What could this woman possibly do? Aside from watch Alora bathe and ensure she made up her eyes as sultry as a siren’s? No. The entrancement held no power in this instance, and in turn, it fed Alora’s own. She turned up her nose.
“No, thank you.”
A hand smacked against the door with surprising force where Alora meant to close it between them. Alora stared at the woman, her mouth parted in surprise. “Excuse—”
“You don’t understand. They arewatching.”
Alora flung her attention from the desperate appearance of the Opulence employee in order to scan the quiet grounds. All she could see were perfect, little houses, traced from the same pattern. She squinted, searching for shadows, but those were few and far between and didn’t bear any human shape. “Who is watching?” she eventually asked.
“Themansion.”
“The building itself now cares whether I’m properly cleaned and manicured before the evening?”
“Madam Feebledire does, and she told me Master does. And Master is the mansion. There is nothing that goes on that they do not see. Let me in.Please.”
Alora found her hand dropping limply to her side before she realized it. The woman pushed past her as if chased by an ogre, breaths heavy in the silence. Alora didn’t glance back at her but lifted her gaze to Opulence once more. It didn’t look so impressive from the back, she didn’t think. There were no windows and no doors. No monstrous wolf statues. But it was tall and gold and impenetrable. Like a fortress. She scanned the rooftop for spies and found nothing.
“Who told you you’re always being watched?” Alora’s eyes settled on the fluttering crimson flags atop the turrets. Memories attempted to resurface again.I’ve broken rules here before.
“Everyone. Management and others like me.”
“Hmm,” hummed Alora. “It could be true, I suppose.” She closed the door and turned to face the house’s interior. “Or they could be lying to keep you in line.”
“Is it worth the risk to find out? What if we’re caught?”
Alora stared at the woman like she’d sprouted another head. “I would think we already are.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Alora floated amongst sweet-scented bubbles. Across the room and behind her, she could hear Harriet, the skittish Opulence employee, pulling open the vanity drawers, assembling what she assumed to be costume makeup. Something befitting a ‘Goddess of Desire’. Alora gagged at the idea. Gracious, even the name left her sickened. The fact Merridon had used it in all seriousness was enough to make her screech.
“Master enjoys a heavy eye and a bold lip,” Harriet had explained before she’d begun.
Of course he does,thought Alora. “Yes, I’ve seen his office,” she’d said, startling seconds later.
She’d remembered!
The memory was blurred and faded, but it was there. Gold on gold, the furniture too big. But there’d been no response to any of it from the mousy woman, neither her comments nor her sloshing.
Alora watched the sconces on the wall now as she stewed, her hair hanging heavy over the tub’s lip, slick with oil. Harriet’s gem-bedecked comb tugged at her scalp. Alora wondered over if she could somehow get around the rule of going to and from Door Twenty-five and nowhere else, if she could jog her memory in other ways. She’d managed it with Lennox, with Bash, and even that rogue captain, vague as they still were in her brain. Now she’d done it again with Merridon’s office. It was a relief that her memories were only hidden, rather than having been entirely taken from her. If she could manage a bending of the rules, surely she could excavate them fully?
“I’ll go and ready your costume now. Wash out the excess oil but not all of it, and wait for me at the vanity, if you would. I must finish with you before dinner.”
“Whatever you say,” called Alora, feeling a child again, and dunked her head below the surface.
Not long later, she’d managed the final instruction. Alora sat at the vanity in a crimson robe, uncaring that it was oversized and slipping down one shoulder. She picked up palettes and brushes and lipsticks in turn and shook her head at it all. When she could avoid it no more, she chewed at her lip. Slowly, so slowly it pained her, she looked into the mirror.
Her eyes were no longer puffy; it’d been some hours now since she’d cried. But the circles were still there, purple and blooming, as well as the dead, gray cast to her eyes. Her hair hung heavy and wet down her back, lank pieces framing her face. She looked like she’d been a prisoner for months instead of a single afternoon. So very pathetic.
She glared into the glass. “No. You are not thisweak.”
She continued to glare, her teeth scraping against the others, a muscle feathering in her jaw, until the dead in her eyes came alive again, but this time with a cold, silver rage. Nevermind the robe was crimson and did nothing for her coloring. Alora’seyes were ice through and through, and they couldn’t be tamped.God help you, Marshall Merridon, when I’m freed from your invisible bonds.
She would—
Well, shecould—
The sconce moved in the mirror. At first, Alora didn’t pay it any mind as she was too busy in her vast failure of attempts in imagining revenge. But when the light eased across the wall as if being breathed in, she froze in her seat. Her scowl fell from her face. She tilted her body. But no matter the angle, it was the same.
