FRAUD
When it was time for the sisters to part ways, Ophelia could barely speak, afraid if she did, she would fall apart. They had spent the day searching the manor with Blackwell; Genevieve and the Phantom getting along better than Ophelia could have ever imagined. It helped that they both had an annoying sense of humor and the perfect subject to pick on—her. But the later it got, the less everyone felt like joking and now with the dinner bells chiming, the mood was solemn to say the least.
“You promise you’ll be alright?” Genevieve asked.
Ophelia nodded. “I’m going to win this.”
“I believe you,” Genevieve said, then she shifted her eyes to Blackwell. “Take care of her, or you’ll have two sworn enemies with a vendetta against you. Understand?”
Blackwell dipped his chin in acknowledgment. “It was nice to meet you, Genevieve Grimm.”
Genevieve smiled. “I hope we meet again someday.”
Blackwell shifted his gaze away, and Ophelia’s stomach churned as she pulled her sister into a hug.
“I love you,” she whispered in Genevieve’s ear.
“I love you too,” Genevieve whispered back. “Whatever you decide you want… make sure you protect your heart. Okay?”
Ophelia glanced toward Blackwell, wondering if he heard that, but if he had, he gave no indication of it. She nodded at her sister and stepped back.
“Oh, and Genevieve?” Ophelia prompted.
“Yes?”
“Clean your damned room when you get home.”
Genevieve rolled her eyes before giving her sister a particularly vulgar gesture and picking up both her trunks. “Alright, you damned manor. I, Genevieve Grimm, surrender to Phantasma.”
In no time a Devil was there—Zel—grabbing on to Genevieve’s arm and transporting her away, to safety.
“It’s almost over,” Blackwell told her, wrapping an arm around her waist and reeling her into him. “Two more levels and you’re free.”
She nodded as she rested her forehead on his chest. Two more levels and she would be free. But he wouldn’t.
For level eight, since there were no more isolated groups, Blackwell guided her to the foyer where the remaining contestants had already begun to gather. Including herself and Charlotte, there were six of them total. Two of the others were men in their mid-thirties. One looked haggard as if he had only survived this far by the skin of his teeth. The other was surly, watchful eyes confident as he sized up the rest of them.
Charlotte gave Ophelia a nod of recognition while they waited for this trial’s Devil to appear. The last person in the entire world she had expected was Sinclair.
The Devil slowly scanned the group, and when his eyes landed on her, without Genevieve, he grinned. Her stomach dropped.
“For those who don’t know me,” he began, “my name is Sinclair. Here’s your clue.”
The level’s door appeared and there were only two words written on it this time.
Choose wisely.
Somehow those two words were more ominous than any of the other clues about fiery oceans and swinging saws.
“When I call your name,” Sinclair crooned. “Step up.”
Unsurprisingly, he saved her for last.
As she approached the door, Sin’s smile turned positively feral. “I see your sister forfeited after all.”
“Something tells me your newfound glee about that means you played me once again,” she said.
“You really don’t catch on quickly,” he agreed. “Don’t worry, though, I have a feeling you’ll see her again very soon.”
She didn’t bother lingering any longer. She stepped through the portal and found herself entirely alone in a white-walled room.
“Hello?” she murmured, her voice echoing back at her in the empty space. Just before she could call for Blackwell, a familiar voice appeared behind her.
“Ophie?”
Ophelia spun around to find her sister looking dazed and confused.
“Genevieve. What the Hell—”
Before Ophelia could finish her sentence, however, someone else spoke her name.
Ophelia twisted around again and found… another Genevieve.
“That’s not me,” the first Genevieve said, a look of horror on her face.
“What the Hell is going on?” the second Genevieve questioned, alarmed.
Ophelia cursed. Of course. Sinclair’s directions made sense now. She called for Blackwell, and when he finally arrived, alarmingly delayed, she waved her hand to the exact replicas of her sisters. They had been bickering for ten minutes straight over who was who.
“Any insight here?” she asked.
“This level is Fraud,” he explained. “You have to identify which is the real Genevieve to win. But… there’s something I’ve been needing to tell you.”
She raised her brows. “Which is?”
“The stakes are much higher than losing Phantasma in this level.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded.
He took a deep breath. “If you choose the wrong Genevieve, the magic will kill the real Genevieve outside of Phantasma. It’s Phantasma’s most powerful trick.”
“What?” she cried.
“It’s why I insisted she forfeit.” He sighed. “If she had stayed, I knew the two of you would’ve ended up in here together, with the possibility of both of you dying.”
“But she’s the one at risk here, Blackwell! She’s the one that will be dead out there if—wait.”
Something was needling at the back of her mind. Something he had told her before—about her father losing his second attempt at Phantasma three days before it had come to New Orleans. Which was the same day her mother…
“Blackwell?” she choked out.
“Yes?” He stepped closer to her, eyes burning with concern at the sudden shift in her demeanor.
“How long does it take for Phantasma to move cities? How many days between each competition?” she asked.
“Less than forty-eight hours. Why?”
Which meant her father had lost around the day of the eighth level… this level. And the person her father loved most, the one who would have been used in this trial for him…
“I think I’m going to pass out,” she whispered to him.
He was there in an instant, helping her to the ground as she began to hyperventilate. The two Genevieves stopped arguing long enough to rush over.
“What’s wrong with her?” they asked at the same time, before glaring daggers at each other.
“Back off for a moment,” Blackwell barked at them. “Give her some space.”
He turned back to her and ran a soothing hand over her hair. She was struggling to gulp in enough air as she realized the magnitude of this trial.
“Ophelia. Breathe, angel. With me, okay?”
She nodded at him, and he began counting her breaths out for her.
When she finally regained control, she looked at him and said, “My father is the reason our mother died. It wasn’t a heart attack. It was this level. He must have… he must have guessed incorrectly.”
Blackwell froze. And she saw it, in his eyes, how he was running through the details, the timelines, and coming to the exact same conclusion. A sob ripped through her chest at the unspoken confirmation in his eyes. Something about him putting the pieces together as well, solidifying the reality of it, is what finally broke her.
“I’m so sorry, angel,” he murmured as he wiped away her tears. “I’m so very fucking sorry. I had no idea, Ophelia. I swear. He had stopped summoning me to help him in the trials long before he got to this one. Sometimes, I wonder why he took my bargain in the first place. If there was anything I could do…”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” one of the Genevieves sniffed.
Ophelia took a deep breath and stood, Blackwell giving her space to steady herself on her own feet. She took in the two Genevieves staring at her with concern. They both looked like impeccable replicas of her little sister. Golden brown hair, bright teal eyes beneath the same thick lashes as Ophelia’s. Full eyebrows and even fuller lips. Every detail was there—down to each freckle painted across their rosy cheeks and the bridges of their noses, to their frilly pink gowns.
“I broke two ribs after falling down Grimm Manor’s stairs when you were chasing me playing tag,” Ophelia said, voice thick. “How old were we?”
“It was only one rib,” they both said at the same time. Then the first doppelganger crossed her arms and said, “You were twelve. I was nine. And it was an accident.”
Fuck. This was going to be difficult.
“You have to ask questions that aren’t based on memories you have yourself,” Blackwell told her. “The manor’s magic can take what’s in your mind and put it into the imposter’s.”
“What in the Hell does that mean? What could I possibly ask that I wouldn’t already know the answer to—wait.” An idea suddenly came to her, and Blackwell dipped his chin in an encouraging nod. “What about—how many people have you kissed?”
It was a question that Ophelia would have no exact answer for in her own mind, but whatever each version of Genevieve answered would be incredibly telling.
The doppelgangers were silent for a moment.
Then the first finally said, “I don’t know exactly, if I’m honest. Too many drunk kisses at parties to remember every single one… but I’d estimate around thirty?”
“Thirty?” the second Genevieve scoffed. “That’s insulting. It’s only eleven.”
They all turned to Ophelia, Blackwell observing her carefully, and she turned each of the answers over in her mind. She knew, without a doubt, that the first Genevieve was an imposter. Not because of the number, but because of the short glimpses she’d gotten into Genevieve’s diary before she’d come to Phantasma. Genevieve had recorded even the most frivolous details of her life in its daily entries. What color she’d worn, what sort of birds she’d seen on her walks to and from the city, how many times Ophelia had rolled her eyes in a single morning… there was no way Genevieve would ever have to estimate such a thing as how many kisses she’d had.
The second Genevieve’s answer, however, was a conundrum.
An exact number. But one that was highly implausible despite Ophelia only being able to remember a handful of names her sister had mentioned brief affairs with over the years. Not after Genevieve had admitted to keeping things from Ophelia as to not rub her social life in her sister’s face. If Ophelia could count almost eleven in just her own memory, however, then that meant…
Ophelia reached up to grasp onto her locket with one hand and approached the first Genevieve. Nothing. As she expected. She turned to the second one. Again nothing.
She took a deep breath and then a leap of faith.
“Neither one of them are Genevieve,” she declared.
At first, nothing happened, and she and Blackwell held their breaths. The two Genevieves glanced worriedly at each other as they waited for their own fates.
Then both of them dissolved into clouds of smoke.
“You did it,” Blackwell declared, pride in his voice.
A portal appeared in the middle of the room then.
She strutted toward it with purpose. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I have a bone to pick with the Prince of the Devils.”
