistakable. His song paused when he noticed the two of them.
“Blackwell.” The man dipped his chin in greeting to the Phantom, but his shrewd eyes stayed on her.
Blackwell straightened himself away from her, crossing his arms over his chest as he gave the other man a measured look. “Good evening, Jasper.”
Jasper removed his top hat and set it down on a table. Ophelia swallowed a gasp. The hat had been hiding a third eye embedded into his forehead. A Devil’s Mark.
Jasper gave her a knowing grin. “I wouldn’t have pegged you as Blackwell’s first choice. What did you do to get his attention?” He flicked his gaze over to Blackwell now. “Or is this one of those rounds where you just picked the prettiest contestant in hopes that you’d get to ravage them in dark corners?”
“Jasper,” Blackwell murmured, a hostile edge beneath his smooth tone. “Get lost.”
“Sorry, handsome.” Jasper shook his head. “No can do. Why don’t the two of you rip each other’s clothes off elsewhere?”
Ophelia’s entire body flushed at the suggestion. “We aren’t—that’s not—”
“Don’t tell me he hasn’t even kissed you yet?” Jasper flicked his eyes between them. “Taking it slow this time, Blackwell?”
Blackwell didn’t deign to answer, the look on his face somewhere between bored and irritated.
“There have been a few past contestants he made a deal with that damn near broke Phantasma’s cardinal rule for our handsome friend here,” Jasper continued. “Might want to mind your heart around him, or the trials won’t be the worst that’ll happen to you.”
“Let’s go,” Blackwell told her, gesturing with his head for her to follow him out.
She eyed Jasper warily as she went, and the Devil’s third eye winked open. The third eye wasn’t the same warm brown color as his other two, but a bright gold—and the way it homed in on her face sent a shiver down her spine. She rushed out of the library and down the hall after Blackwell. Back in her bedroom, she could tell that Blackwell was tense, though he was trying to pretend otherwise.
After a few beats of silence, she finally said, “Is kissing usually part of your bargains? Am I just not your type?”
Blackwell froze for a moment. Then he tilted his head back and let out a deep laugh.
“I have no type,” he told her with a pointed look, turning to face her fully. “Jasper was just keeping up his habit of being a pain in the ass. There’s only one contestant I’ve kissed in recent memory, and that’s because they were a dreadfully dull conversationalist and absolutely horrid at searching—there weren’t a lot of options for me that round. I figured we might as well do something to pass the time.”
“I suppose I should really start thinking of more interesting topics of conversation, then,” she told him.
“Is the thought of kissing me that horrible?” he murmured.
No.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Did you know that every time you lie, your left eye twitches a little?”
She crossed her arms. “It does not.”
Blackwell opened his mouth to say something else, but the dinner bell tolled through the manor. A glint of something she couldn’t name sparkled in his eyes.
“I suppose we’ll have to table this argument for later,” he said as he went over to open the door for her. “Better hurry so you can get something to eat before level two begins. Once you’re in the trial, you need to make sure to summon me so I can guide you out of it.”
As she shuffled past him in the doorway, she asked, “Do you know which Circle of Hell this one will be based on?”
Blackwell pulled the door shut behind them and then brought his mouth down to her ear to whisper a single, spine-tingling word.
“Lust.”
