Within These Wicked Walls(45)

I quickly covered him back up where he had been hidden, but for a moment after I couldn’t move. That tapestry had been purposely moved from the wall to the floor to cover up the evidence of what the Evil Eye had done.

I got up and rushed out into the hall—moving too quickly made me light-headed, but that was the least of my worries. The random table and rug in the middle of the hall didn’t seem so random anymore. The small wooden table was heavier than it looked, but I shoved it over with my shoulder and kicked away the rug. The shocked, fossilized face of Edward stared back at me … the man whose kind eyes had greeted me that first night and had undoubtedly vanished that first Waking.

I threw the rug back over him and rushed to the wall, shifting over a tapestry. Nothing. I rushed down the hall, shifting every piece of wall décor I came across until I snatched away a basket that seemed to be hanging too low and found a hand reaching out to me as if begging for help.

I stood in the hall, trembling.

Emma had been right, in a way. The house was holding victims hostage, but I had a feeling there weren’t going to be any happy reunions after the Evil Eye was cleansed. The house was consuming them. Sucking the corpses dry and—my God—regurgitating the victims’ blood? I dry heaved at the thought of it, and then looked down the hall.

“Magnus?” The hall was quiet, and so my voice sounded far too loud, even without yelling. I didn’t hear the hopsicar, so went straight to the library. Magnus was drawing in his regular chair. He paused to throw a dart at the portrait of his father. It stuck firm into the canvas, joining a cluster of darts just below the man’s belt.

“Castrating your father?” I asked.

“A perfectly therapeutic way to spend the morning.” Magnus slapped his sketchbook shut and left it on his lap, giving me his full attention. He was grinning, seemingly clueless as to what had happened the night before. I would’ve been grateful for that, except that now I had to explain my gruesome findings.

“You slept in, Andromeda,” he said, shaking his pencil at me in chastisement. “I honestly didn’t know it was possible.”

God bless him, he was so cute, raising his thick eyebrows at me with such sweet curiosity. I felt overwhelmingly pleased to see it.

“The drugs made me do it,” I said stupidly, sitting beside him. He immediately reached over and took my hand. I accepted it, squeezed it too tight. His lies should’ve mattered to me, but they didn’t. At the moment there were bigger things to worry about. “I have to talk to you.”

His eyes widened as he saw my bandaged hand. “God. What happened?”

I took a deep breath. “People in the house aren’t vanishing. They’re being killed.”

The color fled from Magnus’s face. “Killed? By the Evil Eye? But I thought—” He looked as though he might vomit. I didn’t blame him. “I’d been taught that that’s what eye contact with the Evil Eye’s host did. But there are never any bodies found, and I can never remember what I did the next morning. So, I…” He tugged and poked at the weave of his sweater. “I assumed that maybe I wasn’t killing anyone after all.”

“There are bodies. The house is just consuming them. Haven’t you ever noticed the décor looks off?”

“I let Saba arrange the furniture how she wants.” He froze. “You’re not saying she—”

“No. No, she’s just covering it up. Because…” I swallowed. “Because she’s part of the Evil Eye, isn’t she?”

Magnus blinked at me. “What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong with Saba.”

I shook my hand from his, every deceitful thing he’d done slipping back to memory. “I don’t appreciate being lied to any more than you do, Magnus.”

He blinked at me, his brows lowering. “I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.”

“Are you playing dumb?”

“No, I just didn’t catch what you said—”

I leaned over the table and tugged his ear, raising my voice over his frantic protests. “Then I’ll repeat the question for you—”

“Okay, I heard you,” he fussed, prying my fingers from his ear.

“She has no heartbeat. Her skin is cold and shatters like pottery. No one in the house but the two of us seems to be able to see her. What is she?”

It only took him a moment to say “Will you shut the door?”

Who’s left to hear us? I almost blurted, but there was no point in rubbing salt in Magnus’s wound. I took a deep breath and rushed over to shove the door closed, then dropped down into the chair beside him again. “Talk,” I ordered.

“She’s a victim of the Evil Eye,” he said, still rubbing his ear.

“A victim?” My wild confidence began to crumble. “So she’s … dead?”

“Yes. Reanimated, but not truly alive.”

I froze. “B-but—” My dear friend Saba … dead? “But why? How?”

He sighed heavily, like he was weary from the question. “I don’t know if I can say.”

“This is life or death, Magnus. You have to tell me.” I reached across the small table and grabbed his hand to draw his attention to me. “Please. Tell me.”

Magnus didn’t look at me. That’s usually all he wanted to do, but now … “Don’t hate me because of it.”