Chapter 17 Chapter 17

Chapter 17 Chapter 17
Vivian
As I shook, I watched as the lanterns cut through the maze’s darkness like jagged, yellow glares.

Still pressed against the stone, I took a step forward, watching as the crowd came forward with their noise that cut sharp through the quietness of the night.

I could still feel the heat of the silver wolf’s snout ghosting against my palm, as the growing, overwhelming scent of tobacco filled the air.

“Miss Vivian,” Edmund’s voice was alarmed.

He stepped into view, his obsidian mask gone. All I saw was a face of aristocratic perfection that felt more artificial than the monster I’d just experienced.

Behind him was Lady Cordelia and her emerald’s skirts hissing against the gravel, her eyes darting around the carnage like a surprised rabbit.

“How is it that—”

“I am… quite unharmed,” I managed, stopping Edmund, my voice sounding as though it belonged to someone else. “It was… a wolf. A large, silver wolf. It saved me.”

I wiped my hand against my skirt surreptitiously, as if that would erase any physical evidence of touching the silver wolf.

Edmund took a step closer, his gaze dropping to the scorched earth where the creature had dissolved.

“A wolf, you say? And a silver one at that. Hmm.” He looked up, his dark eyes locking onto mine with a ferocious intensity.

At this point, I was sure that Adrian—or his wolf—was long gone into the night, leaving me to deal with a mess of his friends.

“It is a rare beast that chooses to protect rather than devour,” Edmund continued. “One might almost suspect it possessed a gentleman’s… sensibilities.”

“Or perhaps,” Cordelia came in, her voice a subtle, sharp honey.

“The creature simply has a taste for exotic prey. You are lucky, Miss Vivian. Most things in this wood do not let go once they’ve caught a scent.”

I didn’t reply.

Edmund reached out to help me and his cuff shifted, revealing a mark on his inner wrist. It wasn’t a tattoo, but a brand.

I blinked, looking closely.

I could tell the difference anywhere. I’d read about brands in history books.

It was a weeping eye, and for a second, the air around him hummed with the same necrotic ozone I’d smelt on the red-hooded figure.

The sigil of the Order of the Unseen, my historian brain screamed. It was a fringe occult group I’d read about in the footnotes of a forbidden 18th-century manuscript.

Edmund wasn’t just a baron. He was a practitioner.

Then could it mean the things that attacked me was conjured?

By him?

I killed the idea of accusing him from my mind. I didn’t have enough evidence to. And even if I did, who would everyone rather believe?

Him, obviously.

Accusing him would mean putting myself in a dangerous position. I knew I was going to make an enemy of them, but perhaps I could delay the inevitable a little further. I needed to leave here.

“Come,” Edmund murmured, his grip on my arm almost bruising. “The ball is ended. His Grace is… nowhere to be found, and the guests are departing in a state of some agitation.”

The aftermath of the Masquerade was a blur of activity.

Doors slammed as carriages moved, filling the night’s air with a bit of noise.

By the next afternoon, the hall had returned to the usual. A silent rhythm that competed with the distant noise of active servants.

According to the butler, Adrian was in his chamber, refusing to see anyone. His face was a face of granite, and from his look, I could tell that the other servants were already gossiping.

But that was none of my concern. The mirror was.

The encounter in the maze had shattered the last bit of my modern skepticism. It was impossible to explain Adrian with modern science, and logic failed to help me put Edmund together.

In this world, the rules were written in blood and moonlight.

But I wasn’t here for all of that. I’d stumbled through into this world by a mistake, and I was hoping the same mistake would take me back.

I waited till nightfall.

While the house slept, I found a heavy iron poker from the morning room and headed for the West Wing.

When I got into the room, I took in a silent breath of dusty air, reminding myself that I had no knowledge of this whole crap.
The mirror would see my ignorance and the fact that I didn’t belong here and respond.

When I scanned the room for the mirror, I stiffened. The worst has happened.

The mirror… it was gone.

“He moved it,” I whispered.

The remembrance of the hot hit me like cold brick.

The one place you cannot enter without his key.

I’d overheard the maids talking about the only place on the estate that required the key of the Duke. He was the only one who had the key.

The Northbrook Crypt.

I headed outside, the cold air of the night hitting me.

I was scared to run into anymore dangerous creatures that this world had in store, but my drive to go back to the future fueled my every step.

My cloak billowed behind me as I hurried across the moonlit grounds.

The crypt stood at the edge of the ancestral cemetery, a grey marble edifice overgrown with ivy.

When I arrived at the building, the doors were locked. As expected.

I was about to get mischievous when my eyes caught something as I reached for the handle. There was a glint in the dirt.

A key.

That was impossible!

It was a heavy, silver skeleton key, dropped as if the person who did left in haste. I bent to reach for it, then I stiffened.

This didn’t feel right. How would this key be left here carelessly? What if there was a supernatural lure?

I stood up, looking this way and that. Was there something lurking in the darkness, waiting for me to pick the key before they’d attack.

My skin prickled with goose pimples.