Kane had so many questions, about Dean being here, about Sophia and Elliot and Adeline and how they were all going to survive this, but before he could say another word his throat hissed shut. The sconces lining the hall flickered; a threat. Stale oxygen roiled in Kane’s chest, spinning him around until he fell into Dean. Slowly his throat reopened. He exhaled unsteadily, just a few deep blue breaths, and let Dean comfort him.
“What’s wrong?” Dean’s hands fell over Kane, strong and knowing as they grazed Kane’s ribs, his neck. “Can you speak? Why aren’t you speaking?”
“Don’t you know?” Sophia joined them. “This is the infamous Willard Beazley. He’s…well…” she gave Dean a wide-eyed warning, hinting at some great scandal.
Dean’s hands tucked into his coat as Kane stood himself up. Sophia talked about Kane like he was one of the paintings on the wall.
“You shouldn’t bother with Willard Beazley. He’s Eva Beazley’s oldest, the one who left. He hasn’t been the same since he got back from his holiday.” She raised her eyebrows for holiday, implying it had not been a nice one. “Doesn’t talk to anyone anymore. The poor thing.” She looked at Kane and enunciated her words loudly. “I Am Sorry For Yelling At You, Willard. You Just Surprised Me.”
Kane still couldn’t reconcile seeing his sister here, like this. Her curls were woven with downy blossoms, and she wore a golden gown that matched the vest beneath Dean’s coat. He gathered they were a young couple. Guests at the wedding and not main characters.
Good.
Still, Kane felt a subtle shift ripple through the fabric of this world. It was watching them.
He took Sophia’s hand and pulled her away from the ballroom, farther down the hall. She let him.
“It’s okay!” She flapped her hands at Dean. “He’s harmless, dear! Where are we going, Willard? What do you wish to show us?” Then to Dean: “This is perfect. An opportunity to see what the Beazleys hide in all these rooms. No one can get mad at us if we’re just taking care of Willard.”
Kane lead the trio through the cavernous house, looking for an exit. The escape took them through room after room full of indigo shadows and chocked with furniture, but never back outside, as though the house knew better then to let them go. They kept ending up in the massive library, instead. While Sophia poked through books, Dean took Kane to an alcove to talk.
“We must go back. There is no outrunning a reverie. You’ll have to unravel it when it is ready. When you are ready.”
Kane felt many things. Mostly fear, but also captivation. Dean was the prettiest boy he had ever seen up close. Kane bit down on the surge of electricity that came with Dean’s breath on his lips, his chin. An accent rounded his words, and it was powerful in a way Kane didn’t know he was powerless against. Kane turned away. Still, they stood too close in the narrow alcove. Kane didn’t know if they were enemies or friends. For now, they were simply close.
“You’re more powerful than you know. Than the Others are telling you,” said Dean. He fit to the curve of Kane’s back, and his knuckle brushed Kane’s temple where the burns began. “Never expect a world designed for someone else to show you mercy. When it’s your turn, you cannot flinch.”
Somewhere nearby came a click, then a yelp from Sophia. They found her at the back-most bookcase, halfway through a previously hidden passage in the wall.
“I knew it!” she whispered, pulling them in. “The Beazleys are known for two things: their sudden wealth and the secrecy it demands. I believe I just found our way toward an explanation for both.”
Kane again felt that bristling dread, that subtle shift among the threads of the reverie. They had been led here for a reason. This reason. But were they abiding by the plot, or defying it? Was this part of Ursula’s book, or an embellishment born of Helena’s mind? As they entered a passage of velvet blackness he found the whistle in his pocket. He should have blown it when he had the chance, but now their sneaking demanded utter silence.
They crept down a spiraling staircase lined in spitting gaslights. When Kane stumbled, Dean caught his wrist. They held hands the rest of the way, until they entered a room that must have been deep beneath the estate.
It was a laboratory of umber wood and frosted glass. A wide desk stood in the corner, covered in brass contraptions and beakers of smoky liquid. It sat beneath an even bigger mirror. In all the cases, glittering like trapped starlight, were eggs. Hundreds of bejeweled eggs.
It was, and was not, a version of the living room Kane had seen in the videos of Maxine Osman. Kane doubted that steampunk technology or precious eggs were written into The Devil in the Lily. Whatever world they explored, it was not the predictable book Ursula believed she was acting out. She couldn’t know all its secrets.
Sophia’s eyes glistened as she surveyed the collection. “I knew it. I knew it. The Beazleys make their money in the trade of precious stones and metals, but no one can figure out their source. Mines, my father says. Or pirates. But this proves my theory! The Beazleys don’t mine their precious stones. They breed them. You saw those splendid creatures in the garden, didn’t you? The fish and the peacocks and that gargantuan turtle crusted in jade? Like everyone, I figured they’d simply been ornamented for the wedding, but no. Those creatures were hatched that way.”
Kane remembered the delicate, enamel birds he’d seen upstairs. He remembered Helena, as an old woman, telling the interviewer about the ornamental egg collection that she and Maxine shared. We talk about what would hatch from them. This, then, was their game made real. A vein of fantasy stitched through the Victorian elegance of Helena’s reverie.
Kane needed to get back to Ursula. He hovered by Sophia, unsure of how to dislodge her from her snooping. She was peering into an open case at an egg of exquisite rose gold. Ribbons of green enamel folded over the curved bottom, like new leaves, each dotted with pearls and diamonds so that the egg seemed to shiver with fresh dew.
When Sophia reached in to touch it, Dean grabbed her hand away. His eyes were distant.
“We shouldn’t be here.”
“This laboratory shouldn’t be here, either, yet it is,” said Sophia. “And besides, Willard led us here. On accident. Right, Willard?”
Kane resented being used as a prop, but to show it would defy Sophia’s understanding of him. In both the reverie and reality, actually. He tried to catch Dean’s eye, but the boy was looking at the stairs. Nervous, Kane rolled the whistle in his palms.
“Someone’s coming!” Dean said. There was a commotion as the three tried to hide, all of them crushing into the space under the desk.
Nothing happened, and it seemed like Dean was mistaken. And then, sure enough, a person appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
Kane watched in the mirror.