“It’s my birthday!” Katie, a blonde in a rhinestone tiara and pink feather boa, slurred, already tipsy. “Twenty-seven! Ugh! Sooooo ollllld!”
Michelle shook her head. “But, anyway, I figured you had to be twenty-one here so I didn’t think I’d get to see you. But here you are and look at you! You look fantastic!” She stood back to look at me. “I bet you don’t miss your scrubs!”
“There are definitely some perks here, I guess.”
“I guess so! And don’t worry, I won’t tell Joan you’ve turned into a crazy club kid.”
“Thanks, appreciate it. I’m on official business.” I shook the camera. “Hey, let me get all you guys.” I motioned for them to gather up and they squeezed together, arms around each other, posing. “Say, ‘birthday’!” They did, and I snapped. A new song blasted and the girls all started jumping and cheering. Michelle shook her head again, like she was the sensible chaperone of the group. “Let me know if you guys need anything,” I said, enjoying the thrill of playing hostess at a place like this, at having even the teeniest illusion of influence here. “And have fun and—oh yeah!—maybe just tell Joan we ran into each other in the hotel lobby or something?” I tacked on, just to be safe.
“You got it! So great to see you, Haven! We miss you at work!” She gave me another hug and I waved as I slunk back, swallowed into the surrounding crowds as I searched out my next target.
The ring of fire burned bright in the center of it all, and I decided to go ahead and make my way to it, weaving through clubgoers and snapping as I went. The sheer number of bodies on that platform tonight seemed almost too much to contain. I had never seen it crowded with so many people—so many unfamiliar faces, especially. I scanned all these figures looking for one in particular but I didn’t see Lucian. A wave of peace washed over me. Emboldened by our date, by this night, I ventured up that spiral staircase on my own, joining ranks with all those beautiful creatures, dancing and flirting and drinking and locking eyes with the less vaunted partygoers down below.
Walk tall, Haven. For once, walk tall and belong. I snapped dozens of pictures. The Outfit members paid me no mind, and the others were only too happy to seek me out hoping to be shot. I squeezed through the clusters of boys and girls secretly sorting themselves in that silent dance to determine who would pair up with whom. After several minutes floating among them, I took one last look from the top of the staircase and returned to the main floor, that aura and glow still illuminating me.
I wound my way around the perimeter of the club making one full lap. I had stayed longer than I planned, but tonight, oddly, I had enjoyed myself. The heat and wooziness of dinner had worn off, leaving only the welcome sense of euphoria behind. I gave a parting glance to the ring but had to do a double take. Lucian was seated there now. He lounged nearest the bar, a drink in his hand, staring off into space. Something stopped me from trying to get his attention. He knew I was planning to be here, but he hadn’t said a word about coming. Had he hoped to find me? Or had he neglected to look for me? I fought against the urge to let this snuff out the buzz I had. I couldn’t read his expression at all. He stared off into the distance as everyone else swirled around him, existing in his own personal chamber it seemed.
I slunk away, back through the thick steel door, and onward to my room. All those unanswered questions flared up in me again. Still lost in thought, running through the night’s odd twists and turns, it took me ages to fish my keycard out of my evening bag and swipe it in the lock of my room. The hallway was entirely silent, except for a crackling I couldn’t place. It almost sounded like it was coming from inside my room, even though that didn’t make any sense. It was along the lines of wind rustling, but there were no windows down here. The lock unlatched and I opened the door. A scream escaped my lips before my brain could even fully process the scene.
Fire! My room was on fire. Or at least a part of my room was on fire.
The blaze was consuming—and emanating from—the plant Dante had given me. A spitting column of fire shot up from the pot, reaching from my desk almost to the ceiling. A layer of dense, cottony-gray smoke clouded the top half of the room. I dropped my bag on the floor and ran to my closet, pulling out the mini fire extinguisher and yanking the locking pin out of the trigger. I pointed the nozzle at the dancing embers and unleashed a torrent of white spray. It coated the plant, snuffing out the danger until there was nothing left but a charred stem. The smoke and haze of misty residue hung in the air and in my lungs. I opened up my door wider, waving my hands to clear space to breathe, coughing fiercely. The room was a heat trap of burnt, bitter air.
I swept the potted plant off the desk and straight into the wastebasket and flew out the open door to Dante and Lance’s room. As I banged on their door, my stomach muscles tensed and ached from the violent coughing and I doubled over against these tremors that shook my body. I just needed to be out of that room. I waited, trying to listen between my coughs, with my ear to the door to detect any movement inside. But when no one answered, I eventually gave up and walked away.
Back in my room, door still ajar, I collapsed onto my bed. The air had cleared a bit even in that short time and my coughing grew less frequent. I curled up, shielding myself. On the nightstand beside me, Lucian’s flower, left entirely unscathed, seemed to have bloomed even more. Now it had opened up to the size of a grapefruit, splendid and glossy black. I could still smell its spicy flavor through the scent of smoke. It flooded over me, followed by a sudden wave of exhaustion. I could drift off to sleep now, in this dress, without even running through all the possibilities of how this might have happened in my innocent little room. I couldn’t even begin to guess. Could the plant have done this on its own? What was that thing anyway? I rolled over and something jabbed into my rib. I pulled it out from under me: the book. I barely had the strength to open the cover, let alone do whatever it would inevitably tell me to do right now. But what choice did I have? Steeling myself, I paged through until I found the latest entry.
Your night is only just beginning, weary winged one. Proceed up the ladder. Yes, upward. Follow the corridor until you hear voices and walk toward them. Listen carefully. Pay attention.
Up. So now, just as I was beginning to learn how to navigate the plank-punctuated passageway down to the hotel’s underground tunnels, I had to venture upward into this new unknown.
Well, I wouldn’t be launching into this expedition in these clothes, that was for sure. I shed my heels and the dress in favor of my usual off-hours uniform of jeans and a thermal long-sleeve. Then I found the flashlight in the closet, pulled the string for the light and looked up, taking a deep breath—too deep. I coughed in the smoke-tinged air and steadied one hand on the ladder. Waiting would not make it any easier. I climbed rung by rung until I was near enough to the ceiling to slide that wooden panel away. I shined the flashlight up into this new expanse of murky darkness. Nothing but the beams holding up the walls and a wooden walkway. I felt around on all sides. It appeared just wide enough for me to fit if I crawled on hands and knees. I climbed up until I had been entirely swallowed into the stuffy tube-like passage.
Flashlight in one hand, I crept along, the wooden beams snagging at my shirt. I tried to ignore the cobwebs, the puffy bits of chewed-away insulation, and any reminder of wildlife that might be my companion. A musty scent hung in the claustrophobic passageway, but as I ventured deeper, I felt it dissipating. The four walls seemed to be expanding like blown glass in all directions. Slowly I pulled myself up, first hunching then finally upright, a relief for my aching knees and my hands. As I walked I could feel my path slanting upward, and new sounds filtered through, penetrating the otherwise eerie silence. Music with a familiar swing I recognized from the lobby, and voices I couldn’t fully make out as I collectively took in the sense of activity and general hubbub.
Luckily, unlike the tunnels below, here there was still only one way to go, so I continued as the conversations faded back to silence and then eventually gave w
ay to the murmur of more serene voices, ones not swept up by the excitement of the hotel. The path forked on my right side, and I spotted the faintest glimmer in the distance. A narrow beam of light pierced the suffocating darkness. I got closer and the light became two distinct pinpricks in the wall directly before me. As I continued on, the voices grew loud enough that I could almost make out the words: it was a man and a woman speaking. I could tell from the woman’s low-pitched lilting tones that it was Aurelia.
A few more paces to the light, I found the wall straight ahead had been perforated with two peepholes. I squinted through and recoiled. The view, slightly muted and hazy, led right into Aurelia’s office. She was seated on her love seat, the man’s back to me, in one of the chairs. Her legs were crossed and she leaned back, her head propped up in her delicate ivory hand, dejected it seemed. He stood up and walked over to her, sat beside her, and took her chin in his hand as he looked in her eyes. It was that Prince, the man from the gala. “We’re certain it is her,” Aurelia said to him. “She has all the telltale markings, much as she works to hide them, but I assure you they’re there. And we have our strategy in place. We will claim her before her full powers take hold.”
“Well, we got to Lucian in time, and you too, now didn’t we? So we have a fine track record.”
“Indeed.” Her smile was tainted by just a hint of melancholy.
“I don’t think I need to remind you that your future depends upon your success in this matter,” he said to her, firmly. “So you will succeed. It’s that simple.”
The peephole had to be on the wall with that flashing flat screen, but where? Could they make out my caramel eyes peeking in? The holes were fairly small, so hopefully not, but I’d have to study this tomorrow from the other side to gauge how visible I might be. For now, I simply listened.
“How is her suitor faring?” the Prince asked, in a voice that caressed the air.
“He is, perhaps, neither as powerful nor as ready as we hoped.”
“Well, then he’ll have to adapt quickly,” he said in a sinister tone. “And the girl?”
“Infatuated, to be sure, but guarded. So unlike all the others. It’s odd, I must say.”
“We shouldn’t really be so surprised, should we? After all, that’s why we want her. But we mustn’t underestimate her or the speed at which she will embrace her destiny,” the man went on. Aurelia wore an expression I’d never quite seen—deference, insecurity—in her knitted brows and downcast, lost gaze. “We cannot turn our backs but for a minute or we’ll find ourselves suddenly powerless and bowing before her. Beware.”
“I know this. I promise we’re doing everything in our power here. This Haven is already more formidable than we antici- pated.”
For a moment, it all dulled—every sound, every word. I could only hear my heart beating faster and faster as my scars singed. How could they think this about me? What did they think I was going to do? What was this destiny business about? Could it be possible that I was strong enough to pose some sort of threat so impressive that they needed to stop me? Fear pumped through every vein. I wanted to run, away, out of this place, out of this hotel, anywhere, and never come back. But I knew that wasn’t possible. I knew that all of this, whatever it was, would follow me. I willed myself back into the present. Listen. You have to listen.
“I won’t tell you again how much hinges upon this. She must become one of us.” His voice had changed now, full of dark corners and fire-and-ice edges.
“Of course, my liege.”
“I trust you and your counterparts can resolve this on your own, in haste, and our recruitment efforts can be heartily increased.”
“You have my word.”
The lights blinked for a split second, a hiccup—I could’ve sworn I saw a flash of fiery light—and then it all went back on full force before anyone elsewhere in the hotel had a chance to notice. And he was gone. I didn’t see or hear him go, I only knew that he had disappeared. Aurelia gathered herself, lifting a frail hand to her forehead as though she might be faint. I had never seen her look so concerned, so fragile. She rose from the couch and let herself out of the room, shutting off the lights and closing the door behind her.
I flipped the flashlight back on and walked as fast as I could, my pace evolving into a run, so brisk I worried I might go right through the wood panels beneath my feet, until my passageway became narrow and then I crawled on my beat-up, ravaged knees and scraped palms. Finally I spilled out onto that ladder and down to my bedroom closet rung by rung by rung, a descending xylophone, landing in a heap on the worn carpet. My entire body was covered in sweat, and yet I was shivering. Wake up, Haven. Wake up, I chided myself. You’ve been letting yourself sleepwalk. You haven’t wanted to see what’s going on because you’ve wanted to believe that it could all be possible. But something is wrong here. That book of yours is right—danger is lurking here behind these beautiful faces and façades. I felt my heart freeze over a bit, concrete poured over live earth.
But Aurelia and the Prince sounded afraid too . . . afraid of me. It didn’t make any sense at all. I didn’t know what they thought I was going to do, what kind of control I could possibly have over them or over this strange place. But it seemed that they had a strategy for dealing with me.
As my nervous pulse ticked up in terror, I felt the dread sink in the pit of my stomach. Lucian was part of this. He meant it when he said he wanted my soul. He had been instructed to seize this—me—whatever power I supposedly had. I had spent the entire evening with him and he had been putting on a show, and I fell for it so entirely, it made me boil now. I was such a fool. I scurried on wobbly legs to my bed, bone-tired but too terrified to sleep. Could I go next door at this hour—now well after three—and stay in Dante and Lance’s room? How could I go on any longer not telling them about all of this? With furious fingers, I pawed through that offending book, looking for a new directive. But nothing had been added. I felt completely stripped of everything that could offer even the least bit of comfort to me. I was hanging off a ledge, nearly falling, and no one to catch me, no one to tell me I wouldn’t hit the ground or that I’d survive at all.
I didn’t fall asleep by choice, but finally my heavy lids lost their battle. When they did, I spun headlong into that hazy in-between. I couldn’t be sure where my dream ended and bitter reality began. That familiar thump had sounded in the hallway, and in my dream, I had opened the door and this glowing apparition came toward me, dragging its lifeless limbs like unwieldy tree stumps. Its head was cast down but it was a woman, with long dark hair—when she looked up, her face, like the rest of her, was nearly all decayed, but also familiar. I had seen this woman before. This was the body from outside the hotel last night. But I knew with every bone in my body that she wasn’t an actress or some prop, a mannequin or dummy. I didn’t care what any of these people believed. It ate away at me, chilling me: that dead body had been real.
There was more though, now that I could study her with my fear momentarily suspended the way it can be only in dreams: this was also the same woman who had been attacked outside that drugstore. For some reason, in this dream I didn’t slam the door shut. I watched long enough for the corpse’s face to look up at me in all its ravaged glory. And when it did, for just an instant this whole figure was restored back to normal, to its human shape, and then I knew. It was Calliope.
My eyes flung open and my room was overtaken with a milky mist. I sat up in bed, trying to clear my vision, but instead the mist simply retreated, filtering out through the cracks around the door, leaving me alone, trying to regain control from the terror.
It’s a strange thing to be so tired, with every bone in your body crying out for rest, and yet to be so incapable of achieving sleep. But there would be no muting those visions of my dream, because it wasn’t just a dream. Something had happened to Calliope that no one wanted to talk about. I couldn’t forget what I’d heard the Prince say to Aurelia. These dark characters whose mystery had crossed over i
nto the realm of something more disturbing now seemed united against me. And then the fire in my room. I couldn’t make sense of it; I only knew I was right to be afraid.
I showered, pulled on my uniform and heels, and grabbed the camera. I would throw myself into work. I had hundreds of photos to upload and I would print the best to show Aurelia. The thought of having to see her in our daily meeting, in that room I had spied on just a matter of hours ago, sent chills hitting each vertebra with icy precision.
The hotel slumbered as I emerged onto the lobby level. Light had only just begun to filter through the skylight and in through the revolving door. A relative quiet wrapped the whole place. Soft music piped in through the sound system, and a muffled clink chimed from the direction of Capone as tables were set with fresh silverware for the impending breakfast service. At the front desk, delicate fingertips clicked at a keyboard—a beautiful Outfit-caliber, uniformed redhead was on the early shift. I didn’t recognize her and hadn’t photographed her so I couldn’t be sure if she was an official member.
I brushed through the velvet curtain outside the gallery and swiped my keycard. A red light flickered on, keeping me out. I sliced it through again, more slowly this time. The red light taunted me once more. I whipped it through another three times, getting more frustrated with each sharp swipe. I yanked on the knob, rattling the door and peered in. No one was in there. I was out of luck.
I marched past the redhead, straight to Aurelia’s office, nerves fluttering the whole way. I knocked. No answer. I swore I could hear muted voices inside. I knocked once more. Nothing. The voices seemed to stop for just a second then they continued once more. I gave up, for now.
Inside the Parlor kitchen, a few members of the cooking staff, in their jackets and hats, silently cleaned and chopped vegetables, getting a jump on the day. We exchanged smiles before I assembled my usual cereal and milk and took a seat at the island. I wasn’t hungry at all. Fatigue was starting to set in, and my lids began to fall.
Illuminate: A Gilded Wings Novel, Book One Page 23
