Page 29 of The Devil In Blue
Biting my lip, I started down the hall to the stairs, descending to the first floor. There had to be a door to the outside somewhere and I wanted to find it.
As I passed through the foyer filled with flowers, my lungs flooded with their fresh scent. It triggered something in me. Something comfortable. I could have stayed there for hours just breathing in their cool aromas, but I still wanted fresh air, so I continued searching.
It didn’t take long for me to find a pair of giant double doors. The kind of doors. I approached, lifting a hand to grip a thick, glass handle. Pulling, I realized the door was latched and searched for something to free it. I found a long, barred bolt running across it with a teardrop-shaped handle at one end. I took it and slid the latch out of place with all my weight. The loud glide of wood and metal scraping together echoed along the walls and I paused as if someone was going to catch me and tell me I wasn’t allowed to leave.
When no one came, I continued toying with the heavy doors, tugging once more on the handle. It started to give, but it weighed so much. There was no way that those heavy things were a main entrance for someone to freely walk in and out. I put my entire body’s weight into pulling it ajar and heard the wood moan like the doors hadn’t been opened in years. A crisp breeze smelling of rain and flowers wafted toward me.
Winded just from pulling the door open, I kept it cracked just enough for me to fit and slipped through the space into the courtyard. From there, the view was entirely different from the one I had from my balcony.
It was beautiful. Dreamlike.
Though it was night (I thought), the moon was like a drop of sunlight in the sky, shedding enough light for me to see everything. I walked a bit further along the cobblestone path, noticing little lightning bugs fluttering up from the plants growing along the edges. There were white roses on thorny vines that coiled around metal fences. Moss-covered stones were stacked into knee-high walls with tiny bell-shaped flowers tucked into the grooves. And the way the moon touched everything made it all seem to glow. In fact, patches of small mushroomswereglowing, growing in circles that varied in size.
I strolled further into the yard, approaching what looked like tall hedges of greenery with arches of vines marking the entrance into a maze. Or perhaps just another part of the courtyard. Either way, I wanted to see what was beyond it, so I ventured forward, catching the sound of running water in the distance. I was almost to it when I heard the sound of a raven squawking behind me. I turned around, scanning the area only to find myself completely captivated by the sight of the palace itself from the outside.
It took my breath away.
Towers and rounded walls made of both glass and metal created a mosaic of sharp and almost violent shapes, creating something so hauntingly beautiful that I hardly believed it was real. It looked like a painting. It reflected the moonlight on its slick surface like water.
And it was massive. It was so much larger than I suspected and I had already suspected it was large from what little I’d explored of the inside.
Panning upward, I caught a glimpse of the third story where the moon’s light did not reach. It was odd. There was nothing to obscure the light, but it looked dull in comparison to the rest of the palace. Even the balconies seemed shrouded in darkness like the whole floor was dead.
It seemed strange to refer to a part of the palace as dead, but the way the light danced on some parts and not on others gave it an eerie sense of personality. At any moment, I expected to hear it sigh with contentment. The third story just seemed like a lame limb no one had the heart to sever.
When I heard a faint whisper nearby, I almost thought the palacehadbreathed. I whipped my head around to see the entrance to the maze had suddenly gotten darker. So dark I couldn’t see a single thing beyond it. At my feet, a thin fog crept out toward the path I stood on like hands trying to pull free from tar. I wasn’t afraid of that darkness. Not in the least. I was curious but a sliver of warning kept me from going toward it. My spine stiffened and I felt a ripple of emotions tickle my senses. Sorrow, grief, frustration, confusion. They tangled inside my head and brought me back to a time when I felt all those things in a constant, mangled loop. I stepped back, unwilling to fall into that endless routine again.
Then again, as the layers of whispers grew louder, I sensed something else within that darkness. Nothing. Absolute nothingness. And nothingness was freedom. I’d often fantasized about nothingness and my foot inched forward thinking about it. A cold chill coated my skin and I listened harder to the strange whispers, trying to make out words.
“What are you doing?” a voice said.
I turned once more to see Elanor standing in the path ten paces away. Her black dress was fitted so perfectly to her slender form. Her long neck was covered with a black, lace collar that crept right up under her sharp chin.
“Petris said I could wander,” I said.
“Who?”
“The servant? The man in the mask?”
I almost thought her eyes rolled and I suspected from the smug look on her face that she was not the type to recall the names of servants.
“Of course,” she said. “Well, he was not wrong. The king doesn’t wish for you to be a prisoner here. Petris should have been clearer, though.” Her eyes flitted to the arched entrance past the hedges. “Venturing in there will only get you lost and no one can come out of there unless they find their own way.”
“Is it enchanted?”
“Everything here is enchanted. It’s the Glyn.”
I knew the Glyn was magical, but I never knew what that truly entailed since all I’d ever heard or read about was made out to be mythology and nothing more. I wanted to ask what it meant, but I didn’t want to ask Elanor. She reminded me of the sisters at Southminster. Stern, disciplined, and vacant of the tells most people had when they felt any emotions at all. I was certain that happiness and a plot to murder looked the same on her face. People like that did not inspire me to relax.
“Are you not afraid?” she asked.
“Of what?”
“You stand with your back turned to the Labyrinth and you’re not even flinching.”
The question caught me off guard. I hadn’t thought of it. Not that way.
“I don’t fear the things people should.”
