Shadowfever
Page 16

Theres the kitchen where I ate truffles smothered in cream and filled with delicate fruits that dont exist in our world.
Here, a flute lies on a table, beside an open book, next to a teapot decorated with a pattern as familiar to me as the back of my own hand.
Theres the rooftop garden, high atop a turret where Ive gazed through a telescope at an azure sea.
Here, a library of endless rows of books, where Ive passed time uncounted.
Each room is a study in beauty, each item in it adorned with intricate detail, as if its creator had infinity in which to work.
I wonder how long the concubine was here. I wonder how much of this house is her creation.
I taste forever in this place, but, unlike in the Hall of All Days, forever here is exquisite, gentle. The House promises a blissful eternity. It does not terrify or cow. The House is time as it was meant to be: endless, serene.
Herea room of thousands of gowns! I dash through row after row, my arms spread wide, my hands fanning the fabulous fabrics. I love these gowns!
I pluck one from its hanger and spin around, dancing with it. Faint strains of music drift upon the air and I lose track of time.
Heres a curio cabinet housing items I cannot name but nonetheless recognize. I pocket a few of the smaller trinkets. I open a music box and listen to a song that makes me feel I am drifting in space, enormous and free, more right in my skin than Ive ever been, poised on the brink of all possibles. I forget everything for a time, lost in joy that is larger than the mansion itself.
In room after room, I find something familiar, something that makes me happy.
I see the first of many beds. As in my dreams, there are so many that I lose count after a time.
I wander sumptuous room after room, see bed after bed. Some of the rooms have nothing but beds.
I begin to feel uneasy. I dont like looking at these beds.
The beds disturb me.
I turn my head away, because they make me feel things I dont want to feel.
Need. Desire. Alone.
Empty beds.
Dont want to be alone anymore. So tired of being alone. Tired of waiting.
After a time, I stop looking in the rooms.
I was wrong when I thought it might not be possible to feel negative things inside the White Mansion.
Grief wells up inside me.
Ive lived so long. Lost so many things.
I force myself to focus. I remind myself that Im supposed to be looking for something. A mirror.
I love that mirror.
I shake my head. No, I dont. I just need it. I dont have any emotions about it!
It brings me such pleasure! It brings us together.
White marble, Darroc said. I need to find white-marble floors. Not crimson, not bronze, not pink, and especially not black.
I envision the mirror as he described it:ten feet tall, five feet wide.
Gilt-framed, like the ones at 1247 LaRuhe.
The mirror is a part of the vast Unseelie Hallow that is the network of Silvers. I can sense Hallows. I can sense all Fae OOPsObjects of Power. It is perhaps my greatest advantage.
I reach out with my sidhe-seer senses, expand and search.
I sense nothing. It didnt work in the Hall of All Days, either. Impossible, I suppose, to sense a Silver while inside the Silvers.
My feet turn me, and I begin walking in a new direction with complete confidence. Im suddenly certain I have seen the mirror I need many times and I know exactly where it is.
Ill find the way out long before Darroc does. And although I will not leave without himI have much use for himit will please me to best him.
I hurry down a mint corridor, turn without hesitation onto an iridescent path, and rush down a pale-blue hall. A corridor of silver turns to blush wine.
The mirror is ahead. It draws me. I cant wait to get to it.
Im focused, so focused that the crimson hallway barely makes a dent in my awareness.
Im focusedso focused on my goal that, by the time I realize what Ive done, its too late.
I dont know what makes me look down, but something does.
I freeze.
Im at a crossroads, the intersection of two halls.
I can go east, west, north, or southif such directions exist in the Housebut whichever way I choose, the floor is the same color.
Black.
I stand uncertainly, berating myself for screwing up again, when suddenly a hand slips into mine.
It is warm, familiar. And much too real.
I close my eyes. Ive been played with in Faery before. Who am I to be tortured with now? What is my punishment to be? Which ghost will nip at me now with needles for teeth?
Alina?
Barrons?
Both?
I fist my other hand so nothing can hold it.
I know better than to think if I keep my eyes closed my ghost will go away. It doesnt work that way. When your private demons decide to mess with you, they demand their pound of flesh. Its best to pay it and get it over with.
Then I can focus on finding my way off the black floor. I brace myself for how bad its going to be. I speculate that if golden floors in the Hall of ALL Days were bad, black floors in the White Mansion will be forgive the pun beyond the pale.
Fingers twine with mine. I know the hand as well as my own.
Sighing, I open my eyes.
I jerk away and scramble back frantically, boots slipping on the shiny black surface. I sprawl flat on my back with such a jolt that I bite my tongue.
I begin to hyperventilate. Does she see me? Does she know me? Is she there? Am I?