Chapter 80 Nothing Left To Be Scared Of

Chapter 80 Nothing Left To Be Scared Of
Beatris

The room was dark except for the weak glow of the fire dying in the hearth. Alexander was not beside me.

I stared at the empty space for a while, listening to the silence. Somewhere beyond the windows, wind moved through the trees surrounding Crimson Hill, dry branches scratching against one another like something restless trying to get in.

I pushed the covers away. The floor was cold beneath my feet.

My dress from dinner lay abandoned across the room with the rest of the evening. I didn't bother with it. Instead I found one of Alexander's shirts draped over the back of a chair and pulled it over my head. It fell nearly to my knees, sleeves swallowing my hands, smelling faintly of him. I hated that I recognised it. I hated more that it made something inside me tighten.

I stepped into the corridor.

During the day, the house could almost pretend to be normal. At night there was no pretending. Crimson Hill became what it truly was, a mausoleum with bedrooms, a beautiful cage full of the dead.

The candles along the walls had burned low, their flames trembling behind glass, throwing long shadows across the wood panels. Eudora's portraits watched from between them, the way they always did, her painted eyes following me down the hall. I used to feel like an intruder under that gaze. Now I felt something closer to recognition, and that frightened me more than the fear ever had.

I didn't decide where I was going. My feet simply carried me until the hallway opened onto the long balcony overlooking the gardens.

The doors stood partly open. I pushed through them, and cold air rushed over my skin. I inhaled sharply. The air inside Crimson Hill always felt trapped, outside, even the darkness felt freer.

I walked to the stone railing and pressed both hands against it. The gardens had nearly disappeared beneath the night, only the pale paths visible, winding between the hedges, and beyond them the west woods stretched like a black wall.

What was I supposed to do now?

The question came without warning. I had spent so long trying to escape Alexander that I'd never let myself think past escape. Run. Hide. Find answers. Survive. Those had been the only things that mattered.

But now I carried memories that belonged to a dead woman. Alexander believed I was becoming her. Perhaps I was. There was a ring that showed me things I couldn't understand, a Crimson Moon approaching, a man in Eudora's memory whose face I still couldn't see clearly. A box. Catherine. Secrets beneath secrets beneath secrets.

Pretend to be Eudora forever? Wait for a chance to run again, knowing he would find me .

"You should be asleep."

I spun around.

Alexander stood in the doorway, a lantern hanging from one hand. He was dressed differently than earlier, simpler, dark trousers, boots, a heavy black coat over his shirt. Going somewhere. His gaze moved over me slowly, down the length of his shirt on my body, my bare legs, back to my face. Something quiet passed through his expression.

"You'll freeze out here," he said.

"I couldn't sleep."

He stepped onto the balcony, lantern light gilding one side of his face, leaving the other in shadow.

"Bad dreams?"

"No." Almost true. I hadn't slept long enough to dream.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

The question seemed to catch him off guard. "I have something to check."

"Now?"

"It won't take long."

I studied him. His gaze flicked toward the forest, small, barely there, and I would have missed it if I hadn't already been watching. The west woods. Something inside me sharpened.

He stepped closer and brushed a loose strand of red hair from my face. The gesture was gentle. My body betrayed me with the smallest shiver.

"Go back inside," he said. "Get some rest. I won't be long."

I hesitated, then nodded. "Okay."

I stepped past him, the warmth of the hallway closing around me, and started back toward the room. Behind me, the lantern light shrank as he moved in the opposite direction.

I didn't make it far before I stopped.

He was going to the west woods. He always went there. And I remembered, Catherine's journal had mentioned a key. A key connected to the box I'd found, hidden somewhere in the place Alexander kept returning to.

He keeps it there.

I looked back down the corridor he'd disappeared into. I had time. Not much. But enough.

I started walking. Walking became running, bare feet slapping softly against the floor, the shirt moving around my thighs as I hurried past the portraits, the stairs, the dark windows, straight to my old room, the room where I'd found Catherine's journal. The room where I'd found the box.

My hand closed around the handle. I slipped inside and shut the door behind me.

Darkness. Dust. The faint floral scent that clung to the curtains. This room had once felt like mine, not truly, nothing in Crimson Hill ever had, but it had been the closest thing. Now it felt like a room from another life.

I crossed to the bed and dropped to my knees, reaching underneath. Cold floorboards. An old ribbon. Nothing else.

I checked the other side. Nothing. I stood and tore through the wardrobe, the drawers, the small cabinet by the window, behind the curtain. Empty. 

Alexander had found it.

Of course he had. He'd found Catherine's journal scattered across the floor. He knew I'd been searching. Why would he leave the box exactly where I'd hidden it?

"Stupid," I whispered, pressing my hands to my face. I should have moved it. 

Alexander overlooked nothing.

I lowered my hands. Think. If he'd taken it, what would he do with it? Destroy it, maybe. But something told me no. Alexander kept things. He preserved. He collected. He buried. He locked away. Eudora's portraits, her ring, her blood, her hair, the chamber beneath this house, even Catherine's room had been left standing like a grave no one was allowed to touch.

If he'd taken the box, he'd have put it somewhere he believed untouchable. Somewhere no one would dare enter.

I already knew where.

"The forbidden room."

I was moving before I could reconsider, the hall stretching longer than it should, every creak of the floor making me flinch. Alexander could return any moment. What would he do if he found me there?

The coffin surfaced in my mind, the wood, the airlessness, my fists tearing at the lid, his voice saying forgive me, A tremor moved through me.

I stood at the door of the forbidden room and realised I wasn't afraid of it anymore. Not truly. That room had once held everything Alexander could punish me for discovering. But I had already been inside. Already gone beneath it. Already touched the ring, tasted Eudora's blood, seen what he had done. What was left for the room to threaten me with?

Maybe I wasn't afraid of anything anymore. Not because there was nothing left to fear, there was plenty. Alexander. The woods. The Crimson Moon. The voices. Whatever waited beneath this house. But fear had done nothing for me. It hadn't saved me from him. It hadn't kept me out of the coffin. It had only made me easier to control.

I opened the door without hesitating and stepped inside, closing it behind me.

The desk first, every drawer, nothing, no hidden catch beneath the edges. The cabinets, empty. The couch cushions, nothing beneath them. My eyes kept drifting to the trapdoor. Not there. Surely he wouldn't have taken it back down into the chamber.

I moved to the shelves. Books. Old bottles. A dust-coated silver tray. No box. Another shelf, nothing. A narrow cupboard held only papers tied with ribbon, no time to look closer. I checked beneath the desk, behind the curtains, inside a chest against the far wall.

Nothing.

"Come on," I breathed, hands starting to shake. Not fear. Frustration. What if he'd destroyed it after all? What if whatever Catherine wanted found was already gone?

I stopped and listened. Silence outside. Still, time felt like it was folding in on itself. I had to leave. If Alexander came back and found me gone, he might assume I'd wandered to the balcony again, but not if he searched longer, not if I pushed my luck any further tonight.

I could come back tomorrow. I turned for the door and stopped.

My eyes landed on the shelf beside it.

For a moment I didn't understand what I was looking at. 

The box. Sitting there in plain sight. Not hidden behind books, not locked in a cupboard, not buried beneath cloth. Just resting on the shelf as though it had always belonged there as though Alexander had placed it exactly where he knew I'd never think to look, certain I wouldn't be foolish enough to come back at all.

A bitter laugh escaped me. Quiet. Breathless. Almost disbelieving.