When they landed back in the dining hall, there was no aching crash like before, Blackwell keeping them both on their feet. He wasted no time guiding her back to her room.
“Well, I suppose the debate on whether or not you think it’d be terrible to kiss me has been settled,” he declared as he kicked the door shut behind them.
She jabbed a finger into his chest. “Do not tease me right now. That was horrible.”
“Of course it was,” he agreed. “No illusion could possibly replace my—”
“That is not what I meant,” she gritted out. “Imagine you believe, with every fiber of your being, that something is real, and suddenly you get an inkling that it is not. I have to live that nightmare every single day in my own mind! Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to have your reality so distorted that you can’t trust your own thoughts, your own sight?”
“No,” he answered, sincere. “But it’s over. You figured it out before it was too late. You finished the level.”
“But how do I know that!” she exclaimed, fear creeping into her voice. “How do I know this is real and I’m not being tricked by another illusion into a false sense of security?”
He watched as she began to pace back and forth, the amusement in his eyes slowly dissipating the more anxious she became.
“It was too easy to get out of there.” She shook her head. “I can’t trust my own judgment, clearly. I have to get out, I have to—”
“Ophelia.” Blackwell sidestepped into her path, making her stop short. “That’s the point of this place. It’s desperate to make you question your sanity. That trial is set up the way it is to make you paranoid the remainder of the time you’re here. It’s a mind game.”
“How can I trust you?” she sniffed, refusing to make eye contact. “You were there too. You were there and you were pretending to be protective of me, you kissed me, but it wasn’t you—”
“Look at me,” he demanded, reaching out to lightly pinch her chin and tilt her face up to his.
She swallowed as she allowed her gaze to slide back to his.
“This is real,” he promised. “I’m real. I’m sorry the illusion used my likeness to trick you. I need you to know if you were to ever let me touch you, in any way, the moment you wanted to stop—I would. No hesitation.”
He spoke with such vehement intensity that she didn’t have a single doubt in her mind they were true.
She swallowed. “Okay.”
His shoulders relaxed a little and the corners of his mouth tilted up again. “I’ll try not to be insulted that you believed whatever stale pleasure that imposter was giving you could have come from me. I think in the future it would be objectively beneficial to let me prove to you exactly what it feels like to be kissed by me, just in case such a thing were to ever happen again.”
“Alright, maybe I am inclined to believe this is real.” She rolled her eyes as she grumbled, “Your face might be able to be replicated, but your ego can’t. What if I had said it was the greatest pleasure I’ve ever known?”
The mischievous glint in his eyes was back in full force as he leaned down. “If you thought that was your threshold of pleasure—imagine being worshipped by the real thing.”
Her breath caught in her throat and any ability she had to form a coherent retort was lost then and there. A response wasn’t needed anyway as his focus shifted to her mouth. He reached out and rubbed his thumb over her split lip, eliciting a quick, sharp pain. He brought his thumb to his mouth, now painted with a smear of her blood, and licked it clean. She had to swallow the whimper crawling up her throat at the sight. Something about him consuming any part of her made her belly warm.
Get it together, she admonished herself internally.
“It looks like you gave that imposter a Hell of a fight at least. Good girl.” His fingertips warmed as he reached out to brush them over the wound once more, and she relished the relief of his magic as it healed her. “There.”
“The illusion wasn’t the one who did that,” she corrected, lightly brushing her own fingertips over where the split had been moments before. “Actually, I had completely forgotten about that.”
He stiffened as he asked, “Who was responsible, then?”
She shrugged. “One of the other contestants.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Which one?”
“Who cares? I’m fine. You healed me. We need to get back to our quest.”
“I care. We have a bargain. I’m supposed to protect you from harm while you’re here,” he told her, his tone a little too casual. “So again. Who did that to you?”
“The one named Cade,” she admitted. “Happy?”
Without another word, Blackwell disappeared.
Phantasma’s library was back to its original, orderly state. After Blackwell’s abrupt departure, Ophelia had spent an hour pacing her room, too much anxious energy pent-up inside of her to be still. And the moment the Shadow Voice had begun its whispering, she knew she needed to occupy herself with something other than worrying about Genevieve and reliving her kiss with the fake Blackwell over and over and over. Especially because the latter led directly to her thinking about kissing the real Blackwell—and that was officially forbidden territory in her mind.
“He’s done nothing that special,” she muttered to herself as she strutted through the library. “And he’s got me on a wild goose chase. There is no reason to let him linger on my mind like this.”
Someone cleared their throat.
“Oh.” Ophelia came to a halt when she spotted Luci, huddled near the fireplace with a book. “I didn’t see you there.”
Bash her face in, break her nose. She didn’t help you, she was a coward,the Shadow Voice hissed in her mind at the sight of the girl. It would be so easy to make her hurt, make her bleed—
Shut. Up. Ophelia ordered the intrusive presence, giving her head a vigorous shake as if it would make the voice leave her alone. Luci gave her a strange look.
“Are you alright?” Luci asked.
“Yes,” Ophelia answered, the response automatic, practiced. “What are you reading?”
Luci shrugged and stood. “Some romance about Angels and Demons. It was the first one I picked.”
Ophelia nodded like she was listening, but her feet were already itching to turn around and leave. Luci noticed.
“Wait,” the girl pleaded. “I wanted to tell you I was sorry. About what Cade did.”
“It isn’t for you to apologize for,” Ophelia told her.
Luci bit her lip. “I know, but we all just stood there and let it happen. He had us convinced that…”
“I know.” Ophelia waved off the words she knew were coming next. “It doesn’t matter. No one owes anyone anything here, right? We are all going to do what it takes to survive. When you see Cade again, you can remind the bastard of that for me.”
Luci’s eyes widened a bit at the darkness that had bled into Ophelia’s tone. The Shadow Voice’s influence, she supposed. But for this, she didn’t mind. She hoped Luci took her words seriously and delivered the message.
“It’s just… I of all people should have known better about you. But Leon said you did something in the first level,” Luci disclosed, “to make the Hellhound—”
“For fuck’s sake.” Ophelia pinched the bridge of her nose. “The way people will find a way to gossip throughout even the direst of circumstances. I’m assuming Leon is the scrawny kid I had to haul out of there? Maybe he should be talking less about me and work on his stamina. He could barely keep up—and I was wearing a corset.”
“He’s not scrawny,” Luci defended, blushing. “He’s just lean—”
“Oh no…” Ophelia cut her off. “You like him? If I could give you some advice? This place seems to like to twist good, sweet things until they break. Don’t let it.”
Soft hearts don’t survive here.
The girl became visibly flustered at Ophelia’s words, but Ophelia couldn’t have cared less. She was right. Blackwell was right. She didn’t know what stakes in Luci’s life led her to this place, but anyone could see the girl’s soft heart from a hundred miles away.
“It’s lonely in here,” Luci confided. “And the haunts… I’ve never had nightmares like this before. We made a pact to take turns sleeping and watching each other’s backs. It’s nothing more.”
Before Ophelia could say yeah right, someone else entered the room.
“Speak of a Devil…” Ophelia murmured.
But it was no Devil; it was Leon. His gaze darted between the girls as he approached. There were beads of sweat on his temples and his breathing was a bit ragged, and Ophelia wondered if he had just been running.
“There was a haunt in the dining room,” he panted. “Spiders and snakes and—”
“I know the scene,” Ophelia interrupted before he conjured up the grotesque vision in her head. “Anyone dead?”
His eyes widened a bit at the directness of the question, but he answered, “Not that I know of. But Mason forfeited. His sister’s room is right next to mine, when she made it out of level two, she found him gone. I’ve never heard crying like that before.”
“I’d leave if I got my mouth magically sealed, too,” Luci said with sympathy. “I just feel bad for Edna.”
Leon nodded in agreement. “It’s on her shoulders to bring back their brother now.”
Ophelia lifted a brow and Luci explained. “They lost their younger brother a couple months ago in an airboat accident. Their family runs swamp tours for tourists out on the Atchafalaya Basin. It was a nasty ordeal.”
Ophelia made a face. “Does everyone here know each other?”
Luci and Leon shared a look, then Luci said, “Many of us have met previously, yes. We run in the same social circles—or our parents do. I have a few friends who entered in earlier groups.”
“So do I,” Leon inserted.
“And you… you’re Genevieve Grimm’s sister,” Luci finished.
Ophelia rocked back a step. “You know Genevieve?”
“It’s why I wanted to introduce myself,” Luci revealed. “It’s why I shouldn’t have let Cade influence anyone into thinking you could possibly be anything insidious. I met Genevieve last year at a gathering on the riverfront in the French Quarter. She was being courted by a good friend of mine at the time. I just thought she was so lovely, if a bit rambunctious, and we became quick friends. We always told her to invite you along when we made plans, but she said you weren’t one for leaving the house. I was surprised to see you here that first night.”
Ophelia stared at Luci in shock, and, as if the girl’s words had made something click in her mind, a memory suddenly came rushing back. Of her and Genevieve leaving the coroner’s office and Genevieve going inside the café to greet a friend…
“Did you know she was going to come here?” Ophelia demanded, ignoring the jealousy suddenly burning in her belly at the recollection of the way Genevieve had run up to Luci and hugged her. “Did she ever talk about this place?”
Luci gaped. “No, she never—you mean, she’s here too?”
“She never once said anything about Phantasma?” Ophelia pressed on.
“I swear.” Luci shook her head. “Phantasma wasn’t on anyone’s mind until recently, but even so, Genevieve never talked much about her home life. She seemed to be very private in that area and we never pushed.”
“Who is we?” Ophelia narrowed her eyes.
“There were five of us. Myself, Genevieve, Iris Saloom, Farrow Henry, and Basile Landry.”
Farrow Henry. Genevieve said he’d stood her up for the ball. The name was unmistakable. Ophelia wondered how much Luci knew of that situation, but even more she wondered why this was the first time she was hearing that Genevieve had a close group of friends. Did her sister not trust her enough to tell her about those sorts of things? Or had she just been too wrapped up in herself to notice Genevieve had an entire social life outside of Grimm Manor she knew nothing about?
She hates you,the Shadow Voice laughed. She hates you and she will always hate youand she will probably die in here and—
Ophelia reached out to one of the oak shelves and knocked on it. One, two, three.
The Shadow Voice vanished.
Leon scratched the back of his neck. “Um, I should go back to my room and get some rest. It’s been quite a day. I’ll leave you two to finish your conversation…”
“No,” Ophelia retorted. “Our conversation is done. I don’t know how close you and Genevieve were, but that does not make the two of us allies. If you were smart, you wouldn’t be making allies at all. It will only lead to heartbreak.”
Luci didn’t look Ophelia in the eye as she shoved the book she’d been reading back into the stacks on the shelf and hurried after Leon without another word. Leon placed his hand on the small of Luci’s back in comfort as he guided her out, throwing a loaded glance back at Ophelia before they disappeared.
Fools.
Alone at last, she began to dig through the shelves again, but this time she took Blackwell’s advice and went deeper. Using the rolling ladder abandoned on the west side of the room, she climbed up to begin clearing the very top shelves first. Thick novels rained to the ground with heavy thumps and clouds of dust, and while treating books so callously was, without a doubt, a form of sacrilege, she didn’t exactly have the time to gently place each one in a tidy stack below.
As soon as the shelves were emptied, she began running her hands over the wood panels inside, feeling for anything out of the ordinary: switches, uneven planks, buttons, hinges. Grimm Manor’s library had quite a few hidden compartments of its own, and she and Genevieve had always made a game of seeing how many they could find. She was sure there were many they had yet to discover.
Almost an hour later, she finally felt it. Two cases to the left of the fireplace, third shelf from the top. A slightly indented square, about an inch wide, with something springy beneath. A button. Before she could shift her weight forward enough on the ladder to press it all the way down, however, the temperature of the room dropped five degrees.
“Well, well,” a deep voice rumbled behind her. “Look at what I’ve found.”
Ophelia held herself as still as possible as Jasper faded into view below. His unsettling third eye was, thankfully, shut, but his too-observant gaze was hardly any better as it assessed her current predicament.
“Doing some redecorating?” He grinned. “Would you like some help?”
She snatched her outstretched hand back from the hidden mechanism she had found and glared down at him. “Leave me alone.”
“Or what?” he taunted. “You’ll call Blackwell? Please do. I could use the entertainment of pissing him off.”
Ophelia swallowed. “Are the two of you friends?”
“Devils don’t have friends, darling. Not in the same sense that mortals do.”
“You seem to know each other well, though,” she reasoned.
He crossed his arms. “When you share a space with the same beings for as long as we have, you tend to find those who annoy you less than others.”
“The other Ghosts here must be very annoying, then,” she murmured, mostly to herself.
Jasper laughed. “You’ve got a silver tongue. I see why he likes you.”
“He doesn’t like me,” she snorted. “He’s using me. As I’m using him.”
A strange glint of something she couldn’t read entered the Devil’s eyes, but all he said was, “Have you ever thought about… other arrangements?”
She didn’t like where this conversation was heading. “No.”
I should never have thought about the first one.
“How many years did you promise him?”
“None of your business,” she bit out.
“A decade is a long time,” he stated. “What if I told you I could get you out of your bargain and make you an offer for a whole lot less?”
She glowered. “I’d tell you to go back to Hell. I don’t make deals with Devils.”
He opened his mouth to spear her with a retort, but before he got the chance, something suddenly appeared out of thin air and crashed into the chaise in the center of the room. No, not something. Two someones.
She recognized the Devils from the first two levels—Drima and Zel—within seconds, even with both of them trying to eat each other’s faces off. She was officially alone with three Devils, and two of them didn’t have a single stitch of clothing on.
She flushed and averted her eyes from the spectacle. Jasper only laughed.
“If you change your mind, the offer stands. Enjoy the show.” With a teasing wink up at her, he disappeared.
Moans began to echo through the room, and for a moment, Ophelia was frozen in utter shock. The way the two Devils were moving together made her skin break out in a feverish sweat. Their performance was somehow more salacious than the pairings in the second trial had been. She knew she ought to look away, scandalized, but a part of her was… curious. The same part of her that had been so easily fascinated in the second trial.
Until the claws came out.
Drima yanked Zel’s head to the side by his hair, exposing his neck so she could rip her sharp fingernails through his skin.
It’s time to go, Ophelia told herself as she began to plan her escape route.
Press the button before you leave,the Shadow Voice demanded.Press it, press it, press it.
Ophelia twisted back toward the shelf. She had spent all this time searching and finally she’d found something… she might as well see what it did, right? Besides, it’s not like it would hurt anything, considering the Devils probably wouldn’t notice if the room around them burst into flames.
She hauled herself forward as much as she could on the ladder, gripping a rung for balance with one hand as she reached out to slam the button down with her other. There was a sharp click followed by a metallic groan, and a moment later, the ground below began to move. Ophelia cursed as one of her feet slipped from the ladder and she lurched forward to cling on for dear life as the entire shelf began to turn. Before she could blink twice, the shelf had done a complete one-eighty. She was now on the inside of Phantasma’s guts, and it was so dark that she could barely see her own hands in front of her—which made for a clumsy climb down. When her feet reached the ground, the planks beneath them groaned.
She shuffled forward a bit, hands outstretched to feel her way around. It took nearly fifteen steps before she reached what felt like a stone wall, but as she ran her palms over the cold bricks, she couldn’t locate so much as a sconce or torch. Anxiety sank in her stomach like a stone. The last time she’d been in a dark, secret corridor alone…
The Shadow Voice’s crackling laugh resounded in her head. You’d better get ready to run.
“No,” she breathed, core tightening with fear.
It’s going to get you, it’s going to—
“Blackwell, Blackwell, Blackwell,” she recited in a rush.
The Shadow Voiced hissed. If you don’t find a source of light in the next ten seconds, it’s going to devour you.
Her chest heaved as she tried to shake the words from her mind. She needed to stay alert and find her way back to the ladder. Hopefully, pushing the button would return the shelf to its original position in the library without any fuss. Turning and counting her steps back in the direction she had come, she only reached number seven when she felt the telltale static raise the hairs on the back of her neck.
“Where the Hell are we?” Blackwell’s voice rang out from her right, clear and strong. Any hint of the Shadow Voice lingering in her mind evaporated like smoke.
The faint white haze that always clung around Blackwell’s form illuminated the space and filled her with such a strong sense of relief that before she realized what she was doing, she was launching herself in his direction. He caught her against his chest easily, and she wrapped her arms so tightly around his neck that it was a good thing he didn’t need to breathe.
She buried her face into the crook of his throat. “You came.”
“You called,” he answered.
After a long moment, she took a deep breath and unwound her arms from his neck.
He narrowed his eyes. “What happened?” he asked. “Don’t tell me absence really does make the heart grow fonder?”
“Nothing in particular,” she admitted. “Between Devils going at each other like rabbits in the library and accidentally getting myself stuck in here, I may have panicked a little.”
“Sounds like quite the ordeal indeed.” His eyes sparked with amusement. Whether at the mention of the Devils and their s*xual escapades or getting herself stuck, she didn’t know. “And where is here, exactly?”
“I found a mechanism in that library shelf”—she pointed to the bookcase in the center of the wall—“and it flipped around into whatever this place is. A secret tunnel that runs through the bowels of the manor, I presume.”
“Clever little Necromancer.” He grinned.
He snapped his fingers and two brass candelabras appeared in his hands. Shifting one into her waiting grasp, he snapped a second time to light all ten tapered candles, illuminating a good amount of space around them. Enough to see that his outfit was splattered with crimson. The reason for his earlier disappearance came rushing back.
“Is that Cade’s blood?” She gaped. She knew he was more than capable of changing his clothes, which meant he’d left these in their current state intentionally. “What did you do?”
“Nothing permanent.” He shrugged. “Not physically at least.”
“Well, it isn’t like he didn’t deserve it,” she muttered.
“We’re on the same page, then,” he agreed before waving at her to follow after him.
