When I return to the bedroom, the chest of books is still locked, so I flip open the little green book and hope for answers. My eyes scum the pages until I come to the beginning of the account by Eleanor Dare.

I was walking along the shoreline nearly a fortnight after I discovered I was with child when the sky took a golden haze, unlike any sunset that I had ever witnessed in England or elsewhere. It was an ethereal sight. For several moments, only beautiful was the adjective worth enlisting upon the wondrous sky.

However, the serene soon turned severe.

The gentle summer breeze began to rise, tugging at my skirts. The golden glow of the sky grew brighter and brighter until it became a blinding sheen, and the ground began to tremble. First, the quake was light, but it quickly transformed into shaking so fierce it threw me from my feet. In the distance, I heard a faint rumbling like the entire world was opening to Hell below.

There was a knock on the door, and I nearly jumped from my skin.

Ace slipped through the doorway, dressed in a burgundy shirt that made his amber eyes look especially red. Like a demon, I thought to myself.

His customary smirk danced on his face as he analyzed the bedroom and my position curled up in a ball with the book clasped in both hands. I straightened up self-consciously and kicked my legs over the side of the bed.

"What do you want?" I grumbled, forgoing greetings.

"You are still mad?" He asked, raising one eyebrow. "Whatever happened to absence making the heart grow fonder?"

"You lied to me," I growled, angry once more. I felt the disgusting sting of deceit. I'd really believed I could get home—that he could help me get home—and he'd gone and ruined my best chance of escape.

"Technically, I never lied," he clarified, unfazed by my anger.

"You never intended on helping me, but you made a promise to do so. That's lying."

"No," he volleyed. "I promised to help you if you met specific requirements, but you never did. I wasn't obligated to help you."

"So you would have kept your word if I'd found the correct exit?" I asked rhetorically, my tone marked with scathing.

His face grew serious for a moment. "Absolutely. I don't lie. I promised the Dare that I would keep an eye on you, and I did."

"It's just manipulation that you are guilty of then," I said.

He offered a contrived half-smile—one marked with grim understanding. It was the kind of pity that I wanted to slap off his face. "I'm afraid so."

I missed Auntie's morning muffins and philosophical discussions over coffee. I missed Ike's irritating obsession with manipulating the house's alarm system so that it would go off at random times during the day to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. I missed Uncle Coy's long-winded conversations about different coding languages and their benefits. I missed Elise's complaints about social media turning the next generation of leaders into mindless followers. I missed Colel's quick-witted jokes about our teachers and the funny nicknames she gives each of them. I missed all of Harris County, and most intensely, I missed my tiny town of Shiloh, and its quirky inhabitants. And this arrogant boy had used all of that against me.

"You can go," I snapped. I wanted to cry thinking about home. But I wasn't about to cry in front of him. Be strong. Be strong. Be strong.

"I'm sorry to bring you so much sadness," he said, quietly, before changing his tone to something lighter, "but I still have a job to do, so I have to stay with you for the afternoon. Which means you can either rise and come willingly, or I get the virago to come in here and drag you out."

He flashed a snarky grin for good measure, and, once again, I felt the unhealthy urge to hit him.

I used my anger to shove all the sadness away into the recesses of my brain. "I don't like you," I declared as I forced myself to stand. I refused to be weak in front of him.

"It's alright," he assured with the same irritating smile. "I like me enough for the both of us."

***

"Here we are," he declared, gesturing in front of him.

I marveled silently because he was talking to Reese and not me. He'd tried talking to me, but when that hadn't worked, he'd turned to Reese. They had chattered endlessly as we walked up flight after flight of stairs and wound through the maze of hallways and even passed through some weird looking scanners. 

"Golden sky above, I never get tired of that view," Reese exclaimed.

It was another spectacular room with vast paneled windows spanning the length of one wall and a dome-shaped skylight flooding the room with golden light. Everywhere the light fell, plants of all different types grew in raised flower beds. Some looked like crops, others were delicate flowers, and there were even a few full-blown trees in the largest plots.

"The Dare's Specialized Botanical Laboratory and Innovation Garden, also known as 'the BLIG'," Ace said, glancing again back at me.

He'd been doing that the entire trip, and I found it somewhat irksome.

"What do you think, Gwyn?" Ace asked.

"It's very pretty," I said flatly. He was attempting to include me, but I had no interest in being included.

He frowned for a heartbeat before a clever grin overtook his face. He turned to Rosamund who stood silently behind me. "Virago, you and the tyro really don't have to follow behind so closely now. The entire BLIG is outfitted with biofilters that would detect us trying to leave," he said, playing earnest.

"You've used tricks before," she replied, her sharp green eyes narrowed with distrust.

"Agreed, but if I had any Realm-enhanced technology on me, the Esse would have detected it," he said, gesturing to Reese.

Reese balked, looking startled by his comment, but Rosamund was less surprised. She narrowed her eyes carefully, taking note of his facial expressions like a botanist trying to decide whether or not an unfamiliar plant was poisonous. 

"Will you wear a collar to keep you honest?" Rosamund asked. Her gruff voice always seemed intimidating to me, but Ace only smirked.

"I would but seeing that there are no—"

She pulled a black metal band about the size of a choker out of her bag. His face fell slightly.

"Come now, virago. Surely you can agree that this is a little silly," he chirped, but she held the collar out firmly.

She kept her hand extended and said absolutely nothing.

After a moment's debate, he took the thin metal contraption and clipped it around his neck. It made him look kinda like a dog, I thought to myself. Once the collar was on, Rosamund flicked her hand at Reese and stepped back.

"Attempts at dissonance will be met with appropriate force," Rosamund promised him with a cold grin.

As soon as Rosamund stepped away, Ace headed in the opposite direction—into the gardens. He called for me to follow, and, in a moment of poor judgement and foolish curiosity, I did. Reece follow at my heels.

Ace wove through rows of bizarre-looking crops—strawberry bushes growing strawberries the size of fists, blackberry bushes sprouting obsidian, and grapevines dripping with neon yellow grapes—until we reached the segment where small trees grew. Under the patchy canopy of young trees, Ace spun around. He looked to Reece, flashing a smirk of devious nature. "Now the fun begins," he chirped.

It was a rapid sequence of events as he stepped forward, and I jumped backwards. He reached for Reece's wrist and touched her with his gloved hand. The instant his gloved fingers made contact with her exposed skin, she fell backwards with a confused look still covering her face. He held her wrist to slow her fall, and she landed softly on the stone floor.

Is she dead?!

Dun dun duh! We will see what happens Monday. So excited that I hit 100 subscribers today. Thank you for everyone’s support! Y’all mean the world to me. ❤️ 

-MM