“Get the fat man, then. The one I kicked in the balls.”

  The smirk on his lips intensified, becoming something like glee before fading. “Vito, yes. He had been in something of a foul mood earlier. He used very colorful language as he described, in detail, what had happened to him.”

  “He deserved it, and he deserves another one for doing this to that poor girl.” I jabbed a finger at her. “You have to help her!”

  “I have to do nothing, or have you forgotten? You don’t make demands of me.”

  “So, you’re okay with this? You think it’s art?”

  “Because it is, but I don’t suppose your human sensibilities are refined enough to appreciate it.”

  I balled my hands into fists. “Take her down,” I said.

  The Viscount took a step toward me, pulled one hand out of his pocket, and ran a thumb across his lower lip. “No,” he said. “And if you continue to address me as some kind of lesser, you are going to regret it.”

  There was a darkness to his voice, a seriousness that set my skin alight. Just by looking at him, I knew, he had it in him to be intensely cruel. He’d kidnapped me and locked me up in a cell, after all. But there was more to it than just that. There was something dangerous about him; maybe even lethal. Part of me wanted to steer clear of it, but the other part wanted to provoke it.

  To see how far he’d go.

  In the silence that came after what he’d last said, only the night breeze and the trickling of the fountain could be heard. The trees and the hedges rustled. The breeze was cold. I noticed the crickets weren’t chirping, though. I hadn’t until now.

  “So, what happens now?” I asked.

  “Now?”

  “You caught me about to escape.”

  The Viscount turned his eyes down the main road that led to the large, black gates, then smiled. “Now, I give you a choice.”

  “Choice?”

  He waved a hand, and the gates at the end of the path opened on their own, creaking against the strangely quiet night. “You can leave this place, or you can come back with me.”

  I cocked an eyebrow. “You’re going to let me leave?”

  “It is clear you find your accommodation unsatisfactory. You also appear to consider yourself a prisoner at Emerald Hall, despite having been reminded numerous times that you are not. You are here under the Rites of Protection and Hospitality. As a guest, I find you argumentative, troublesome, and not worth the hassle or the scandal your mere presence causes. So, feel free to leave.”

  I scanned the gate from where I stood. The hedges near it were moving with the night wind, leaves rustling, finely cut brambles swaying. “This is a trick.”

  “It isn’t. It’s a choice. Leave, or come with me. But if you are to come with me, your attitude must change. Never are you going to find a place more wonderful than Emerald Hall; never will your life feel more fulfilled than here. If you are going to stay, you will treat us with respect.”

  I pointed at Thea again. “You turned this woman into a statue. That’s horrifying.”

  “Perhaps to you. To us, it’s art.”

  “Have you bothered to ask her how she feels? She was terrified of the fat man. She called him master.”

  “It’s not my responsibility to interfere with the work of the house’s masters, or to interact with their art. Only to appreciate it.”

  “Is that what I’m going to become? Art?”

  “You are human, and lack the requirements to become even this. In any case, I believe you have already been given your assignment.”

  “Right, cleaning dishes for a year.”

  A smirk. “And a day.”

  I frowned at him. “You know what, screw this, and screw you.” I flipped my middle fingers at him, and then at Emerald Hall. “I’m out of here—and I’m taking her with me.”

  The Viscount cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t move to stop me even as I approached the living statue. Carefully navigating the rock she was sitting on, and trying not to slip, I wrapped my arms around her and tried to pick her up, but I couldn’t get a solid enough purchase on the rock. I tried again, but she wouldn’t budge.

  Water from her mouth started trickling down my top, my jeans. It was cold—like her skin—and the breeze only made things worse. After a few shivering minutes trying to get her to move, and failing, I had no choice but to step off the rock. It was like she was stuck to it.

  I turned to look at the Viscount, to glare at him, but the way the ambient light touched his face made it difficult to keep glaring. I wished he wasn’t so damn good to look at. I wished so hard in that moment that he’d been Vito, the fat man. I would’ve kicked him in the stones again without a second’s hesitation.

  “I’m out of here,” I said. “If I’m really not a prisoner, you won’t try to stop me.”

  The Viscount nodded, then gestured toward the gates. “As you wish,” he said.

  I didn’t waste another moment. I headed for the gates, sprinted toward them, trying to put as much distance between myself and this horrible place as I could. I couldn’t take my mind away from what I’d just seen, from Thea, the way she sat there, the water spilling out of her mouth. I’d never seen anything like it, and I never wanted to again.

  I kept my eyes on the gates as I sprinted toward it, lungs burning, arms pumping. At any point, I knew, they were going to slam shut on me because there was no way that guy was going to let me leave. But they didn’t shut as I reached them, or once I shot through them like a bullet.

  I ran along the cobblestone path until my feet couldn’t take it anymore, until the breaths I was taking weren’t doing it anymore. The air felt thinner out here, somehow. I didn’t think I’d gotten very far begore having to stop, but as I looked around, I realized I couldn’t see Emerald Hall or her gates from where I was.

  Around me, outside of the path I was on, were tall trees, thick with leaves and still somehow vibrantly green despite the darkness. A fly buzzed around my face, and I had to swat it away so it would leave me alone. Behind me, and ahead of me, there were only more cobblestones, and a light haze that made it difficult to see where I was going, or where I’d come from.

  I was sure I’d run in a straight line, though.

  “Where the hell am I?” I asked, my breaths forming little puffs of steam around my lips.

  The crickets had come back, and with a vengeance. They were getting obnoxiously loud, aggressively quick, and they showed no sign of relenting. A moment later, the crickets were joined by croaking toads that sounded like they were six feet tall and all around me. It was deafening, I couldn’t even hear myself think over the noise.

  With my hands over my ears, I started running again, trying to keep my eyes on the path as I went. I must’ve hit a weirdly angled stone, because the next thing I knew, I was toppling over myself. I slammed into the ground and slid across the path, grazing my knee and elbow. I rolled on my back, cradling my burning skin, the noise around me now rising to a feverish volume.

  It was so loud, I it was making my vision tremble, and shake, and swim in and out. Rolling on my side, I thought I saw something fluttering between the trees. It looked like a butterfly, but it must’ve been as big as my hand and it was glowing, somehow, leaving trails of light wherever it went.

  “It’s beautiful…” I heard myself say, or maybe I had thought the words. I would never have been able to tell with everything going on.

  I didn’t know where to go or what to do. My bones ached from the fall, my head ached from the noise, and I couldn’t see much besides the tree and that butterfly. I watched it dance a little more, saw it move gracefully between the trees, leaving little trails of light where it went.

  For a mad moment, I thought it could see me—like it was aware of my presence. An instant later, it started hovering toward me. A graceful ballet of light and flapping wings. It was dark in color, black and purple, with spots of bright green. The trails it left in the air shifted from green, to purple, to pink, and as it approached, I realized it was a lot bigger than my own hand.

  I could see the antenna on its head, the delicate pattern of its wings, its hanging tail. I saw its eyes, and I found myself wondering how it could be that a butterfly had such human eyes. Eyes that were so full of intelligence, thought, and maybe even mischief.

  The butterfly winked at me as it approached, the dust trails it left in the air growing brighter, glittering against the ambient light around me.

  “Poor little human,” I heard a voice say. It came from nowhere, from all around me, from inside me. “Are you lost?”

  “I’m… hurt,” I said, but my own words were starting to sound distant, like I was hearing myself speak from afar.

  “There, there. We can help you.”

  “You can?”

  “Of course we can. We want to help you… poor thing. Look at you, lost, broken, alone. Let us take good care of you.”

  “I’m trying to get home.”

  The butterfly was close enough now that I could see the glittering trails it was leaving behind as it flew were coming from inside it. Little spots of light burned inside of its wings, under its furry body, behind its human eyes. It was breathtakingly pretty, and as the dust it left behind touched me, I felt all of the pain in my body dwindle to almost nothing, then nothing at all.

  “Silly human,” came the voice. “You are home.”

  I watched the glittering dust fall from above as the butterfly hovered. I watched each glittering mote as they reached my outstretched hand, my fingertips, my arm, my eyes. It was like being bathed in light; warm light you could touch, light that smelled like roses in bloom.

  “Get away from her!” came a voice that cut through the noise like a sword.

  I felt a hand grab my arm and yank me up and to my feet. There was a screech, a flurry of wind, and my brain felt like it had just been rattled inside of my skull. I pressed my face against the chest of the person who had lifted me up and shut my eyes, but I felt faint, dizzy, like the world was spinning.

  “This one belongs to us!” something shrieked. “You cannot have it back.”

  “I can, and I will,” said the Viscount, his voice firm, and final.

  “You have no authority outside of those gates, little lord. Take it back and be cursed henceforth! Arcadia has claimed this one, and you are no one to defy us.”

  I felt a vibration against the side of my head. It felt like it came from inside the Viscount’s chest, a rumble, a rush of some kind. Instantly, the crickets stopped chirping and the toads fell silent, as if they were too scared to keep singing. I felt a current move through me a like an electrical wave, and then I heard a crack, and a thud.

  “I have no time for curses,” the Viscount said.

  Without another word, he slung me over his shoulder, turned around, and started walking along the cobblestone path. Opening my eyes, finally, I saw the butterfly crumpled on the ground like a crushed-up piece of paper, sitting in a cloud of dust that was slowly going dark. Light turned to shadow as it fell on the corpse of the butterfly, and in a manner of minutes, the creature itself began to disintegrate, to become dust, then shadow.

  A breeze kicked up, whipping the dust up and into the air. I watched it swirl, and twist, and reshape itself as if it was dancing. But then it shifted, rapidly, violently, and the dark dust took the form of a wailing skull for the briefest of instants before it was gone.

  “What the fuck…?” I managed to ask.

  A grunt from the Viscount. “You are more trouble than you’re worth, is what the fuck.”

  Chapter 14

  I’m sinking again.

  No, I’m floating this time. Floating up, and up, and up, moving through something dark and murky. I can hear voices, but they’re distant, and muffled. I think one of them is Rell. The other could be the Viscount. It’s hard to tell.

  I try to look around, but the darkness is too thick.

  Crickets?

  They sound weird. Distorted. Distant. It’s a horrifying sound that grates against my ears. I try to cover them, but I can’t feel my hands, my fingers, my toes. A toad croaks loudly, the sound drawing out for a few seconds too long. It hurts to listen to.

  Finally, I hit something. I’ve floated into a wall, but it feels more like a ceiling. I can hear the voices more clearly, now. It’s definitely the Viscount, but he’s not talking to Rell.

  “How is she?” he asks.

  “In rough shape,” says another… Elaith? “You let her out?”

  “I thought she should learn a lesson.”

  “That lesson almost cost this one her life. Do you ever learn yours?”

  “Careful how you speak to me, Elaith.”

  “Oh, big, bad Viscount, the terror of Emerald Hall. You should spend a little less time being intimidating, and a little more time trying to figure out how to save this human’s life, otherwise you’ll have broken the laws of Spring.”

  “She fled the manor. The Rite of Protection no longer applies.”

  “Except it does, because you shouldn’t have let her leave in the first place. I warned you she would try to escape again, but you insisted on watching. This one is on you.”

  “Stop wasting time and tell me if you can help, or find someone who can.”

  “This is beyond me. I simply don’t know enough about humans to know exactly what’s wrong with her, but magic hasn’t helped, and if we don’t get this fever down, she’ll die.”

  She’ll… what?

  Concentrating, focusing all of my energy on trying to see, I fought the murky darkness back. Slowly, light started to reach my eyes. I blinked hard, trying to figure out where I was. My hands were still pressed against a white wall, as was my forehead. Turning my head to the right, I noticed a large, iron pole jutting out of the wall. Attached to it were several bulbs—wait.

  Angling my head a little, I realized I really was on the ceiling. I followed the stem of the fixture, the bulbs, and the burning lights within them, all the way down the lavishly decorated room to the large, four poster bed I was lying on.

  The Viscount stood by one side of the bed; Elaith by the other. I was on my back, my pale skin looking paler than ever, my red hair splayed out on the pillow, which even from up here looked soaked through with sweat. I wasn’t moving, my lips were blue, and my eyes were shut, which led to the only logical conclusion.

  “Holy shit, I’m dead,” I said.

  No one looked up at me, as if they hadn’t heard me.

  “Kadeera,” said the Viscount. “She has spent more time in the human world than any of us and knows this human better than we do. Get her.”

  Elaith looked over at the Viscount, blonde curls bouncing as they turned their head. “The Lady Invidia would never allow her to leave her room.”

  “On my authority she will.”

  One of Elaith’s hands moved to their hip. “Then you should probably fetch her yourself, don’t you think?”

  A pause from the Viscount. “You test my patience, au pair.”

  “Someone has to, lest your ego get too big for this house.”

  The air itself seemed to tighten, to flex, then it relaxed, and the Viscount got moving. I watched him march out of the room, the door opening and closing for him as he walked through it. Magic? This time, I thought, probably yes.

  I looked back on Elaith, who hadn’t left my bed yet. They watched me carefully from where they stood, examining me while not getting too close as if they didn’t want to catch whatever it was I had. I tried calling out to them, but they didn’t reply. I supposed they couldn’t hear me, or see me—not the me that was stuck to the ceiling, anyway.

  This whole thing felt insane. How was it I could see myself? How was I seeing and hearing them?

  It’s a dream. It has to be.

  “I told you this wouldn’t end well,” came a voice whispered directly into my ear.

  “Rell?” I asked.

  “This is what you get for leaving people behind.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Look in the corner of the room.”

  I turned my head and scanned the room, only to find Rell sitting, upside down, in the far, furthest corner of the bedroom. Like me, he was pressed against the ceiling as if it was the floor. Deciding to change my orientation, I picked myself up and sat upright—at least, what was upright to me. Sitting on the ceiling felt weird, it made the bedroom look all wrong, but at least I felt a little more grounded.

  Weirdly.

  “What is this?” I asked.

  “You tell me,” Rell said, the little dragon lizard ruffling its wings. “I thought humans couldn’t project their minds into the astral realm.”

  “We… can’t? At least, I can’t.”

  “And yet, here you are.”

  “I should be down there. Why am I up here?”

  “I can’t answer that. What I can tell you, is that you’re an idiot for leaving the manor.”

  “Hey man, I saw an opportunity, and I took it.”

  “You mean you saw a cliff, and you dove off. You were hoping you’d hit water, only to find jagged rocks at the bottom… and broken glass, and snakes and—”

  “—yeah, I get the picture. Did you know that was going to happen to me?”

  “I did, and I tried to warn you, but you wouldn’t listen and now you’re going to die, probably.”

  I shook my head. “No… no way. I’m not going to die.”

  “Ummm, from up here it looks like you are.”

  “Aren’t you guys supposed to be magic? Someone’s going to be able to help me.”

  “Don’t be so sure. Magic has its limitations. Besides, these people are also idiots… and selfish, and hurtful, and magic. They’re basically stupid, magic, assholes. Welcome to Arcadia.”

  I slumped my shoulders. “Why does this place have to be such a drag?”

  “Why do you think Kady keeps trying to escape? Even the Fae hate it here.”

  Looking over my body again, I couldn’t help but feel… well, nothing. I couldn’t feel anything at all—no physical sensations, anyway. But I thought, if I had a stomach, it would’ve turned upside down at the sight of me. I looked the same way I had probably looked a few years back, when I caught a flu that had really knocked the wind out of my sails.