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CHAPTER1
THIRTEEN
As I enter the library, The Masks look up at me from their position by the open fire. The light from the flames casting them all in a hellish glow.
They’re monsters, demons.
Brutal. Beautiful.Broken.
Heaven knows I’ve tried to help, but no potion or elixir that I’ve brewed has worked. Try as I might, some wounds are too deep to heal. They fester and putrefy, infecting a person’s soul, stripping away humanity until all that’s left is a vessel for darkness to thrive in.
I tore open their wounds thinking that would be the only way to help purge them of their pain, their sins, but my actions just allowed more darknessin.
Where’s Christy?I ask, scribbling across the notepad that I carry with me everywhere.
“Zerois in the Room of Fantasies, with the others,” Konrad replies, stressing his given name for her.
Why? She isn’t part of The Menagerie,I write, ignoring the look Leon gives me.
He’s close to the edge. He has been for days now, and I have to force myself to remain resolute, strong in the face of his wrath, just like Christy has done since the moment they brought her here.
Jakub places his own drink on the table, before unbuttoning the top button of his shirt and loosening his tie. “We have our reasons, Thirteen.”
I shake my head, my mouth pursed, my confusion evident.No!I write, angrily tapping at the word with the end of my pen, then instantly regretting that I’ve allowed my feelings to show.
Leon bares his teeth at me for even daring to object.
“Listen—!” he begins, but Jakub rests his hand on Leon’s arm, cutting him off.
“You are here as our guest,but do not, for one minute, assume you have any right to question what we do withour property. You understood the terms of your place here. That hasn’t changed.”
I huff, scrawling another quick response.I understand that, but…I begin, then stop myself from writing what I truly want to say, feeling wholly frustrated with myself and my inability to verbalise my thoughts. No matter how much I wish to, the sounds won’t form, the words lost to a traumatised child.
“You’ve become too attached,” Konrad states, watching me closely.
I shake my head, flicking to a clean page.I care about all of the Numbers.
“But this is different,” he persists, cocking his head as he reads my words. “This isn’t just your need to heal those who hurt, this is more. Tell me I’m wrong.”
Isn’t it that way for you?I deflect.
Konrad takes a sip of his brandy, opening his mouth to answer only to be cut off by Jakub, who seems intent on silencing his brothers tonight. “No,” he interjects, his jaw tight, rigid with tension. “She remainsNothingto us.”
Schooling my features, I nod. I despise the names they’ve given Christy, but I cannot allow them to know how I truly feel because it will only raise more questions that I’m not willing to answer. That Ican’tanswer, at least not yet.
“That performance was another act of defiance, and as such, Nought needs to be taught a lesson,” Leon adds. “She doesn’t hold the power here, we do. She doesn’t rule us,werule her. She is nothing but revenge. No more, no less.”
So this is a lesson?I ask, hope blooming in my chest with every letter I write.
A lesson implies that she will remain alive to learn from it. However cruel The Masks’ lessons might be, however twisted, however much it pains me to witness what Christy has had to endure, at least she is still alive to endure it. To fight back. Where there is fight, there is hope for all of them. She’s the only one strong enough to face them, to make them see what they’ve become. She’s already proven just how much of a force she is.
“What’s it to you? In fact, don’t answer that, Thirteen. We’re done with your questions.”
“Leon,” Jakub warns, but it’s lost on deaf ears as he approaches me.
Even Konrad isn’t making a move to stop Leon. Not that it would matter anyway, their control over him is waning. They know it as well as I do, and we all know that when Leon loses his last shred of humanity he will become the ultimate monster his father, The Collector, had raised him to be. Once one falls, the other two will surely follow.
Shaking my head, I step back, holding my hands up in a bid to urge Leon to wait. We’re not done here, there is one more thing I need to do. It’s therealpurpose for my intrusion. I came here to deliver a letter that I’ve been entrusted to keep safe until this very night. It remains sealed, the envelope discoloured with age, the corners bent and torn. I reach for it now, tucked safely inside the pocket of my skirt and pinch the paper between my finger and thumb.
