Cruel Beauty (Cruel Beauty Universe #1)(22)

And then I left. Because I had a house to explore, a husband to defeat, and no time at all to waste.


I passed five more doors locked beyond the power of my key, then climbed a narrow stairway made of dark wood carved with roses that creaked with every step. At the top was a hallway with thick green carpet. Three of the doors in that hallway opened, but though I stood in each room with my eyes closed for over a minute, I could sense no trace of Hermetic power.

I should mark my path, I thought as I rattled my key in the lock of the last door before the hallway turned right.

A gust of sharp autumn air blew down the corridor, rippling my skirt and lifting my hair. I spun around, tasting wood smoke.

Behind me was a plain wooden wall on which hung a floor-length mirror; its bronze frame was molded into countless nymphs and satyrs frolicking among grapevines. My face stared back at me, wide-eyed and stiff.

The house changes, I thought numbly. It has a will and it changes at its own caprice. Maybe next the floor would shatter beneath me, or the ceiling would sink down to crush me—or maybe the house would simply box me into a doorless room to die screaming as the demons bubbled up from the cracks between the floorboards—

Or maybe the house was just another subject of Ignifex’s power, and right now he was laughing as he watched me panic. So I could not show fear. I drew one slow breath and then another. If Ignifex wanted me dead right now, I would not be breathing. Clearly he intended to play with me, and that meant I had a chance to win.

If I thought of the house as a maze, I had no hope. I still got lost in Father’s box-hedge maze; I’d never solve this labyrinth.

But if I considered it a riddle . . . The house was a Hermetic working. And I had trained to master those all my life.

There is an ancient Hermetic saying: “Water is born from the death of air, earth from the death of water, fire from the death of earth, air from the death of fire.” In their eternal dance, the elements overpower and arise from one another in this order, and every Hermetic working must follow it.

Maybe I had to unravel the house’s mysteries in this order too.

I had no materials for writing. But I traced the Hermetic sigil to evoke earth on the wall beside me again and again, until I could feel the invisible lines glimmering with possibility. Then I laid my hand against the phantom sigil and thought of earth: Thick, fragrant loam behind the house, where Astraia and I once dug with our bare hands to plant stolen rose cuttings. Thin gray dust on the summer wind, blown into my mouth to grit against my teeth. Father’s rock collection: malachite, rhodonite, and the slab of simple limestone inlaid with the skeleton of a curious fanged bird with claws on its wings.

To my left, I felt an answering glimmer.

I took the first corridor branching off to the left, even though it was narrow and carved from damp gray stone. There were only three doors, none of which would open, and then the corridor ended. I tried the sigil again.

Now the glimmer was behind me.

So I doubled back. And circled. I hunted all day for the Heart of Earth, but I could never get close to it. The corridors always twisted and betrayed me, until I wondered if it was my own imagination that betrayed me into thinking I had sensed something.

Finally I took a bearing and was able to follow it down three corridors and through five doors—until I came to a door of dark red wood, and my key stuck in the lock. With a short scream, I yanked the key out. The ruddy, polished grain of the wood felt like it was smirking at me.

Frustration choked me like a stone rammed down my throat. The bones in my hands buzzed with the need to strike something, but I didn’t know which I hated more: the smiling door or my own stupid self. With a groan, I leaned my head against the door.

Something clicked, deep within the wood, and the door swung open. I stumbled forward into a small, square room of dark stone. It was completely bare except for a small Hermetic lamp sitting just inside the door and a mirror hanging on the opposite wall.

In the center of the mirror was a keyhole.

In an instant I was trying my key, but it wouldn’t even go in all the way, let alone turn the lock. I traced a Hermetic diagram for weakening bonds, but that also did nothing—of course, for it was a paltry technique I had learnt on my own when avoiding the studies Father had set for me. He’d never been interested in teaching me anything besides the sigils and diagrams necessary for his strategy. Maybe he’d worried I would use the knowledge to run. More likely, he just hadn’t thought it important. I grimaced, ready to turn and go.

My face faded from the mirror.

A moment later, the reflection of the room around me was gone too. Instead—slightly blurred, as if somebody had breathed upon the glass, but still quite recognizable—I saw Astraia sitting at the table with Father and Aunt Telomache. A black ribbon was tied in a bow around the back of my customary chair—apparently that was the proper way to show you had sold your daughter to a demon—but Astraia was laughing.

Laughing.

As if she’d never cried, as if I’d never been cruel to her. As if Father and Aunt Telomache had never lied to give her false hope. As if I’d never existed.

It felt like somebody had scooped out my chest and packed the cavity with ice. I didn’t even realize I was moving until my hands gripped the mirror frame and my nose was inches from the glass.

Father nodded and reached across the table to put his hand over Astraia’s. Aunt Telomache smiled, her face creasing into something almost gentle. Astraia wriggled in her seat, the center of the world.