They passed by smaller dwellings, with fake windows and bulbous bushes. Alora wondered about the windows, confusedby them. She quickened her pace to near Madam Feebledire. “Why tack on fake windows to these buildings? It looks strange.”
The older woman tipped her head in their direction. “What do you have against illusions, Miss Pennigrim?”
“Nothing, if they serve a purpose.”
“And so these do.”
They didn’t though. Except perhaps to create the illusion of a real home. But Alora had a real home. With real windows and a real terrace and many plants, and not a single one bulbous or dangerously close to an over-trimming. Howdarethey try to take it all from her? A lifetime of servitude, relaxing prettily, dumping desires into the world?Once upon a time, her dream had been to make everyone else’s come true. But not like this.Neverlike this.
Behind the rows of smaller buildings rose larger ones. Now these could almost be deemed acceptable. Though there still weren’t any actual windows, at least they seemed to have more than one cramped room. The houses rose two stories, and the hedges were no longer bulbous but coned. Madam Feebledire made for one at their right, on the far edge.
“You’ll find your accommodations already furnished with everything you should need, including a bath. You’re lucky you’re deemed so special. Most other performers have to use a communal.” At the white door, Madam Feebledire produced a key from her bodice and fitted it to the lock. “Someone will be by shortly to assist you in readying yourself. Dinner will be delivered at six. Afterward, you’ll be escorted to your door.”
Alora remained on the strange house’s threshold. “To my door? Tonight? But I’ve only just finished it.”
For the first time Madam Feebledire seemed to really look at her. At the circles that must have assuredly deepened, the unkempt hair, and her swollen eyes. “Master is a very ambitiousman. Once he decides on a course, he does not take it at a walk. You’ll do well to remember that.”
“But—”
Madam Feebledire held up a hand. “I won’t hear an argument. You signed the contract of your own volition, Miss Pennigrim. If Master has decided on surprising the public with an early opening of the Room of Desire, then that is his prerogative. Opulence Mansion belongs solely to him, after all.”
Alora noted the sneering quality of Madam Feebledire’s last words even as the rest of what she said left her knees quaking.Tonight? It is already late afternoon!“How am I to know what to do?”
Madam Feebledire sent her a side-eye full of meaning. “Figure it out, Miss Imagination.”Opulence’s management skirted around her and pushed through the door. She laid the key upon the entryway table. “Good luck.”
The door latched closed behind her.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Alora stared at the key. At how it gleamed beneath the sconce on the wall. Real and probably heavy and shining new, and yet it had no purpose in her life. Madam Feebledire hadn’t used it to lock her in. The bolt on the inside meant she didn’t need it against anyone wishing her harm. So what would she do? Lock up the house every night she left? For what? To deter trespassers?
She spun within the space. The bottom level contained four rooms, the doorways arched and opened in a way that she could move from one to the other and still see them all at once, even the washroom. She had a dining table with two chairs, a sitting room with a sofa. There was a kitchen which couldn’t really be considered as such since she had no stove and no oven, and in the washroom sat a vanity, a tub, and the largest full-length mirror she’d ever owned.
She looked away before she could see herself within it.
A spiral stair speared upward from the house’s center, winding around and around to a loft. Alora didn’t need to go up thereto know there’d be no terrace. There would be no dried flowers on a nightstand, salvaged from her favorite blooms. There would be no wardrobe filled with silvers and blues. The vanity wouldn’t have her new favorite shade of lipstick, and certainly not her embroidered towels, and the sitting room most definitely wouldn’t have a knife hidden upon the mantle. There would be no dishes for Mrs. Flops in the kitchen.
There would be no rabbit at all…
Let them come. Anyone who wants. Let them take whatever they can carry.
She didn’t care. None of it was hers.
Alora marched toward the key, scooped it up, and in the next breath, flung open the door. She froze mid-throw, her hand behind her ear.
A woman cowered on the stoop. When no object met her face, she lowered her gold-painted hands with caution. Her eyes were wide and brown behind them, and Alora’s memories remained still. She’d never met this person.
“May I help you?” demanded Alora with more hostility than she meant.
The middle-aged woman tittered in response. She wore the same nondescript uniform as the rest of the mansion’s employees, crimson and gold, her skin painted to match, but her hair was done up rather nicely, with soft waves framing her face and cascading behind.
Is this what I’m meant to learn?She’d curling tongs at home. She didn’t want for instruction.
“Forgive me, but I’m told to assist in readying you for the evening.”
“Who told you?”
“Madam”—the employee swallowed rather loudly—“Feebledire.”
