Beneath the Porcelain Mask

22. Strange and Wild and Dark

This chapter is a bit too long but I think it's better to keep it in one part than split it. You'll see why.

With the foyer in darkness and the partygoers screaming all around me, I could hardly hear myself think. But one question kept coming to mind: how could he? How could he catch my eye and still threaten to kill people?

As Jeremy called to someone across the room, I squirmed out of his grip and bolted for the descending staircase. People smacked into me from all sides, altering my course every few steps until my foot slipped.

I gave a sharp cry, just managing to catch myself before I tumbled down the stairs. Ignoring Jeremy from somewhere behind me, I swallowed and bolted down.

Hidden passage, hidden passage, hidden passage. I threw myself against the far wall, slapping at different panels. Hidden passage, hidden passage, hidden- Aha!

The wall moved and I shot through it into the brightness of the tunnel, where a single torch lit the stone walls and floor. The panel closed behind me.

"Erik!" I called, fetching it from its holder and hurrying up the tunnel.

"Nikki!"

I froze in my run, staring back the way I'd come. If Jeremy hit it hard enough, and it the right place, it would move. I'd be caught by him and however many gendarmes were following.

"Nikki! Where did you go? Nikita!"

Shuddering at the thought, I hurried on, the dress doing nothing to help me run.

The tunnel was by no means the shortest route to the fifth cellar. It was one of the longer paths, littered with traps and sharp descents, a cross-country run in the dark cellars designed to keep gendarmes busy while we scarpered.

"Erik!" I called again, finally reaching the lake, out of breath and desperate to be let out of my corset. I contemplated using the little juts along the lakeside to get to the portcullis passageway, but on second thoughts, my crinoline would never allow it. Neither was the boat there, and when I tried the passage to my room, it was shut.

Erik had retreated into his little burrow and locked the world out.

And now, where it never had before, that included me.

~•~•~•~■~•~•~•~

"Erik?" I hissed, opening the library door quietly and peering in. I'd waited six hours before I heard the sound of the portcullis passageway opening and by now, after dozing on the bank of the lake, my once beautiful dress was damp and even ripped in places. I'd managed to slip in when he shooed Monkey Nadir out and had forgotten to close the door.

"Are you in here?" I crept the rest of the way in, cursing the creaking floorboard under my breath and closing the door softly behind me.

One foot in front of the other, I tiptoed over to the opposite wall, where the lit, roaring fireplace warmed the dark floor and illuminated the high shelves of books that lined every inch of wall they could.

I selected a random title and flipped to the first page it opened at, skimming through it without taking anything in.

"What are you doing here now? I thought I'd scared you off for good." The growling voice made me jump slightly. I glanced over my shoulder at where Erik was sitting in the high-backed armchair, a glass and bottle of red wine on the side table next to him. Still dressed in his red cloak and feathery hat, he was staring into the flames across from him, running the tip of his finger around the rim of the glass occasionally. Either way, he was stubbornly refusing to look at me.