Chapter 13: The Velvet Snake

Kaelen

The freezing black water didn’t trickle through the cracked hearth.

It exploded into the room like a broken dam, carrying the reek of ancient mud and stagnant river filth.

“Up!”

I clamped my hands around Wren’s waist.

Before the torrent could sweep her crimson skirt from beneath her, I lifted her onto the heavy oak writing desk near the window. Water swallowed my boots instantly, icy enough to numb my legs as it climbed toward my calves.

Wren didn’t scream.

She crouched on the desk, pale beneath the flickering firelight, her fingers gripping the soaked wood. Then she reached for me, wrapping one small hand around my forearm.

“The secret stair,” she gasped.

She pointed toward the high wooden gallery above the hearth.

“It leads to the upper glass conservatory. We can bypass the flooded catacombs through the high walkways.”

I didn’t question her.

I climbed onto the desk beside her as the dark water swallowed the hearth. The fire hissed and vanished beneath a cloud of steam and ash.

Darkness rushed in.

I reached into my coat, secured the iron key inside my inner lining, then grabbed Wren’s hand.

“Stay close.”

She nodded.

We climbed blindly toward the gallery, driven by nothing but survival.

Ten minutes later, we slipped through a narrow service door into the upper conservatory.

The contrast was dizzying.

While the lower depths of the asylum drowned beneath freezing water, the conservatory remained an exotic glass cage suspended above the eastern courtyard.

Huge ferns crowded the pathways. Night-blooming orchids curled around iron arches, while velvet moss hung from the walls.

Rain hammered against the glass roof.

Inside, the air was heavy with crushed jasmine and damp earth.

Wren collapsed against a stone planter, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Her blood-red dress clung to her body, dripping onto the marble floor.

I crouched beside her.

My hand instinctively settled against the small of her back.

Heat radiated through the wet silk, a sharp contrast to the freezing water we’d just escaped.

“Stay here,” I murmured.

I wiped a streak of ash from her cheek.

Her breath caught.

Her dark eyes locked onto mine.

For one dangerous moment, the asylum, the flooding, and her father disappeared.

There was only her.

“Let me check the gallery doors before we move toward the archives.”

“Kaelen…”

Her hand rose to my lapel.

Her fingers trembled.

“Don’t take too long.”

Something in her vulnerability struck harder than it should have.

I covered her hand with mine.

“I won’t.”

I stood and moved through the dense green pathway toward the far glass doors overlooking the central courtyard.

Then I heard it.

The quiet rustle of silk.

My hand dropped instantly to the scalpel hidden inside my coat.

“Well, well.”

A woman’s voice drifted through the foliage.

“Look what the river washed up.”

I froze.

Lady Lyra stood beside the marble fountain.

She wore a dark emerald velvet gown that clung to her figure, her pale shoulders bare despite the chill leaking through the glass panes.

In one hand, she held silver pruning shears.

With deliberate calm, she snipped the head from a blooming red camellia.

Her lips were painted a bruised berry.

Her green eyes moved slowly over my soaked clothes.

“Lady Lyra,” I said.

My voice became clinical ice.

I remained beneath the shadows of the palms.

“You’re far from your quarters.”

“And you are entirely out of your depth, Doctor.”

She approached with the smooth, effortless movement of a snake.

The shears landed on a stone bench with a metallic clatter.

She stopped inches from me.

The scent of expensive tuberose and copper filled the humid air.

“Julian told me you were clever,” she whispered.

Her gaze traveled over my wet shirt.

“A brilliant scholar from the capital.”

Her fingers touched my damp lapel.

“But look at you. Swimming through sewer water for a ghost.”

I remained still.

“I am fulfilling my contract with the estate.”

Lyra laughed softly.

There was no humor in it.

Her fingers slid upward, red nails tracing toward my throat before resting over my pulse.

“Oh, Kaelen.”

Her green eyes glittered.

“Don’t pretend you’re still acting as a physician. We all saw how you looked at her in the hearth room.”

She stepped closer.

“You think you can save her?”

Her hip brushed mine.

“You think that shattered little doll in the red dress can feel anything for you?”

My jaw tightened.

“Wren Sterling is a vessel of rot,” she whispered. “She’s broken. She uses men until they burn.”

Her fingers tightened around my collar.

“Julian tried to help her. He gave her everything, and she tried to tear his throat out.”

She pulled me slightly closer.

“You don’t need to die in the dark for her.”

Her lips curved.

“Join us. Julian trusts my judgment. One word from me to Beatrix, and you leave this asylum with a fortune.”

She paused.

“And a place at my side.”

The offer hung between us.

Power.

Money.

Her.

None of it tempted me.

Instead, I noticed the details she hadn’t realized she was revealing.

Her eyes repeatedly flicked toward the high gallery window whenever boots sounded from Julian’s wing.

Her jaw twitched.

Possessive.

Territorial.

Afraid.

A cold disgust settled inside me.

I reached for her wrist.

My gloved fingers closed around it with deliberate precision.

I squeezed just enough to make her breath catch, then removed her hand from my collar.

“Your clinical diagnosis of Lady Wren is as flawed as your loyalty, Lady Lyra.”

I released her wrist.

“If I were Julian, I’d be far more concerned about the way your eyes follow his every move than the Sterling vaults.”

Her face hardened.

“Possessiveness is a pathetic substitute for power.”

Her seductive mask shattered.

“You fool,” she hissed. “You think you’re so smart? You think she’s yours?”

“She is my patient.”

I stepped around her.

“And unlike you, she doesn’t need to poison a house to hold authority over it.”

I walked back through the foliage.

My heart was hammering.

Not because of Lyra.

Because of the sudden silence near the stone planter.

“Wren?”

I stepped into the alcove.

Empty.

My stomach dropped.

A puddle of cold water remained on the marble where she’d been sitting.

Beside it lay a single fresh red camellia, cut cleanly at the stem.

A torn strip of crimson silk rested beneath it.

I crouched.

Then I saw them.

Three fresh drops of blood pressed into the damp moss.

They led away from the planter.

Straight toward the locked glass balcony.

I rose slowly.

“Wren.”

No answer.

The rain battered the glass above me.

I stared at the blood trail.

Someone had taken her.

Or she had walked toward the balcony herself.

Either possibility was dangerous.

I drew my scalpel.

Then I heard a faint sound from beyond the locked glass doors.

Three slow knocks.

My blood ran cold.

“Wren?”

The knocks came again.

Three.

Then silence.