Page 1 of Dangerous Exile

{ Chapter 1 }

London, October 1826

It sat white.

Across the street, a gleaming wall of marble in the midst of wretched, dirty chaos.

The whole of London havoc. So many people. So many horses, carriages, carts, wagons. So many sounds. So manysmells.

So many jarring collisions smacking into her broken arm.

So much pain.

But there sat the Alabaster. Or so it had to be. What else would be on this street, named for the very white mountain of stone it was? Five stories. White marble from street to sky. Each window lined with gauzy white curtains that only peeked at shadowed darkness within.

White on the outside. Shadows on the inside. What had she been expecting?

Her right fingers unclutched from holding her left arm in the only position that didn’t aggravate the pain, and Ness reached out to touch the shoulder of a passing girl, maybe twelve, dirty and disheveled but easy enough to stop.

“Please—is that the Alabaster?” Her voice a whisper, she couldn’t speak any louder. The last of solid air had left her lungs a day ago, leaving only tattered wisps of breath.

The girl’s wide orbs of eyes looked to Ness’s face, then at her left arm hanging unnaturally at her side. The girl’s eyes went wider, the whites of them swallowing the top half of her face.

“It is, ma’am.”

The girl hopped quick steps away from Ness. Not that a broken arm was contagious. A broken spirit, maybe.

This was it, then.

Her gaze found the white wall with its neatly symmetrical windows. There. A door. One door, painted black.

But odd. No one walked in front of the building.

Decrepit piles of brick buildings stood on either side of the structure, where people were gathered all along the street. Hawking wares. Carrying baskets. Dumping pots into the street. But if they were walking, every single person would venture to the edge of the white building, then step out into the street to move in a wide arc around the front of the place, then would veer back onto the walkway to continue onward. Almost as though a curse sat at that black door, taunting anyone that dared to step too close.

Ness attempted to focus on the street—wagons, horses, and carriages crisscrossed in front of her, going in and out of focus. Ten more steps was all she needed. Make it across.

There. Open space in front of her.

She darted forward, her feet tripping, stumbling in the muck of the street. Sliding, leaning forward. Forward with enough momentum to hit the door.

Agony seized the left side of her body as her left arm got between her and the hard wood.

Her right hand grasped onto the golden handle, the only thing that held her upright. With the side of her head, she banged on the door.

Nothing.

She tried the handle, tried to open the latch. It was frozen in place, immobile. She slammed into the door with her right shoulder, only to suddenly realize the door lacked hinges. It would never open. The whole of it—the door, the handle—it was nothing. A façade. An entry to nowhere.

Her grip on the handle loosened and she slid down, crumbling onto the wide front stone step, everything draining away.

Hope. Energy. Willpower.

Her eyes slid closed, her body too parched to even offer up tears.

“You can’t be here, lass.”

Her eyelids cracked open to find a large form drifting above her, swallowing what little light the London clouds allowed. Her hand went up, reaching for the handle of the door. The door that didn’t open. With strength she thought long gone, she wedged her feet under her, pulling herself upward, her blurry gaze on the darkness that was a man above. “Blackstone. Talen Blackstone. I need to talk to him. Only him. Juliet sent me. Only him.”

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