overhanging tower. Below, the uncaring ocean crashed. My hands clutched the stone railing of the walkway and I was unable to make myself move in any direction.
For minutes, I stood, completely alone. Everyone I had ever loved was gone. Black winds whipped around me, but I barely felt them.
A voice crawled through the night.
Cassandra....
Balthazar called to me through the stone walls and corridors, his voice slow and hissing.
Come....
My body trembled uncontrollably, revulsion bleeding into my skin.
Numbly, I moved toward where his chambers lay.
At the other end of the walkway, the passage plunged down. My breaths grew ragged and brittle. Massive arched doors stood at the end of the passage, tree roots growing over them—doors that no one had passed through for centuries. With a series of groaning cracks, the roots broke away. The doors fell inward like a mouth—cold, stale breath rushing out.
Each step brought me closer.
Each step took me further away.
My lamp snuffed out, pitching me into complete darkness. One by one, dim lamps flickered alight around the cavernous space inside Balthazar’s chambers—the horror revealing itself piece by piece.
Two empty cradles standing side-by-side.
A set of tin soldiers on a shelf.
A decayed doll on top of a set of heavy drawers.
Strange, fantastical devices.
Torture machines—the same as in the dungeons—and worse....
An indistinct blackened figure sitting with his back to me at a wide desk, writing with a quill.
Bile rose in my throat.
Come....
Another lamp lit up.
I saw a four-poster bed with ragged curtains. A marriage bed.
My intestines turned to ice water.
Come....
My body crossed the threshold. But my mind was away, screaming in silence over the vast reaches of ocean.
The air thickened with earth and decay.
In a dark recess, too far to see clearly, some kind of cabinet spanned the length and breadth of an entire wall.
I moved as far away from him as I could, toward the cabinet. The cabinet was made up of sixty or more compartments, twenty compartments wide and three rows high—each row taller than me. Each door was framed with wood and held tight with a lock, the glass darkened with age. On a wall that stood in front of the cabinets, beside the baby cribs, a large wooden board held dozens and dozens of single keys—every key distinctly different. The keys had to be for the cabinet.
Two more lamps lit up, one on either side of the cabinet.
Girls stood trapped within the cabinet doors. Girls in dresses of centuries past.
A keening sound emitted from my throat, my breathing scattered and frantic.
My face stayed frozen in place as my gaze dropped to my left shoulder.
Breath, hot and raspy, brushed my shoulder’s skin.
“Doth thee like them?” His voice was dry and hollow like bones. He appeared beside me.
A single thought tore through my senses.
Run....
But there was nowhere to run.
No escape.
Trembling, I backed away.
“Such beauty. Young for all time. Look, look how fine and lovely they art.”
His leathery hand reached under my chin, guided my face around.
I stared at the girls—girls with pale skin and olive skin and skin of deep brown, and stiff hair of black and yellow and red.
Breath eased from my lungs. They were not real. Their faces were crafted and painted to look alive, but they were not alive. I could see wooden joins in their arms—strings hanging from their limbs.
Marionettes.
A giant curio-cabinet of marionettes.
“They art carved from the tree of the walnut,” he whispered. “Such smooth, fine wood. They look so lifelike, no? Just as they did when they be flesh and blood.”
My gaze swept across them. So many girls, filling over half of the cabinet’s compartments. Such a strange collection.
An arm was missing from one of the marionettes. A bone hung loose from her shoulder—a human arm bone.
My mind eroded, my mouth open and quavering.
“Yes, yes,” he breathed, “this one needs repairing. The wood
For minutes, I stood, completely alone. Everyone I had ever loved was gone. Black winds whipped around me, but I barely felt them.
A voice crawled through the night.
Cassandra....
Balthazar called to me through the stone walls and corridors, his voice slow and hissing.
Come....
My body trembled uncontrollably, revulsion bleeding into my skin.
Numbly, I moved toward where his chambers lay.
At the other end of the walkway, the passage plunged down. My breaths grew ragged and brittle. Massive arched doors stood at the end of the passage, tree roots growing over them—doors that no one had passed through for centuries. With a series of groaning cracks, the roots broke away. The doors fell inward like a mouth—cold, stale breath rushing out.
Each step brought me closer.
Each step took me further away.
My lamp snuffed out, pitching me into complete darkness. One by one, dim lamps flickered alight around the cavernous space inside Balthazar’s chambers—the horror revealing itself piece by piece.
Two empty cradles standing side-by-side.
A set of tin soldiers on a shelf.
A decayed doll on top of a set of heavy drawers.
Strange, fantastical devices.
Torture machines—the same as in the dungeons—and worse....
An indistinct blackened figure sitting with his back to me at a wide desk, writing with a quill.
Bile rose in my throat.
Come....
Another lamp lit up.
I saw a four-poster bed with ragged curtains. A marriage bed.
My intestines turned to ice water.
Come....
My body crossed the threshold. But my mind was away, screaming in silence over the vast reaches of ocean.
The air thickened with earth and decay.
In a dark recess, too far to see clearly, some kind of cabinet spanned the length and breadth of an entire wall.
I moved as far away from him as I could, toward the cabinet. The cabinet was made up of sixty or more compartments, twenty compartments wide and three rows high—each row taller than me. Each door was framed with wood and held tight with a lock, the glass darkened with age. On a wall that stood in front of the cabinets, beside the baby cribs, a large wooden board held dozens and dozens of single keys—every key distinctly different. The keys had to be for the cabinet.
Two more lamps lit up, one on either side of the cabinet.
Girls stood trapped within the cabinet doors. Girls in dresses of centuries past.
A keening sound emitted from my throat, my breathing scattered and frantic.
My face stayed frozen in place as my gaze dropped to my left shoulder.
Breath, hot and raspy, brushed my shoulder’s skin.
“Doth thee like them?” His voice was dry and hollow like bones. He appeared beside me.
A single thought tore through my senses.
Run....
But there was nowhere to run.
No escape.
Trembling, I backed away.
“Such beauty. Young for all time. Look, look how fine and lovely they art.”
His leathery hand reached under my chin, guided my face around.
I stared at the girls—girls with pale skin and olive skin and skin of deep brown, and stiff hair of black and yellow and red.
Breath eased from my lungs. They were not real. Their faces were crafted and painted to look alive, but they were not alive. I could see wooden joins in their arms—strings hanging from their limbs.
Marionettes.
A giant curio-cabinet of marionettes.
“They art carved from the tree of the walnut,” he whispered. “Such smooth, fine wood. They look so lifelike, no? Just as they did when they be flesh and blood.”
My gaze swept across them. So many girls, filling over half of the cabinet’s compartments. Such a strange collection.
An arm was missing from one of the marionettes. A bone hung loose from her shoulder—a human arm bone.
My mind eroded, my mouth open and quavering.
“Yes, yes,” he breathed, “this one needs repairing. The wood
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