The temperature dropped the closer they got to the island, and soon a thick mist was crawling across the rippling surface of the water, beckoning their boat closer. It made it difficult to see, and Avalon wondered if they were heading the wrong way, back to shore.
Before she could voice her concerns to Hadrian, the ghostly shape of the House loomed out of the fog, and their boat came to a jarring stop against the mossy shore. No birds chirped here; no insects buzzed. The silence was nothing short of a threat.
Or perhaps it was a warning.
Avalon was shivering so hard, her teeth clacked together. “Are you sure you don’t want to start with Midra instead?”
At the sight of the House, the captain’s mouth hung slightly open. “And myth becomes reality,” he murmured. He set the oars aside. “Come on.” He jerked his head toward the ancient structure, half-hidden within swirling mist and creeping ivy that nearly devoured the crumbling stone. “Let’s get this over with.”
He vanished into the mist, and Avalon scrambled out of the boat, her boots splashing in muddy water. When she was safe at the captain’s side again, Hadrian hooked his arm through hers and gave it a comforting pat. “Relax,” he whispered.
“Are you sure we should take the book with us?” she stuttered. “And the—the mask?”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to leave them out here.” He tugged her up the lichen-covered stone steps, toward the entrance that was nothing more than an archway.
Inside, the House was far more lit than Avalon had anticipated, and she breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the shafts of sunlight filtering through the decaying roof. Through the many shattered windows, she spotted the land they’d just come from, far off in the distance. She had an overwhelming urge to keep her eyes trained on that distant shore, afraid that if she looked away, she would never find it again.
A fire-blackened chandelier hung from the ceiling, swaying in the ocean breeze that swept through the windows and cleared the air of the smell of mildew. Dust-covered paintings hung crooked on the walls, and a moth-eaten armchair sat in the corner beside an unlit fireplace.
Avalon clung harder to Hadrian’s arm. “I don’t think anybody’s home,” she whispered.
Hadrian wasn’t convinced, his eyes filled with suspicion as he scanned every crevice. They both knew it wasn’t a matter of whether someone was home.
It was a matter of whether they wanted to play.
A ghostly female chuckle, musical and chilling, echoed from every direction. Avalon squeaked in alarm, her arm tightening again around Hadrian’s.
And then the ground beneath their feet shifted, and shifted, and shifted, like the gears of a clock, their surroundings darkening until all walls melted away. The ocean and the land from which they came disappeared into a motionless fog thicker than what had surrounded the island.
For several long heartbeats, they were entirely blind. Avalon’s breathing grew rapid, and Hadrian’s hand gripped hers hard enough to bruise.
The milky fog bled away at last, along with the floor beneath their feet, and both were replaced by a sky splashed with colorful stars. They were suspended in midair, the house around them entirely gone, and when Kaia Stormblood spoke, and Hadrian swore under his breath, Avalon realized why they called it the House of Dreams.
“A princess and a captain of the guard,” Kaia mused, her voice like silk. Like the whisper of a nightmare. “I have a very exciting game for you.”
25
The light emanating from the colored stars was colder than a winter night.
The two minutes they hovered in the sky felt like an eternity, and when the starlight bled away at last, they found themselves back in the House of Dreams, but this time there were no windows or doors. Now there were tunnels, and the stench of death and excrement was sharp in the humid air. The chandelier was lit with blue flames, the fire sending ghostly flickers of light into the tunnels.
Tunnels that were heavily shadowed and decorated with webs, skulls, and rotting bodies.
Hadrian had drawn his sword minutes ago, and as Avalon fumbled in her bag for the mask and a weapon, something clicked against the walls. Her hand froze on the hilt of her dagger.
The sound came from everywhere.Tap. Tap. Tap.Like pebbles clacking against a cliff face. Avalon fought the urge to back away as a large, dark shape emerged from the tunnel ahead.
First, she saw the legs—eight of them—tap-tap-tapping against the ground. And then she saw the pincers, and the narrow, segmented tail that curved forward over their backs and ended with a deadly stinger.
The Clan Hunter’s words tumbled from her memory.
…Everything in the House is only as real as you believe—it feeds off fear and whether a person believes in it. If the House accepts you, it will reveal the truth.
“How do we get the House to accept us?” Avalon hissed over her shoulder at Hadrian, who was guarding her back. Her heart thundered in her chest.
The captain was too occupied to answer, and Avalon didn’t blame him.
The four Skorpios—scorpion-like monstrosities of the ancient world, with three heads and twelve rows of sharp teeth per head—crept into the light of the chandelier. They were as large as horses and bloated from gorging on flesh, the tips of their pincers sharp as knives. The one closest to Avalon hissed, a string of blood-tinged saliva dripping from fangs that were even sharper than the pincers.
