The Wish Granter (Ravenspire #2)(64)

Frowning, she tossed off the covers and stood. The dusty wooden floor creaked, and something soft and damp swept over the bottoms of her feet—something that felt suspiciously like a tongue.

Ari shrieked and jumped onto the bed again, her heart pounding wildly as she stared at the floor.

It was empty of everything but the pair of sandals she’d been wearing the night before.

She huddled in the center of the bed for a moment longer, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Tentatively, she scooted to the edge of the bed and carefully touched one toe to the floor.

Nothing happened.

Maybe she was still suffering the aftereffects of the tea. She’d seen the walls breathing right before she fell asleep, so clearly ingesting fae magic caused hallucinations.

Telling herself this made sense, she slowly put both feet over the edge of the bed and stood.

The floor rippled with a soft shush that sounded like the whisper of the wind through a tree’s leaves and the same damp thing swept over her feet.

Ari leaped for the bed again, her body shuddering. She tucked her feet beneath her, wrapped her arms around her stomach, and rocked back and forth.

Maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe not. Regardless, she had no intention of getting out of bed until either the floor stopped doing whatever it was doing or Maarit came to check on her and explained what was going on.

She huddled on the bed, shivering in the damp sea breeze and staring at the motionless floor, until she gradually became aware of a whisper behind her.

Her heart thudded heavily against her ribs as she turned her head.

The wall was breathing.

In.

Out.

In.

Out.

Gentle swells lifted and fell, and Ari’s eyes widened in horror as a twig peeled away from the trunk closest to the center of the headboard and stretched toward her.

It chuffed, the two leaves that clung to it flaring like nostrils.

It was sniffing her.

Ari scrambled back until she was at the far edge of the bed. Panic, bright and jagged, raced through her, leaving her trembling in its wake.

Hallucination or not, she needed out of this room before she started screaming.

Without giving herself time to second-guess it, Ari leaped out of bed, skidded across the floor, and shoved her feet into her sandals as the (completely creepy) floor rippled and shuddered beneath her. Then she raced for the door, hauled it open, and hurried into the hall.

Her room was on the second floor, close to the landing on the stairs that connected all three levels of the villa. The hall was covered with a thick green rug, and thankfully the floor remained still as she grabbed the wooden bannister and started down the stairs.

Halfway down, a twig curled out of the underside of the bannister and brushed the back of her hand. She yanked her hand to her chest and stumbled down the rest of the stairs, bracing herself in case something else that shouldn’t be alive reached for her.

Lanterns already burned in the main level of the house as the gloom of twilight filled the sky outside the windows. Ari stood in the parlor at the base of the stairs, trying to figure out where to find the kitchen, even as she watched the walls, floors, and anything else made of wood with a close eye. Plush chairs covered in evergreen velvet flanked bookcases that stretched from the floor to the ceiling along one wall. The other wall held curio shelves full of fairy statuettes dancing in grotesquely beautiful poses, carved ivory instruments, and sculptures of beasts that looked at once familiar and terrifyingly strange. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust, but still the effect of the green rug and chairs, the wood-covered walls, and the pale yellow ceiling made her feel like she was trapped inside a fae forest.

Her pulse jerked unsteadily as one of the statuettes slowly pivoted until it could look Ari in the eyes.

The princess hugged herself and scanned the room for a way out. From the north side of the parlor, a hall bisected the back of the villa with doors leading to rooms on either side. In the other direction, the parlor’s doorway led to what looked like a formal dining room, which meant the kitchen would be close by.

Ari started in that direction, but froze when Teague’s polished marble voice echoed from the hallway behind her.

“Princess Arianna, I’ve been expecting you for some time. I’m told you woke nearly an hour ago.”

She turned, and the room seemed to quiver and stretch wider than it had been a moment earlier. Her voice sounded small as she asked, “Who told you that?”

He stepped into the parlor, his immaculate clothing pressed to perfection, his alabaster skin glowing in the lantern light, and smiled coldly. “The house, of course. It’s been months since it woke up. I never know what will set it off, but it seems to find humans interesting.”

Ari wanted to deliver a fabulously sarcastic reply, but the fairy statuette was slowly spinning, its face split with a maniacal smile, and several of the monstrous sculptures were blinking as they watched her.

Teague beckoned her toward him, and she moved forward on feet that felt as though she’d kept them in the frigid winter waters of the Chrysós for too long. Another twig unfurled from the closest wall and hovered over her head. She flinched and stepped aside before it could sniff her.

Teague’s laugh was cruel. “Best to let the fae wood get acquainted with you, or it will never leave you alone.”

“Fae wood?” She shuddered as the twig dipped down and swept its leaves over her cheek. Tiny little puffs of air tickled her skin, and she was swamped with the scent of damp forest floors and sunlit treetops.