“Whatever I’m capable of imagining. Though it doesn’t always turn out as I would hope, especially not with complex things.”
“Ah. Like clocks?”
“No, I think I could bring about a clock fine, though I haven’t tried. I meant living things. More specifically, things with souls.”
Lennox’s eyes grew wide. “People?”
“People. Animals. I…I’ve not told anyone this.”
“Oh, I won’t tell anyone.”
Alora reached out and Lennox obliged, placing the cigarillo between her fingers. Alora dragged in a breath against its end, her mouth filling with sweet smoke. She coughed, a plume rising between them. Lennox grinned.
“I brought a rabbit into the world once, as a girl,” said Alora, eyes streaming. “But I didn’t pay close enough attention. He had too large of teeth and these empty white eyes. When I peered into them, I couldn’t see anything staring back at me. It was…disconcerting. But I was his mistress, and he followed me everywhere. Mindless, I realized too late. People talked about it—all through the town I grew up in. Some said I summoned ademon. Some said I tortured a living creature into what it had become. They were very cruel, to both of us. Then he bit a girl, and she fell.” Alora breathed in a second time from the cigarillo, on the off chance the first coughing fit was a fluke. It was not.
When she could speak again, she handed it back to Lennox with a shake of her head. Smoking, it seemed, was not for her. “Anyway, I can’t ever go back there.”
“You can never return, and I can never leave. What a pair we are,” said Lennox. This time there was no false laughter. Lennox stared down at her shoes, her mouth slightly parted and breaths shallow.
Alora thought she’d the better situation herself but didn’t say so. Lennox didn’t need to hear it; likely she already knew. Alora wondered how long her contract extended. Then she asked.
“Twenty years,” Lennox said, smiling sadly when Alora gasped outright. “By then, they’ll find someone younger I would assume.”
“Lennox, I’m—”
But Lennox shook her head. “I went all on my own. I read the contract. I’ve only myself to blame.”
“But you can’t have been much more than a child!”
“Seventeen.” She shrugged. “I didn’t have much. Not much to me besides this ability. And when I was approached to work at Opulence, I thought it was a blessing. In some ways, it is. I’m fed and housed and clothed. Some people could say far less.”
Approached.Alora thought she might be sick. “You’re still trapped. What Merridon is doing is still wrong, even if he feeds you.”
“As I said: I’ve only myself to blame.”
“That’s not—”
All at once, Lennox was done with the conversation. She stuffed the cigarillo into her bodice and gripped Alora’sshoulders after. “I need the Room of Happy Days. Right now. Come with me?”
Alora had broken so many rules, but she could see something worse was near shattering in Lennox. Really, what was one more? She nodded.
“Perfect. Maybe we can sneak a look at what Mister Macaw is working on. It’s the new topiary to represent Door Twenty-five, and I’m dying to know who, if anyone, is going inside it.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Alora stood inside the ground floor’s Door Eleven surrounded by bathing suits of all sizes. Lennox selected one for herself and tossed another toward her. Alora caught it, staring at the crimson garment like she’d never seen one. Meanwhile, Lennox decided to forgo the changing rooms and stripped to nothing beside her.
“You might want to rush. Dusk isn’t far off.”
Quickly, Alora kicked off her shoes, loosening her skirt, and slipping the straps of her top from her shoulders. She was all skittering nerves, her heart bounding away after her previous experience in one of Opulence’s many rooms. She tried to remember what Door Eleven entailed and couldn’t. Damn her failing mind.
She shimmied into the suit alongside Lennox, the garment the snuggest thing she’d ever worn. A robe appeared in her line of vision, and then slippers for her feet.
“Don’t forget the coat,” said Lennox.
Together, they left the room for the spiral stairs.
“Are there performers here?” Alora whispered, when they were at the top and yet to see anyone else.
