The Princess and the Warlock

Chapitre Dix-Sept

I was being punished.

My meals were sent to my room by a silent Aimee, and Kaius didn't knock or come to see me in the past two days. Sure, I wasn't confined to my bedroom, but the idea of meandering out into the hallway, running into a certain someone—it made me feel like I was going to throw up.

I had no idea why I'd even said anything that night. I knew that mentioning anything that Freesia had confessed to me wouldn't have been good, and yet I sauntered right into that conversation without a care in the world. Accusing someone of—what? Knowing that I was going to die and not telling me? Now that those words were out of my mouth, they were ridiculous, and my face heated with shame.

I deserved this isolation.

I was lying on top of my bed, wearing a my robe over my nightgown. It was cold in Gossington tonight, my toes numb from the air that was nipping at them. It never got this cold.

My mind felt foggy tonight, like there was a thin layer of mist coating my thoughts. It's felt this way since we got back from the ocean, as I stumbled upstairs. For some reason, it just felt heavy. My head felt heavy, my thoughts felt heavy. My body felt dizzy. After we came back from Florence I hadn't felt this way, but now I felt—off. Like I was recovering from some sort of illness.

Or I could've been overthinking everything, and my dizziness and fogginess was from how horrible I felt about the situation with Kaius.

And I was back to that. Sigh.

A loud, shaking thud sounded from the ceiling, making my bed springs squeak as it rattled. I looked up to the ceiling immediately, expecting to hear something else follow—a string of words, maybe, or even another thud, but the house resumed its silence.

The sound echoed in my ears still, not sitting well with me. For the past two days the silence has been deafening, and now a thump that was out of place felt almost alarming. That, combined with the cold of the house and me not seeing Kaius for a few days, had me sitting up. Tying my robe tighter around my body, I decided to investigate.

It was even colder in the hallway, the floor like ice against the bottoms of my feet. It was an unnatural sort of cold, the kind that was a living figure in the hallway beside me. It breathed in the air I let out, turning it into frost. I headed for the staircase.

The one time Aimee had shown me around the mansion, she'd taken me upstairs, but stopped me before I reached the end of the hallway. That was the very first place I went first, and though I tried to sneak up the stairs, they seemed to creak with every move I made. Which was odd, because I didn't remember them creaking the first time I'd ascended them.

I pulled the dressing robe tighter around me, just listening to the sound as I walked. Though the stairs creaked, there was no other noise in the air.

I reached the landing and paused, glancing at the steps below me. Though I sensed a presence, there was no one behind me. From where I was standing, I could see the end of the hallway, could see the handle just a little from how set back into the wall it was. There was a window completely opposite to me, shining moonlight into the hall. It cast an eerie glow.

Oh, look at me. I was being ridiculous, scaring myself silly. Hugging my arms tightly around me, I took a step down the hallway.

And I walked smack, face-first, into a solid object. An invisible wall, much like the one to Wildwood. I jarred back, ricocheting like a bullet against metal, landing on the floor and just barely catching myself with my palms. My wrists screamed at the sudden weight. I stared up at the empty space, frowning.