Finally, I found a room full of empty golden birdcages, hung from tree-shaped iron racks in a forest of delicate captivity. I saw no extra doors, and I turned to leave—but then I heard a chitter of birdsong, so faint that for a moment I thought I had imagined it.
I remembered the sparrow Lar. Astraia was the one who liked to see omens in every flight of birds, not me; but I still turned and looked over the room one more time. And then I saw a door in the far left corner of the room, behind the biggest pile of cages, where there had been only empty wall a moment before.
It was such a normal little door—short and narrow, barely large enough for me to fit through without bending, made out of wood and painted pale gray—that for a heartbeat I stared at it without fear.
Then my skin prickled as it always did when I saw one of the house’s transformations. This was not the most uncanny I had seen, but it still brought back that helpless, falling sensation of knowing that the house could kill me anytime it pleased.
But it hadn’t pleased. Most likely, Ignifex would not allow it to do so. And if the sparrow had meant to make me turn around, then . . . I still had no guarantee it meant me any good, but it had given me a few minutes’ peace and that put it ahead of the house.
I picked my way through the birdcages to the door and tried my key. It didn’t work. Then I tried the steel key, and it started to turn but caught. So I tried the gold key.
The lock clicked and the door swung open.
I stepped inside.
The first thing I noticed was the smell of wood and dusty paper: the smell of Father’s study. This room seemed to be a study too, though grander than any I had ever seen; it was round, paneled in dark wood, with swirling dark blue mosaics on the floor. Several tables piled with books, papers, and curios stood around the edges of the room with short bookcases between them. The ceiling was a dome, painted parchment like the sky; the lamp even hung from a wrought-iron frame shaped like the Demon’s Eye. Around the base of the dome was written in gold letters “AS ABOVE, SO BELOW”—the great principle of Hermetic workings.
But it was the center of the room that drew my eyes, for there was a great circular table, covered in a glass dome, on which sat a model of Arcadia.
I approached it slowly; it was so delicately detailed, I felt it would crumble if I breathed, despite the glass. There was the ocean, crafted of tinted glass so that it glimmered like real water. There were the southern mountains, pocked with entrances to the coal mines; there was the river Severn, there the capital city of Sardis, still half-ruined by the great fire of twenty years ago. There was my own village, sitting on the southern edge, near to the crumbled ruin that Ignifex’s house looked like from the outside.
I leaned closer. Through some trick of the glass, as I focused on my village, it grew larger; I saw thatch and tile roofs, the fountain in the main square, my own house, and the rock where I had been married. It was all perfect, down to the last detail, and I stared hungrily at my home until the magnification made my head ache.
I turned away from the model. On the nearest table sat a little chest of red-brown cherrywood. It had no lock, only a simple latch; no decorations but a tiny gold inscription set upon the lid. I picked it up and peered at the glittering miniature cursive: “AS WITHIN, SO WITHOUT.” Another Hermetic precept.
“What are you doing?”
I slammed down the chest and spun around. Ignifex was at the door; I barely had time to gasp before he was at my side, gripping my arms like iron, his face only inches from mine.
“What did you think you were doing?”
“Exploring the house,” I said shakily. “If I’m your wife—”
My voice died. The red in his eyes was not a simple flecked pattern like any human or animal eyes; it was a swirling crimson chaos, ever-changing as a living flame. I realized how foolish I had been to feel anything but terror for him. I had remembered that he was my enemy, but I had forgotten that he was a danger, my doom and likely my death.
“Do you think you are safe with me?” he snarled.
“No,” I whispered.
“You’re just as foolish as the others. You think you are clever, strong, special. You think you’re going to win.”
Abruptly he turned and dragged me out of the room.
“I knew who your father was when he came to me.” His voice was icy calm now, each word bitten off with precision. “Leonidas Triskelion, youngest magister of the Resurgandi. When he asked my help, he could barely say the words for shame, but he did not hesitate an instant when he sold you away.”
We turned down a stone corridor I had never seen before.