Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) (36 page)

“We won’t leave you,” said Molly.

“I need you to,” I told her. “I need to know you’ll all be safe. You’re all exhausted from the battle with the castle. And some of you can’t run or aren’t strong enough to run—or climb, and there’s a long chain to get down. You can’t come where I’m going.”

“We’ll only slow you down, won’t we?” Raif looked down at the loose sleeve of his missing arm. “I’ll guard the girls, as best I can.”

“Thank you,” I breathed.

We hugged, together as a group. I prayed we’d all be together again soon.

Prudence, Molly, Sophronia and Nabaasa cast tense, regretful looks at me as they moved away into the darkness with Raif. Prudence stared back over her shoulder, her eyes large. I tried to smile, even as my insides tore at watching her walk away from me.

Ethan, Ben and Lacey remained by my side. We turned and raced away toward the dungeon. It was the only way left.

The tunnels had changed, moved. The
désorienter
had cut off paths.

The people of the castle were moving closer—soon we’d be found. Desperately, I tried another way. We raced through the labyrinthine tunnels of the castle. A wall plunged down, cutting us off again.

I glanced back over my shoulder. “If any of you get separated from our group, make your way to the chapel, and head back to the museum. Do you promise?”

Ben and Lacey gave quick nods, their breaths hard and rapid. Ethan met my gaze but I could tell he would refuse to make such a promise.

Lacey trained her flashlight over a set of spiral stairs ahead. “Is this way okay?”

“I don’t know it,” I said, “but we’re out of choices.”

We rushed up the steps.

I cursed as the top landing of the stairs led out to the castle ballroom. Zach’s father and a few of the castle men stopped dead and fired their guns at us.

“The library,” I breathed.

Ethan, Ben and Lacey followed after me as I ran inside the library. I shoved the secret bookcase wall aside, exposing the staircase that led down to the dungeon. Before I could step onto the staircase, the floor rumbled and shot upward. It then raced sideways at a crazy speed, flinging us to the floor. Ben grabbed Lacey’s hand as the floor shuddered to a stop. We were in my old room—the room I’d been imprisoned in with the otherworld Molly. The door was locked.

A stone wall slid between us like a freight train. Ben and Lacey’s heads jerked up as the wall sped past them, slamming into the other end of the room. They were cut off from Ethan and me.

Ethan’s arms came around me, shielding me as the floor beneath us shuddered. With a deafening grinding noise, the floor moved upward. The room came to a jolting stop on the next floor. I knew the room the library had joined with—the strange room with the masks and theatrical costumes that led out to the halls of mirrors.

“Be careful!” I warned. “We have to stay together.” I entwined my fingers in Ethan’s.

The crystal eye was a dead weight on my back as we stepped into the hall. I needed to get to the cave. There were stairs on the other side of the mirrors that led to the dungeon. I needed to find them.

Ethan pulled his hand from mine, reaching to hold my face. “Cassie, let me take the eye. Let me do it. I want you to get out of here.”

I shook my head. “I can’t. I have to do this. It’s mine to do.”

“Why is it yours to do?” His voice was harsh.

I saw his intent, shadowed eyes in a hundred mirrors. The crashing sounds of the
désorienter
claimed every space around us, almost drowning out all thought.

“It’s like I’ve always known I’d come to this point. Ethan, it has to be me.”

He turned his head away from me, dropping his hands. “I told you I don’t believe in destiny.”

“It’s not my destiny,” I cried above the noise. “It’s my will.”

How could I explain this burning, all-consuming need in my soul?

“I’ll give you the gun,” I told him, drawing it out from my pocket. “I’m a terrible shot anyway, and it’s better in your hands.”

He took the weapon, but his expression remained dubious, afraid for me.

“We need to hurry!” I walked forward, down the hall. Everywhere I looked, I saw my pale face—but there was no terror in my expression now. I was determined, focused. A center of calm entered me.

A rumble shot beneath my feet ahead. This floor was on the move. I turned, but what I’d thought was Ethan by my side was now just his reflection.

“Ethan!” I screamed.

“Cassie! Where are you?” I heard his desperate voice, but I could see only his reflection repeated in dozens of mirrors.

I could wait no longer. I remembered how to leave the halls of mirror—you had to do the opposite that your mind was telling you.

“Ethan! Go backwards! It’s your way out!” Turning, I ran backwards, sprawling onto the floor of another space—a space without mirrors. I waited an anxious few seconds for Ethan to step out from the halls. But he didn’t come. “Ethan! Ethan!” I called.

The wall shifted—moving upwards. He was being taken away from me.

I had to keep going.

With a cry catching in my lungs, I turned and raced for the stairs that led to the dungeons.

C
ASSIE

The gloom of the dungeons closed over me as I fled down the stairs, blood pounding in my head. I had to get across to the room where Voulo repaired the marionettes, and take the way down that led to the ocean walkway—before any more walls blocked my way.

The stairs looked as terrifying as the first time I’d seen them—a hundred stairs overlooking the dungeons, leading bolt-straight down into darkness, with no railing to stop the unwary from falling and plunging to their death. Lamps burning on the walls of the dungeons gave off a sickly light.

I hurried down the steps, sending myself willingly into that cursed, evil space. The dead and coppery smell sucked into my nostrils and down into my lungs.

As I stepped onto the broad stonework, I could almost sense the footsteps that had crossed this floor before me. Shaking, terrified prisoners of all ages being sent to Balthazar’s torture chambers. And I could sense Balthazar himself—his horror had seeped into every stone of the floor and walls.

I turned sharply in every direction. He was here.
Balthazar
. Dread and fear were icy fingers brushing my spine. The air itself breathed down on top of me.

A low sound—a voice— hissed through the narrow walls of the passage ahead.

Cassandra
.

He was calling me, summoning me.

My breath turned to stone in my throat as he stepped out, a smile curling into his cruel mouth. His skin had grayed and mottled. The veneer of a handsome young man was already in decay.

His cloak fluttered from his shoulders. “Before this hour is through, thou wilt knowest thy place, Cassandra. Thou wilt know pain that wilt take thee beyond insanity. Thee wilt beg and scream for my mercy.” His eyes hardened. “But there wilt be no mercy.”

A dark figure raced down the stairs behind me. Ethan jumped from the last ten steps, his face holding a sheen of sweat. He leapt from the last few steps and ran to me. “I found you! I didn’t know where you—”

Balthazar had vanished.

“Ethan,” I breathed. “Go back. Go back!”

Balthazar appeared directly behind Ethan, his expression ugly. “This unworthy beggar hath your affections, Cassandra?”

Ethan startled, but he didn’t turn around and give Balthazar satisfaction. He kept his eyes on me. “She has mine,” he stated fiercely, “forever and ever.”

Ethan held my arms. “Let’s get out of here!” But his eyes told a different story. His eyes told a story of a battle that was already lost. We were no match for Balthazar. We couldn’t fight him, we couldn’t outrun him.

A flash of silver arced through the air as Balthazar drew his sword. With a shout, he lifted the sword and plunged it downward.

“No!” I screamed.

Balthazar’s cloak swooped across my face like the wings of a bird of prey.

Gasping, I looked around for Ethan. He was gone. All I could see was Balthazar’s brutal face before me, mocking me.

A voice whispered in my ear. “Come on, Cassie!”

I wheeled around. Ethan’s dark eyes stared into mine and he nodded at me urgently. “We’ll find another way to the cave.”

Relief flooded me at the sight of his face, blood pumping back into my limbs.

Balthazar took a step back, as though he was going to let us leave. I didn’t understand, but I didn’t question it. This was not a time for questions.

We raced together up the stairs. Ethan stopped at the top landing. “Go! And don’t stop. Keep your mind steel, Cassie. Keep it steel.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. “Not without you!”

His expression saddened. “I don’t know how... to stay.”

What was he talking about?
“Run!” I shrieked.

“Cassie, there’s something I never told you. I love you. And I never spoke those words because I love you more than there are words for....”

Why? Why was he stopping to tell me this now?

Tugging at his hand, I screamed at him to come with me. But my hand couldn’t seem to find his.

I eyed his face in confusion, searching it for clues. All light left his amber eyes, like sun leaving the day.

Something was wrong. Insanely wrong.

My gaze crept past Ethan, back to Balthazar and the dungeon below. Satisfaction glinted in Balthazar’s eyes. A figure lay crumpled on the floor next to him.

Ethan
.

Dazed, I turned sharply back to the Ethan who stood beside me. He slowly faded, until he was no longer there. Until I stood here alone.

A scream fled my lungs. Racing back down the stairs, time wound down to a single point. I moved as through thick, congealed air. I fell to Ethan’s side. Bright blood streamed where Balthazar’s sword had entered through his back and into his chest. His eyes were already empty.

I’d run up the stairs with his spirit. With his spirit....

I became stone and ice and blind fury.

Rushing at Balthazar, I cared about nothing but revenge.

“Thee art foolish.” He sent me reeling along the floor.

Ropes snaked down from the ceiling, catching tight around my wrists and ankles, tying me to them. I struggled as the ropes pulled me up. I was taken up higher and higher—until I was strung twenty feet or more above the dungeon floor.

Balthazar eyed me coldly. “I wilt make thee dance like a beautiful marionette—until thou is torn limb from limb, until thy bones are wrenched from their joints. Then Voulo will put you back together, piece by tiny piece, and thee wilt forever be mine.”

My heart clenching into a ball of iron, I screamed my rage at him. Screamed until I barely had a voice.

Spent, I gazed down on Ethan. A single tear tracked wetly down my face. “I am already dead. You cannot take any more from me....”

Had I given Ethan the crystal eye as he wanted, he could have carried it in the back compartment of his jacket, like me. Balthazar’s sword would not have pierced him. But I had been intent on carrying it. Ethan had always risked everything to find me and save me. I’d always had my focus on the book and the serpent empress. Always.

Guilt plagued me.

The families of the castle streamed down the stairway like a flood.

Zach’s father stopped short and bowed when he saw Balthazar. “Forgive us, Monseigneur. We heard a commotion down here....”

Zach’s face set into an anguished mask as he stared from me to Ethan’s lifeless body. 

“It is good thou hath all come. Thou wilt witness the might of the creator of the chateau.” Balthazar brushed his hand through the air in a casual gesture. The ropes moved in every direction. Pain like razors and knives ate into my muscles and joints.

Viola’s hand crept across her quaking mouth, her eyes wide and horrified. Audette pursed her mouth and looked on with dead eyes.

Henry stepped out in front, making a curt bow. “Monseigneur Balthazar, is this something we need to pursue at this moment? Could you not simply lock your wilful wife away?” His gaze flicked over me in contained revulsion. “Monseigneur, we have pressing matters at hand. Tobias Batiste has returned, and he has the knowledge of the second book. This is what we’ve sought for so long, and it has come to us. With the book now destroyed, Tobias is our last hope. We could not hope for a more advantageous turn of events.”

Balthazar’s eyes alighted on Henry. “I wilt deal with the traitorous Tobias in due time. At this moment, I hath need of disciplining my bride—a discipline she wilt not survive.”

Balthazar gestured toward me again. The ropes burned at my ankles and wrists, tearing at me. Pain sliced deep into my body as the ropes pulled tight.

A high, short laugh echoed in the air. Clarkson clapped a hand over his mouth, looking on with fascinated horror. Sienna nestled her head into his chest, a secretive smile pressing into her lips.

Dr. Verena stood with her thin arms crossed and her head tilted. She didn’t cringe nor enjoy the show like most of the others. Instead she peered into my face, coolly observing and analyzing my every expression. Beside her, Beaumont Batiste toyed in excitement with the studded collar around his neck, his attention caught by the ropes.

Zach’s mother linked her arm with her husband’s, as though she were being forced to look at something distasteful and needed support. She tried to do the same with Zach, but he flung her arm away.

I almost lost consciousness just as Balthazar flicked his fingers and released the tension on the ropes.

An old man made his way from outside the dungeon to the top landing of the stone staircase, his frail arms in chains—flanked by Emerson and Parker. A young girl followed him.

It was Tobias and Jessamine again. How had they captured him? I knew from his letter how he felt about his ancestral home.

“What did you bring him down here for?” Mr. Batiste glared at his eldest son.

Emerson swallowed nervously. “He said he had important information for the Monseigneur. I thought it might be something about the book’s whereabouts.” He glanced at Balthazar as though he hoped his actions would find favor with him.