— Lucius Toll, “A Study on the Biological Sex Differences Between Male and Female Monsters: Anatomy, Behavior, and Reproductive Methods,” page 1
Emily was bundled up on the couch, her blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She absentmindedly ran a hand through her damp hair, realizing, not for the first time, that she didn’t hate how short it was. It dried faster, and didn’t tangle as much. It didn’t get in her face when she was walking around either.
Her head rested against the couch cushions as she skimed the pages of yet another one of Chester Finch’s adventures. A stack of two more, as well as two romance novels, sat on the table beside the couch. Emily couldn’t help but smile as she relaxed. It was nice to lie down after a long day of training and just read.
…I had a hard enough time sneaking through the blasted House of the Widowed Fox, and that was without Lila. For a noble girl, she was quite noisy, and the chains binding our wrists together weren’t helping the matter. Climbing in through the window of the butcher's house should have been a piece of cake. As an athletic man, I should have been able to leap forthwind through the window, but now I had to haul the damn girl with me. She lacked the strength to hoist her way in, so I had to pull her by the hands until she slipped in.
“Thank you, dear Finch,” she said to me. I told her to be quiet.
“We must be quiet, my dear. Though the butcher is away at the brothel, there's no telling when he may return.”
“Or the mistress of the house,” she said to me
“Or the daughter,” I said to her.
“Or the son,” she said to me.
“He doesn’t have a son?” I said to her.
“Yes, he does, the short-haired one,” she said to me.
I argued with her no further. I knew I was in the right. I had seen enough breasts in my life to know when someone had a pair, and that girl, short-haired as she may be, had breasts. Continuing on, we had a good hour before anyone was to return home, plenty of time to find the key and the map to the dwarven burial cache. Gold enough to make us kings. Lila had told me not to be so cocky, but what did she know, this was only her first time breaking into a house, whereas I, a master of my craft, had broken into many. I knew all the hiding places a man could think of.
We slipped into a narrow hallway lined with locked doors. The air was heavy here with the smell of curled meats. Admittedly, my stomach growled.
“Which door’s got the goods?” Lila asked me.
“Patience, darling,” I said to her. “These old bolts are no match for my clever hand.” I plucked a hairpin from Lila’s curls, earning a playful swat from her delicate hand. “Watch and learn, my sweet. Any lock’ll yield to a bit of finesse.” I knelt and worked the pin into the keyhole, twisting and teasing like I was coaxing a lover. “Take a sturdy hairpin and bend it straight, then kink the tip just a smidge to make a pick. You slide it into the keyhole, feel for the pins inside. They’re little buggers, all in a row, and you gotta nudge ‘em up to the shear line, one by one. Twist the pin like you’re turning a key to keep tension. Too much, it jams; too little and the pins drop. Listen for the clicks, feel the give. When they’re all set, the lock pops like a lady’s corset. Practice, and you’ll open anything.” I gave her a wink as I teased the pin up. The lock surrendered with a click, and I was in—
“Emily.”
She jolted slightly. “Yeah?”
Mina was walking toward the door, arms crossed. “I’m heading out for a bit. Get some sleep.”
Emily shut the book but didn’t set it aside just yet. “Are you going to give me the massage when you get back?”
Mina narrowed her eyes. “Rest. We’re starting new exercises tomorrow. You need to be ready for the day Draven comes for you.”
“You beat him last time. He doesn’t seem so tough.”
“I got lucky. Very lucky. You caught him off guard, and I took the opportunity to finish it.” She paused, her silver eyes gleaming from the light of the fireplace. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
A warm feeling blossomed in Emily’s chest.
“That being said, he won’t make the same mistake twice.”
Emily bit her lip, watching Mina closely. That’s when she noticed the way Mina’s shoulders tensed ever so slightly. It happened every time she mentioned Draven by name.
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“…Did you know him?” Emily asked after a moment.
Mina’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Draven,” Emily clarified. “Did you know him personally?”
Mina said nothing.
“Was he… a friend?”
“All you need to know is that he is no less a monster than Queen Lockhart. The day he comes for you, we’ll kill him. Now get some sleep.” She left, closing the door behind her.
Emily sat there for a while and wondered why she wouldn’t just tell her? Then again, Mina wasn’t telling her a lot of things. It was par for the course by now. There was so much she wanted to know. Not just about Mina’s past, but everything about her. How had she gotten all of her scars? Had she fought in a war? Had she always been a hunter? Or was there a time when she was just a normal person, living a normal life? If she wouldn’t even share that, how was she supposed to trust her?
Emily glanced toward the staircase, narrowing her eyes slightly. She had assumed it was just Mina’s room upstairs, but that couldn’t be all there was, could it? If Mina was hiding something, it had to be up there.
A little peek wouldn’t hurt… right?
Emily glanced toward the front door, her heart picking up the pace. Slowly, she rose from the couch and carefully made her way toward the stairs. At the top, she found herself in a narrow hallway. A long, ornate rug stretched from one end to the other.
There were only two doors. One of these had to be Mina’s bedroom. She didn’t know what the other would be. Another bedroom? No, Mina didn’t have another bedroom. She had told Emily she didn’t have anywhere else for her to sleep.
Emily started with the first door. She peered inside to a room larger than she expected. An elaborate four-poster bed dominated the back wall, framed by heavy brocade curtains that cascaded to the floor in rich, velvety folds. It looked like something out of a royal palace. Luxurious and very expensive. The kind of thing only nobility would own.
At least now she knew Mina didn’t sleep in a coffin.
Beside the door, something else caught her eye; a full-length mirror. The frame was bronze, decorated with swirling waves, roses, and flower stems that intertwined like climbing ivy. The glass itself had a faint, almost unnoticeable red tint.
If Mina was hiding something, it was going to be here.
Emily first checked the table beside the mirror, where two decorative urns sat, but there was nothing else. There was a desk against the wall, with a dresser beside it. Emily peeked inside but found only men’s clothes. Buttoned shirts, dark trousers, waistcoats, underwear, nothing feminine at all. Not that she expected Mina to own lace nightgowns, but the sheer lack of anything remotely feminine was surprising.
Emily moved on. She wasn’t going to find secrets in a pile of neatly folded shirts. Her eyes wandered, scanning the rest of the room until she spotted a trunk tucked beneath the bed, just far enough to be out of sight unless you were looking for it. Emily knelt and dragged it out into the light. The wood was dark, reinforced with iron bands. Emily traced the lock with her thumb, biting the inside of her cheek. She just needed something thin and narrow. She looked over at the desk, and sure enough, beside a brush tangled with white hair, she found a few hairpins.
She returned to the trunk, dropping onto her knees and slipping the hairpin into the lock. Her fingers trembled slightly as she twisted it, wiggling it in place. Her heart was like a galloping horse. The thought of Mina returning home at this very moment sent chills through her entire body.
The lock clicked.
Emily hesitated, then slowly lifted the lid. She didn’t know what she’d find inside, but it certainly wasn’t what she found; a bundle of white fabric.
Emily blinked and carefully pulled out the bundle. As she unfurled it, she slowly realized it wasn’t just any fabric. It was a large dress. It was soft, delicate, and completely out of place. The pure white fabric was trimmed with intricate lace, embroidered with swirling patterns and floral designs. It looked expensive and beautiful. She glanced back toward the rest of the room, at the practical, no-nonsense wardrobe Mina kept. Nothing feminine. Nothing even remotely like this.
So why did she have this?
Beneath the dress, something gleamed atop a black book. It was a medallion of a raven with its wings outstretched, encircled by a band of steel. Emily turned it over in her hands, running her thumb over the engraved metal, then turned her attention to the book. The cover was blank, and the contents read less like a book, and more like scribbled notes. She flipped open to a bookmarked page.
When it comes to binding a soul to a vessel, it is not such a straightforward process. Where the veil between life and death frays like worn cloth, one must be careful with how they sew. To summon breath back into the lifeless is no mere act of will; it is a dance with forces older than time, a defiance of nature’s decree, and therefore precautions must be made. Such potent magic requires a masterful wielder, for without a fitting vessel or a skilled hand, the soul risks ruin, and those who tamper with death may invite a fate far graver than failure.
Emily narrowed her eyes. Necromancy? All she knew of it was that it was forbidden, an outlawed magic that could have you executed if you were caught performing it. Carefully, Emily put everything back. She made sure the dress was folded exactly as it had been, the medallion resting beneath it atop the book. The hairpin she had used was bent beyond repair, so she tucked it into her pocket. She’d get rid of it later, somewhere Mina wouldn’t find it.
After sliding the trunk back under the bed, Emily exhaled, her nerves still rattled. She had to be hiding more than a book for reviving the dead, so Emily made her way to the far end of the hall to the last door. The creaking hinges started Emily. It was loud enough to hear downstairs. Emily tried opening the door slower, but that only prolonged the sound.
The air inside the room was stale. The walls were covered in faded pink wallpaper, patterned with olive-green floral designs. A smaller bed sat in the corner, untouched, its sheets tucked in neatly, and resting against the pillows were two plain marionette dolls. Their limbs were stiff and bare, nothing more than carved wood and wire. The cross-shaped control bars rested beneath them.
A shiver ran down her spine. Emily wasn’t sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t this. A fully furnished bedroom. A little kid’s room, from the looks of it. Emily frowned as an odd feeling stirred in her chest. Mina had said there was nowhere else for Emily to sleep, but here was a perfectly good room just sitting here. Not that she wasn’t grateful for the couch, but… seriously?
Emily reached for the desk beside the door. The thick dust clung to her fingertip like wet mud. The dust was so thick it made the wood look gray, like strands of old woman’s hair. This room hadn’t just been empty, it had been abandoned. As Emily turned to leave a sudden chill ran down her spine, like an ice cube sliding down the back of her nightgown. She froze, and turned slowly, her eyes sweeping the room. Nothing had changed. Emily’s gaze landed on the marionettes again. They hadn’t moved. She knew they hadn’t moved. And yet something about them drew her in. Up close, she could see the fine details in the woodwork. Though their faces were blank, their heads were carved where the eyes should be, leaving deep, hollow shapes, waiting to be painted.
It was nothing, just her being paranoid.
Emily hurried out of the room and down the stairs, her pulse still racing. At each corner she turned, she expected Mina to be standing there, like an apparition. But she never was. Emily made it back to the couch, throwing herself onto the cushions with a long exhale. Her heart was still pounding. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to relax.
The house was silent. But as she lay there, one last thought wormed its way into her mind. Who did that room belong to?
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