A gilded cage appeared from nowhere, and I clutched my throat. It felt like I couldn’t breathe. Des Rêves transformed the other two girls and placed them each inside the cage.
“Zosa!”
The curtains fell.
My arms slackened into dead weights. Everything had been so sudden that I wondered if Zosa knew what was happening. No, she couldn’t know, because she’d never agree to this. But she didn’t have to, I realized, with a sinking horror. The other workers performed their jobs with utter complacency, and Zosa was probably just like them now.
This was my doing; I’d brought her the newspaper, took us to interview. This place was supposed to be my shortcut out of Durc, and I was supposed to be the older sister who did something right for once, who took us home, kept us together. I squeezed my fist and could practically feel my sister’s small, sweaty hand slipping from mine.
Black shadows crawled along the walls, swallowing the light. Everything Bel had told me—all the warnings, the staff contracts, Alastair’s behavior—tore through my mind. I’d thought we were safe inside, so I let Zosa out of my sight. That had been my biggest mistake. I had to get to her.
Shoving past exiting guests, I climbed the stage and parted the velvet. No cage. Not a single feather. Nothing there.
“The stage is off-limits.”
Madame des Rêves stood at a side door, perspiration smearing her crème de rose.
“My sister, the singer in the gold dress, where is she?”
Des Rêves’s lips pursed. “I’m afraid, sweet, I don’t know. Perhaps you should bring it up with the ma?tre. His office is through there.” She pointed to a door behind the bar.
Just then, the ground shifted. I fell hard on the salon floor as the stage walked itself behind the tasseled curtain.
Des Rêves laughed. Grunting, I stood up. No one stopped me as I dipped through the door behind the bar to a dark hall lined with more closed doors. Halfway down, I spotted one door cracked open. Lamplight flickered from within. Silently, I walked over and peeked inside.
Red, the suminaire from the escape game, lay across a table, her small, freckled arms splayed, crimson hair spilling over the sides. Yrsa appeared and placed her teacup beside Red’s ear. The milk swirled on its own.
Unrolling a leather surgeon’s kit, Yrsa pulled out a long knife. She held the blade tip over a blue candle flame, humming to herself. Then, with a detached nonchalance, she raised the heated knife, pulled back the pale skin below Red’s eye, and sunk the blade tip into Red’s eye socket.
Red’s body jerked once before my own eyes squeezed shut. Instruments clanked. Sounds came: a low groan, a clatter, a wet pop. When I thought it might be over, I looked up, then bit down on the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t scream. Yrsa held Red’s detached eye above her teacup. A tendril of white liquid that most certainly wasn’t milk swirled up.
Yrsa flicked it down. She plunged the eye inside then pulled it out.
Red’s eye—what was once an eye—now looked like a cast-off piece from a potter’s studio that might snap in two if Yrsa dropped it. It had to be solid porcelain. If this was Red’s punishment for the escape game—
I caused it to happen.
“My god,” I think I said aloud. My fist flew to my mouth.
Yrsa muttered to someone. Footsteps shuffled toward the door. Stumbling back, I raced down the hall not caring where it would lead, just that it led away. The next door was unlocked. I ran in and slammed it behind me, shaking uncontrollably.
In this new room, a fireplace illuminated an enormous glass curio arranged with a collection of objects. I braced myself against it and felt faint vibrations sizzling through the glass. Artéfacts. On a high shelf sat the tarnished oval hand mirror Des Rêves had fanned herself with during the soirée.
A book snapped shut.
I spun around. Across the room, Alastair sat behind a desk littered with glass vials, some filled with shimmering purple ink, some empty. In the center sat his slim wolf-capped inkwell. “My office is off-limits. Who let you in?”
My tongue refused to make words.
“You’re the maid Bel brought on,” he said. “The girl with the sister.”
The mention of Zosa focused my mind. “Her name is Zosa and she’s a bird in a cage somewhere,” I blurted. “I—I need to find her.”
Before Alastair could speak, Sido and Sazerat burst in. Their combined pair of eyes trained on me. My throat tightened. Yrsa must have cut out their other eyes, too.
Alastair’s features sharpened. “What is it now?”