Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
The gate with its curving thorns reminds me of a hungry beast with a bloody mouth. A cold wind sighs through the bars, sliding over my skin, chilling me to the bone.
My stomach twists.
Everything in me screams—NO!
Don’t go through there. Don’t step through that gate. Don’t.
My eyes dart back over my shoulder. The Nocturne Gates in the center of the vast station loom behind us—the arch we came through when we left the long tunnel is still within reach. If I ripped my wrist free of Whistler’s grip and ran, maybe I could make it. Maybe I could get back home, back to Mr. Mittens, back to my crappy apartment and my normal life.
But the Magistrate is staring.
This time his silver eyes are narrowed. His frown deepens, dark and terrible, like judgment itself.
Another shiver shakes me, deeper this time. My knees nearly buckle. I can’t move. I can’t run.
I whirl back to Whistler, my voice a desperate whisper.
“Do we have to go through there?” I ask, nodding at the iron gate. “Why can’t we go through one of the other gates instead?” I point toward the golden arch of the Gilded Warrens, glittering richly in the dimness. “That one looks safer. Or what about that one?” My gaze flicks toward the Briar Court, neon flowers swaying as if they sense me. “Why can’t we go in there?”
“Oh, you could go into any one of them gates, if you so choose, my queen,” Whistler says cheerfully. “The question is, would they let you out again? And the answer to that is—not without paying the price.”
His grip on my wrist tightens, firm and merciless.
“No, we’re going to meet your Don. Your future husband. And he lives there—” He jerks his chin toward the black iron gates with their roses dripping crimson.
My heart stutters.
“My…my husband?” My voice cracks in horror. “What are you talking about?”
But Whistler only grins, his gold teeth flashing. And then he yanks me forward.
10
Jules
Whistler drags me up to the iron gate, its bars black as midnight, its roses blooming fat and bloody red. Their thorns are longer than my fingers, wet-looking, gleaming like they’ve been freshly dipped in blood or something even worse—something I don’t want to name. He presses one bony hand against the bars.
His voice drops to a rough snarl that carries in the sudden silence around us.
“By crimson vein and ancient flood,
By vow unbroken, sealed in blood,
By thorn and rose, by night so deep,
Awake, O Gate, from endless sleep.”
The words scrape against the walls, heavy with weight…with power. I can feel them, vibrating in my chest like the bass at a club, only darker…older. My stomach lurches. A spell—that has to be what it is. I’ve never felt anything like it before but I know it deep in my bones.
There’s magic being done here.
The roses rustle, their petals shivering as though a wind is moving through them. The iron bars groan, grinding against each other, and slowly, slowly, the gates swing inward.
I can’t stop staring.
“No guards?” I whisper, my voice sounding small and thin.
“The gates themselves are the guards.” Whistler’s grin gleams gold. “Best not test their temper, queenie.”
I swallow hard and let him pull me through. Cold air washes over me as soon as we cross the threshold, sharp and metallic, smelling of iron and old blood. My skin prickles. And then the city beyond the gates opens up before me.
I stop dead, my jaw going slack.
We are standing at the bottom of a long-cobbled road, winding upward like a serpent through a city that makes no sense at all to my dazed eyes. Overhead, the moon hangs enormous and swollen, its surface scarlet as fresh blood. Its pale red light pours down on everything, tinting the streets…the rooftops…even the clouds above.
The effect is disorienting—nauseating. It’s as if the entire world has been dunked in a vat of watered-down blood-wine.
My breath fogs in the cold air as I turn slowly, taking it all in.
The buildings climb the hill in layers, like a collage of mismatched eras thrown together by someone with a taste for nightmares.
A row of Victorian townhouses squats beside a glass-and-steel skyscraper. Gaslight lamps gutter on street corners, their glass panes cracked and fogged, while right beside them neon signs blaze in sharp, modern fonts. A carriage rattles by, its wheels squealing, drawn by a pair of coal-black horses with eyes that glow faintly red. Behind it roars a sleek motorcycle, chrome gleaming crimson in the moonlight.
I almost laugh, except the sound would come out too high, too hysterical.
“What… what is this place?” I whisper, rubbing my arms in apprehension. My entire body is covered in goosebumps and not just because I’m cold—I’m also scared of this weird, gothic-horror looking place. My damp hair clings to my neck. My teeth are starting to chatter.