Madness At Noon {COMPLETED}

Hello! My Name Is 4/4

This has been the most difficult chapter I have ever written in my life. I have rewritten this at least 100 times, no exaggeration. I think I have finally found a version I can live with, and I feel really bad for making you guys wait so long (and I'm currently in Japan right now, so that's slowed things down just a tad too). Thank you all for your patience. The good news is, the rest of the book is indeed finished, so there will be no more several month waiting periods from now on for new chapters. 

No reply.

The Earth had stopped on its axis but I still spun, the colors of finery and lifeless eyes spinning and spinning. I turned slowly, searching for the changeling among humans.

Where are you?

I passed a server carrying a silver tray and took a champagne glass, sipping on the bubbling drink. Sweet almonds coated my tongue – cyanide. I downed the entire concoction.

I dare you, I said with my eyes, searching every shadow, every masked face. Poison me, send the firing squad after me, stab me through the heart, Madman. If you think you can.

A wind stirred, swirling through the skirts of the high ladies. A single fallen leaf scratched against the ground like a dead finger dragging itself across the tile.

Scritch scratch.

The champagne glass shattered in my hand.

I became as unmoving as the dancers. A drop of ruby red bubbled through the smallest of cuts on the back of my hand. I stayed perfectly still, eyes staring straight ahead, and breathed.

Decay. Blood. The scent of dank cellars rotting with leaves and crumbling earth. Of nightmares soaked in sweat and the stench of fear drowned within salty tears. Of dark places and forbidden corners caked with hundred-year-old dust. Of flakes of skin. Of burning smoke. Of mold. Of stagnant water. Of brilliant, bright copper. Fresh, dripping copper. Thick, heavy, suffocating copper.

Scritch scratch.

Warmth wrapped my ankles as a breeze twined around my body. Scritch scratch. Fingers of mist ran themselves across my thighs. Scritch scratch. Kisses of breath brushed against my shoulder, down both arms, tasting each finger, tracing symbols on my palms. Scritch scratch. A phantom tongue, as hot as a branding iron, licked away the drop of blood from the back of my hand as invisible arms wrapped around my waist. The arms crushed my chest so I could not move even if I wished it, could not breathe.

Scritch scratch.

Scritch scratch.

Scritch scratch.

And the breeze became a whisper dripping into my ears.

Welcome home, Princess Pandemonium.

Still, I did not move as my heart began beat, beat, beatbeatbeatbeating in my chest and every breath of air became a battle against the invisible bonds around my body. "I never left," I said.

A line of tension as thin as glass stretched taut between he and I.

You left me, said the wind. In the dark, in the earth. Down, down, down, down, down, down below where nooooone could find me. No one but the little crawly worms. Can you imagine how bored I was?

"Is that why you ruined my game?" I asked.

A puff of air brushed aside a strand of hair over my forehead and touched my porcelain mask. A gentle finger traced the edges of my false face, pausing at my mouth.