Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
I set the book down on the table beside my empty cup. Lean my head back against the velvet armchair. The cushions seem to mold around me, impossibly soft.
I'll just close my eyes for a second.
Just until I can gather the energy to face whatever disaster is waiting for me at the studio.
Just until...
I WAKE UP TO THE SOUND of running.
Not running. Fleeing. Frantic footsteps on marble, the rustle of fabric, ragged breathing that sounds like barely-contained sobs.
I jerk upright and the world is wrong.
No velvet armchair. No amber lanterns. No bookshelves arranged by color like a designer's fever dream.
Instead: marble floors, so polished I can see the ghost of my own reflection. Stained glass windows that fragment the light into shattered rainbows. Pews draped in black silk, and roses everywhere, massive arrangements of them, the kind that cost more per stem than I make in an hour. They're beautiful. They're also scentless, which means they're the really expensive kind, bred for appearance over everything else.
A chapel.
I'm standing in a chapel.
And there's a figure in black running toward me.
My first thought, absurdly, is: Ghost.
My second thought is to form a cross with my fingers because that's what they do in the movies, right? Ghosts hate crosses? Or is that vampires? Either way, I'm raising my hands, ready to—
Wait.
Is that mascara running down her cheeks?
Since when do ghosts wear makeup?
"S'il vous plaît!"
And speak French?
The ghost—woman—bride?—grabs my shoulders, and her nails dig in hard enough to make me wince.
Okay, definitely real. Definitely real because she smells amazing, like jasmine and something sweeter, and her nails are also definitely going to leave marks.
I look at her, but my own confusion and shock makes me blind to her as a human. All I can see is her as the subject of a photo. Black gown trailing behind her like a river of ink, veil half-torn and streaming. Even with her makeup ruined and her hair coming loose from what was probably an elaborate updo, she's the kind of beautiful that doesn't seem real. The kind you see in Renaissance paintings, all soft edges and luminous skin. Delicate features. The sort of bone structure that looks good from every—
"Are you listening to me?!"
She’s switched to English, and it makes her terror more palpable. And instantly effective in snapping me out of my mental fugue.
Focus, Bailey!
“He’s gone insane!”
Who’s he, and why should I care?
“You should hide, too!”
Before I can respond, she's running again. Heading for the left wall, for a panel carved with roses that I somehow know isn't just decorative.
She presses her palm against the center bloom.
A door groans open. Hidden. Secret.
She looks back at me one more time. Her eyes are the color of rain, wide with terror and something that might be gratitude.
And then she's gone.
Swallowed by the darkness behind the wall.
The door slides shut.
I stand there.
Alone.
In a chapel that smells like money and scentless roses and someone else's ruined wedding.
My brain is doing that thing it does when too much is happening at once. Just...stalling. Buffering. Like a computer that's been asked to process a file that's way too big.
Okay. Okay. Let's break this down.
Fact one: I was in a bookshop.
Fact two: I drank mysterious tea.
Fact three: I fell asleep.
Fact four: I am now in a chapel.
Fact five: A bride just ran past me and disappeared through a secret door.
Fact six: She told me to hide because someone—"he"—has gone insane.
Conclusion: I am hallucinating. That tea was definitely drugged. This is all happening in my head while my body is probably slumped in that velvet armchair and the mysterious shopkeeper is calling an ambulance—
The chapel doors burst open.
MEN POUR IN.
A dozen of them, maybe more, all in dark suits, all armed. They fan out with military precision, guns raised, and within seconds I'm surrounded.
I should be terrified.
I am terrified.
But there's also a small, hysterical part of my brain that's thinking: This is the inciting incident. This is where the story really starts.
Which means—
The men part.
And he walks through.
I didn't look at his illustration in the book. I skipped right past it, didn't let myself linger, didn't want to know what he looked like.
But I know anyway.
Dark hair, a little too long, pushed back from a face that's all sharp angles. Golden eyes. Actually golden, like honey, like amber, like something that shouldn't exist in nature. The kind of coloring you'd have to color-correct in post because no one would believe it was real.
He's tall. Broad-shouldered. Wearing a suit that fits him so perfectly it had to be made for him, charcoal gray with a subtle sheen that catches the stained-glass light.
The light from the windows falls directly on his face. It should be unflattering, that angle. It exposes everything. Most people look worse in direct overhead light; it creates shadows under the eyes, highlights every flaw.