NIGHT ONE OF PHANTASMA
When Ophelia stepped out of the carriage her locket’s heartbeat kicked into overdrive. The driver gave her a dubious look as he took in the circus standing outside the gates. She handed him a bit of the cash she had pilfered from the wad in Genevieve’s closet.
She’d pay her sister back by not strangling her whenever they were reunited.
“Thanks,” the driver muttered, legs bouncing nervously as Ophelia gathered her things from the back seat.
As the carriage ambled away, Ophelia pushed herself through the throngs of captivated locals and tourists crowded in front of Phantasma’s enormous gates. A few shocked looks were thrown in her direction as she made her way to the front, but she ignored them. There was only one person she cared to think about right now, but as she scanned the crowd, disappointment sank in her stomach like a stone.
Maybe she was wrong, and Genevieve hadn’t come here. Maybe all the clippings had just been a morbid fascination. But her gut told her that wasn’t the case. Genevieve and morbid had never belonged in the same sentence. And most damning of all was the locket around Ophelia’s throat.
Follow your heart.
She took a deep breath.
At the helm of the mass of people was a well-dressed man in a black silk vest, with matching gloves and a top hat, just beyond the closed gates. His skin was a deep, warm brown; his eyes were rimmed with black liner and there was glitter smudged across his lids.
The stranger from last night? she wondered. The moment the man spoke, however, she knew it wasn’t.
“Welcome to Phantasma,” he told her as she stepped up to him. “Are you here to enter? Final call will close in fifteen minutes.”
“I’m looking for someone,” Ophelia explained. “A girl, twenty-one years old, with golden-brown hair and cerulean eyes. Much curvier than me. Probably wearing something pink.”
He shook his head. “I cannot tell you who has entered already.”
“Please—it’s my little sister. I have no desire to enter if she’s not here.”
He raised a brow, unmoved. “Do I need to repeat myself?”
“What about someone named Gabriel?” she blurted out. “Is that someone who works here? Is it you?”
The man looked at her then, really looked at her, and an unnerving shiver ran down her spine.
“No,” he eventually responded. “Now, either enter, or stop wasting my time.”
What choice do I have?
She took a deep breath. “Fine. How do I enter?”
“First, entering Phantasma is not free,” he said, his voice slipping into a tone that sounded rehearsed. “The price is your greatest fear.”
She let out a relieved breath. Her greatest fears had already come true. She didn’t imagine anything she revealed now would top the past week.
“Second,” the man continued. “By entering, you are agreeing that neither Phantasma nor any of its staff can be held accountable for anything that happens within its grounds, as well as committing to fulfilling any bargains you make, down to every the last detail. This includes, but is not limited to, any physical or mental damage you may sustain once on the premises. You’re also agreeing that you understand you’re allowed forfeit during Phantasma at any time, for any reason, except within the actual trials themselves. Outside of the trials all you must do is state ‘I, your full name, surrender to Phantasma’ and you will be expelled from the game. Once you’ve begun one of the nine levels, your only saving grace will be the Devils who graciously answer your cries for help.”
Ophelia noticed now that the crowd had hushed behind her. They were watching her. Carefully.
“In order to win Phantasma you must be the last person to leave, alive, after completing all nine levels—one level for each night, beginning tomorrow. The trials begin promptly at sunset, and if you are late, you are disqualified.”
“What do the levels entail?”
“You’ll have to see for yourself.” He grinned with malice. “Lastly, and perhaps most important of all—fall in love within Phantasma at your own risk.”
She almost snorted.
“Are you sure you still want to enter?” he prompted.
Her stomach clenched with uncertainty. This was her last opportunity to change her mind, but the weight of Genevieve’s farewell note in her pocket made her lift her chin and answer, “Yes.”
“State your full name,” the man instructed, a curious glint in his depthless, obsidian eyes.
She paused for a second, thinking of how the stranger had asked for her name the night before. This time she answered. “Ophelia Marie Grimm.”
She swore the whites of his eyes turned pitch black for a moment after she spoke her name, and she felt an electric current zap through the air. Magic.
“This will be uncomfortable,” he warned.
Ophelia squeezed her eyes shut. She focused on breathing in and out of her nose as she felt something dark creeping at the edges of her mind. Clawed hands made of smoke were prodding through her head, flicking through her memories and deepest secrets as if they were folders in a filing cabinet. He shuffled past memories of Ophelia and her mother reading together by a winter fire. The first time she snuck too much absinthe and threw up the putrid liquid all over the den’s plush, sapphire rug. Scenes of her climbing into the branches of the enormous live oak trees and falling asleep atop pillows of spongy, gray moss until her mother called her inside for dinner.
Below the layers of those childhood visions were her greatest desires and then, deeper still, her fears. The foraging claws grazed over a few of her most prominent terrors—being buried alive, losing Genevieve, dying alone—and she shuddered.
The man lifted a brow. “I’ve never seen anyone with such a number of possible fears. It’s a wonder you’re able to sleep, with such darkness crawling in the shadows of your mind.”
She gritted her teeth. She hated the idea of someone else being able to see the darkest parts of her subconscious. When the smoke abruptly plunged down into the depths of her mind and dragged out the one fear she thought had been buried forever, she had to choke down a scream.
Her breath was ragged when she blinked her eyes open again.
The man’s eyes were sparkling with glee. “This will make the competition particularly hellish for you.” A vicious grin. “And all the more entertaining for the rest of us.”
