Thorns: The Thorns Series, #1

By Amanda M. Blake

Once upon a time, the woodsman rescued Red Riding Hood,

Hansel and Gretel cooked the gingerbread witch,

And Cinderella snagged her prince with a discarded glass slipper.

But Sleeping Beauty still sleeps in a thorn-locked castle, Snow White still lies preserved in her crystal coffin, and in a land not so far away, the Beast lives in the penthouse suite of Castle Apartments.

When eccentric artist Olivia Rowe returns to the Castle to fulfill a childhood promise to its mysterious owner, Griffin, an assassination attempt against him catapults her into a world of hunters, witches, and enchantments—where fairy tales are real but happily-ever-afters are far from guaranteed.

With a rogue hunter hot on their heels, they must journey between the modern world and the last remaining magical enclaves to rescue Snow White, the Sleeping Kingdom, and Griffin himself from Bluebeard, a powerful sorcerer on a life-stealing spree to achieve immortality.

Series Advisory: Scenes of sexual and physical assault, violence, and torture. Because fairy tales can sometimes be gruesome and grim.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Amanda M. Blake
• Release date: Nov 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781731308573

Book preview

As clubs went, Creep attracted a slightly older, more sedate crowd and never reached the sweating, writhing, bumping peaks of more popular dance spots. There were so many lonely people in places like these—those uncomfortable in the popular clubs or unable to get in, too young for the lounges and too old for the bars. Some nights, he wanted a challenge to sweeten the victory. Tonight was not one of those nights.

Sky slid into the seat across from a lovely brunette in a red dress. Her posture suggested she’d picked it for confidence, not because she thought it really made her look sexy, although it did. When she faced the intruding stranger, any protest she might have had for his presumption died on her lips.

He was a vain, proud man; he knew what women saw when they looked at him, because that’s how he wanted them to see him. All she needed was a glance at his tailored Armani suit and his sharp, beautiful face to hope—even for one moment—that this man might be here for her. From dark, thick hair so black it gleamed blue down to the way his trousers hit his leather shoes just so, Sky radiated expense, but also the kind of deliberate, precise taste that suggested experience with wealth rather than the flashy extravagance of new money.

I couldn’t help but notice you were sitting alone. Sky. He reached across the table and took her hand in his.

She hesitated to reply, her mouth slightly parted, as though she kept expecting him to see who he really came to the club for and leave her at any moment.

Only when he released her to raise his hand for a waitress did she smile, tentative but genuine.

Shannon, she said.

Sky was briefly captivated by her lush lips, painted a few shades darker than her dress. Then he met her eyes once more. Tell me, Shannon, what can I do for you tonight?

Two hours later, they were in the back of his chauffeured car, drinking champagne and drinking each other, pulling ineffectually on clothing, hands roaming with increasing desperation. When the car stopped in front of his apartment building, they broke away, struggling to calm their breathing. Sky nipped the base of her neck, smiled with her skin between his teeth as she gasped. He released her with obvious reluctance to return their glasses to the bar. Then, the consummate gentleman, he went around the vehicle to help Shannon step out.

She nearly lost her footing, but it wasn’t because of the champagne.

Married five years, divorced for two, with two sweet but exhausting children being watched by a babysitter. Snotty noses, long hours, collapsing on her unmade bed at the end of the day, too tired to care that half of it was empty. A bottle of vodka behind the vanilla ice cream.

Things like this didn’t happen to her. Men like Sky—considerate, charming, handsome, successful men—just didn’t happen.

Standing next to the car, she stroked the line of his beard along his jaw, then over the shoulders of his suit, slightly rumpled now. In the shadows, his eyes seemed to glow bright blue—they’d pierced through even the reddish tint of the club, and they pierced her now. When she pulled him down for another kiss, she tightened her fingers in his hair. He hummed against her mouth and pulled her closer, until she felt him hard against her abdomen. If she could, she’d climb him, wrap her legs around his waist right there, and hold on fast. She was afraid that if she let him go, her fairy-tale Prince Charming would disappear.

And people passing by were watching her, watching them, envying her. In spite of the night’s chill, she heated from the inside out at the thought of other people wanting what she had.

Sky filled her vision, left room for nothing else. He led her into the Park Avenue building without needing to look where he was going, catching her whenever she stumbled, her heels slipping on the marble tile. He kissed her neck, murmured in her ear, telling her how beautiful she was and exactly what he wanted to do to her and what he wanted her to do to him. Had he been any other man, some of those things might have done more than make her blush; he would have earned a handprint on his cheek. When he said he’d tie her hands to the headboard and lick her until she begged so loudly his neighbors would complain, she clung to his shoulders to keep from melting right there in the lobby, biting her lip against a knot of bewilderment and lust low in her belly.

He pulled her into the elevator flush against him before turning them around and shoving her against the wall.

Shannon cried out, breath knocked out of her. For a moment, she knew a tremor of fear. Then he bent down to take her nipple in his mouth through her clothing, slid one of his hands under her dress and between her thighs, until she was breathless for a completely different reason. She almost blacked out from her shallow gasps for air and the rush of blood where he rubbed his fingers over her.

Oh my God. Was that her voice, ecstatic, trembling, pitched high and helpless? Had it ever sounded like that before? Had any man—or anything—ever made her feel half of what he was doing to her now?

The elevator rang when it reached the fourteenth floor. They stumbled, laughing, into the foyer, where there were only three doors. He drew her to the first with a kiss to her hand.

I just want to say how pleased I am that you are here with me, Shannon. You have no idea how much it pleases me. His voice was low, rough. But you will.

Sky pulled her into the dark apartment. She barely got a glimpse of the sleek, understated contemporary décor, a mixture of hard metal industrial and warm wood grain, before Sky kicked the door closed and led her to the staircase, removing his coat and tie on the way. He left them on the floor with no regard to their value. If he could afford this apartment, he could probably afford dozens of those suits. Shannon couldn’t imagine what that was like, but she also couldn’t care about her own clothes either when Sky unzipped her dress, peeled it down her body as they ascended the stairs, and left it in a heap on the landing.

God, you were made for this. Sky pressed her against the railing, gentler here than in the elevator.

His clothed body against her bare skin was one of the most erotic things she’d ever felt. She reached back to unhook her strapless bra and slid it out from between them. He bit his lip as he allowed himself the luxury of taking in the sight with patience belied by what still pressed against her. He closed his eyes when she slipped a daring hand down to stroke what she found there.

Then he was kissing her again, practically carrying her the rest of the way up the stairs before leading her to the master bedroom. She noticed little beyond the off-center four-poster bed and the freestanding Japanese silk screens that split the room. He held her to his body, maneuvered them to the large bed, then pulled her over him as he fell back onto the covers. She squeaked when she landed on top of him, but they kissed through their smiles.

Shannon had never seen a four-poster outside of movies, but the sensation of being surrounded by those dark red curtains was surprisingly decadent, as though the bed embraced them the way Sky embraced her.

They worked their way back to the pillows, Shannon trying to remove Sky’s shirt at the same time. When she finally got his shirt open, she licked her way down his chest and abdomen.

He rested back against the pillows, tangled his fingers in her hair as she opened his trousers. She glanced up as she lifted him out and licked up the length. Then she closed her lips around him and sank down. Sky threw his head back with a loud groan, raising his hips up to meet her.

I knew that mouth would… I need you up here. He reluctantly pulled her off of him and up his body. I need you.

He shed his shirt. She pushed her panties down, then kicked them away. If he’d wanted to make it last, he would have to be disappointed. She couldn’t wait anymore.

She climbed over him again, sliding her body along his, shivering from how much she wanted him, and how fast. Arousal simmered to nearly a boil under her skin. With each exhale, she moaned softly, just from having him against her. He could fulfill all his elevator promises later. Right now, she just needed him.

Sky seemed just as impatient. He wrapped his arm around her waist, bringing her down over him. Without preamble, he guided himself into her.

Taking a man had never felt so sweet on its own. Their mouths met again as they found a rhythm, their moans a chorus with the sound of their joining bodies.

Surely he couldn’t deny the spark, this frisson of connection. If he felt the way she did, this could become something so much more, something stronger, something magical…everything she had ever wished for.

Well, look what we have here, said a woman from the foot of the bed.

Shannon shouted into Sky’s mouth and reeled back. Sky froze.

The soft-spoken woman stood still, almost serene, taking in the sight in front of her as though the curtains of the four-poster framed a staged scene. She was one of the most ethereal women Shannon had ever seen—thin, with pale skin, pale lips, white-blonde hair in a natural ash rather than dyed platinum. She wore a translucent black robe that revealed more than concealed her perfect, perfectly naked body underneath.

D-Dianne, Sky finally managed to say, I thought you were working late—

The woman was like an ice sculpture. "I came home early to surprise my husband. And what did I find?"

Oh my God, I didn’t know he was married! Shannon squirmed, trying to get off of him, but Sky’s grip on her hips pinned her in place. He still twitched inside her, his hips making little involuntary jerks, but he was otherwise paralyzed, immovable.

Dianne, I didn’t mean—

"Oh, you didn’t mean for this to happen? It was an accident? Do you really expect me to believe you just stumbled into bed with the most desperate pretty face you could find by mistake? Was I not enough for you, Sky? Was this not enough? You goddamn son of a bitch."

Dianne raised her hand, revealing a shining silver revolver, and Shannon struggled in earnest. Fear twisted a knife in her stomach. Cold sweat broke out all over her body.

I didn’t know! I didn’t know! I’m sorry! Let…go…

Sky dug his fingers deep into the flesh of her hips, clenching and clenching until she thought they might leave bruises behind. He just stared at his wife, his slight, bewildered smile like the start of a lie, his brilliant eyes dilated and wide and innocent—as though he couldn’t believe he was really caught, or that his wife was really pointing a revolver straight at him and the woman he’d brought into their bed.

Shannon would have sworn on a stack of Bibles that there hadn’t been any wedding ring on his hand at the club or in the car, though it was hardly hidden now that she looked again. Both Dianne and Sky wore thick gold bands inset with a large red stone, too dark to be a ruby—garnet, perhaps.

Now, now, dear girl, Dianne said, smooth as autumn honey, did I say you could stop?

The hammer clicked.

Shannon started to cry. She couldn’t help it. She was mortified. Confused. Terrified.

No tears now. Her words could frost a blacksmith’s forge. Dianne met Sky’s eyes, a dark smile on her watercolor lips to match his. You came here to fuck my husband. I suggest you finish what you started.

"No, I just want to… I’ll just leave. Please."

Shannon finally managed to wriggle off of him, but before she could crawl from the bed, Sky encircled her in his strong arms again and flipped them over, forcing her beneath him. She pummeled ineffectually at his shoulders. The smile she’d interpreted as bewildered widened until it showed his teeth, bright against his dark hair.

Pleasure coiled within her in spite of her fear, strangely heightened by it, cocooning them as he moved hot and hard through the cold terror until it burned. Her attempts to hit him shifted into desperate clutching at his back. She couldn’t tell why she cried anymore—from fear, from the realization she’d been played for a fool, or from the terrible arousal that climbed far beyond anything she had ever experienced before.

Everything became even more surreal when Dianne walked around the bed and pressed the barrel of the gun to Shannon’s forehead.

It’s almost complete, Dianne said. Fulfill the spell.

With a wave of her free hand and a truly breathtaking smile as frightening as her husband’s, the Japanese screens splitting the room folded closed, striking the wall with a thud.

The other side of the bedroom was lined with shelves filled with books, vials of liquid, and dried plants. It was difficult to discern the contents of the jars along the bottom shelf as another wave of tears spilled over. But through her blurred vision, Shannon could see suspension chains and shackles hanging from the ceiling over a broad, smooth metal bowl, a perfect half-sphere. Surrounding it was a circle about six feet in diameter made with some kind of poured earth. Candles marked five points around the outside of the circle, and another set marked the same five points around the bowl.

What— Shannon gasped, but Sky thrust deep, stroking her through a rising orgasm that threatened to wrench her apart. Shannon clenched her eyes shut. Light burst through her eyelids, and she arched up to meet him, her question becoming a keening cry.

When she could open her eyes again, the glow around Sky and Dianne was in its final moments. It faded into their skin, strongest around their wedding rings.

Oh, that’s good. Sky slumped over her, dropping his head against her shoulder and panting into her skin.

Dianne stroked Shannon’s cheek lightly, as though in apology. Then she brought her fingers to her mouth to taste the tears. I’m sorry we had to bring you here under false pretenses, but you shouldn’t let that make you feel like you had nothing to offer. You’ve given us more than you could ever imagine.

Sky pressed a kiss to Shannon’s neck before pushing himself up and fastening his pants. Indeed, a worthy creature.

Shannon’s face flushed red, a combination of afterglow and humiliation. She wasn’t sure which was worse. Hot, prickling tears trickled from the corners of her eyes.

He no longer held her down, though. She could get up, get out. She could grab her dress as she ran down the stairs, zip it in the elevator. She could crawl home and take out that bottle of vodka, wait for the darkness to sink over her, damn the consequences in the morning. She didn’t want to see morning for at least another week. She felt stupid. Pathetic. Filthy.

She tried to sit up, but nothing moved. Every single voluntary muscle was relaxed, depleted. When she tried to cry out for help, her mouth dropped open, slack, like that of a puppet.

There’s no point, darling, Dianne said. Even if we were to let you live, you would never be able to move again. There’s still life force left in you, but don’t worry. We’ll take that more slowly. You won’t even notice it leaving your body. You’ll have much more important things on your mind.

She caressed the frame of Shannon’s face with the barrel of the gun, then opened the cylinder. Every chamber was empty.

She set the silver revolver on the nightstand. My husband and I never had any need for guns, but I like how it feels in my hand.

Sky shifted to sit at the edge of the bed, joining his wife in looking down at her with undeniable affection.

Yes, love, you chose very well. A pretty face indeed, Dianne said. A shame she can’t last. She raised her palm again.

Shannon’s ragdoll body flew across the room. Shackles enclosed her wrists, yanking them above her head. She dangled over the shining metal bowl, her head lolling at an awkward angle.

Shannon couldn’t scream as Sky slashed a hooked finger through the air, opening her neck from end to end. She could only gurgle. Another series of slashes. Her skin split over her upper arms and along her thighs, like claw marks. Blood didn’t spurt out much after the initial cut. It flowed down her naked body in a hot fall, then dripped from her toes into the bowl. Her body twitched, but she only had control over her eyes. She tried to use them to beg to the husband and wife.

Please, I have children.

But she already knew how fruitless it would be.

Sky turned away from the woman hanging from the ceiling to return his attention to his wife. Have I told you lately how much I love you?

Dianne’s icy exterior warmed. You may have mentioned it once or twice.

I am the most fortunate man in this world, of any time.

Sky pulled Dianne onto his lap for a kiss. They enjoyed themselves, slow and scorching, to the sound of Shannon’s dripping blood, soothing like rain on window glass.

When Dianne pulled away, she couldn’t conceal how breathless she was. Think you can manage again so soon?

For you, my love, anything. He brought her over him and onto the bed. It was nothing to part the robe, exposing her body to his worship.

In her last conscious moments, through the stinging, drowning sensation of slowly being drained, Shannon watched them make love, their passion fifty times more powerful than what she’d thought she had with him.

Dianne’s cries grew keener. She hooked her leg around his to roll them over so that she was on top, then rode him at a furious pace. Their bodies began to glow once more.

Shannon’s vision went black to the skipping beats of her heart.

Dianne and Sky rested replete in their bed, arms around each other, heated skin cooling. The continued drip-drip-drip of Shannon’s blood broke through the silence, but they were full to bursting with her life. The body hanging from the chains was nothing more than meat now. They had eyes only for each other.

I love when you bring your women home. Dianne stroked his chest lightly. Always so desperate, so soft and needful. You grant them their deepest desire in their last hours. It is a beautiful thing.

They have their charms. He kissed her hair. But when you seduce your men…

She hummed in appreciation.

The women’s fearful desire was the most delicious, but when Sky interrupted her with one of her men, sometimes they didn’t consider sharing objectionable. Truly memorable nights had preceded the slaughter.

She peered up at her husband from underneath her lashes. I must confess, it’s been too long since we’ve had a really good feast. These peasants are fine for a time, but it’s not the same. Their life doesn’t last.

You knew that was going to be a consequence when we moved here, he said.

Well, we couldn’t stay in Russia, and we certainly couldn’t return to Europe. Crude cannons and tanks crushing our lands, our history demolished, blood spilled useless into the earth… You couldn’t expect me to return to that, Dianne said.

We could always go back now. Sell the firm, build a new life.

In his earliest days, he had been an exceptional businessman, but he’d become even more successful once he’d finally grasped the full breadth of the old arts at a time when they were already becoming scarcer. He excelled in everything he ever set out to do, except perhaps in finding a wife. That process had taken longer than he’d anticipated.

The result, though, had been well worth the wait.

She sat up, leaning over him. No, I like it here. But we haven’t had a proper feast since Rothbart, and that was decades ago.

He stroked his beard in contemplation. With masters of the old arts so hard to find these days, and the Brotherhood too protected… Perhaps instead of chasing the masters, we pursue what they leave behind. We seek their enchantments.

Dianne licked a line up his chest, over his throat, along the rasp of his beard, pausing above his mouth. What would you say if I told you I already sent someone after a potential subject, one that would give us both what we want?

His smile disappeared, but his breath quickened. Dianne let herself be enveloped, drawn down into a furious kiss, the slide of tongue interspersed with teeth too sharp to be playful. Then Sky yanked her up by her hair, holding it tightly at the base. Dianne hissed, but she also shivered in pleasure.

His voice was rough when he said, You are a goddess.

Thank you very much, kind sir. Dianne dragged her breasts down his body until he released her hair. She bowed at his feet, then climbed off the bed.

Sky drank in the sight of her as she levitated the giant bowl to bring it with her to the master bathroom. He would dispose of the body. Men were easier. They only ever exsanguinated the women, which made things more complicated, certainly more of a mess. But how Dianne’s skin and hair glowed afterward.

Enjoy your bath, he called after her.

Dianne broke the circle and guided the bowl past the ingredients and spell books, past the bell jars that lined the lower shelf. Inside each, suspended as though in resin, floated the screaming heads of seventeen women, their necks ragged and bloody where they had been severed.

Yes, it had taken some time before he’d found the perfect wife. As it turned out, it hadn’t been obedience he’d sought, nor a lack of curiosity, though he’d believed so at the time. Not a single one of his wives had avoided the temptation to look in his secret room.

But only one had never screamed. Only one had never told him he was a monster.

Only one had been just curious enough.

Bluebeard fondly regarded the screaming visages of his former wives, then stood and approached Shannon’s limp body. He touched her face, unstained by blood and as lovely as when he’d first laid eyes on her.

It was good while it lasted, my dear.

He set her insides aflame.

1. Graffiti Rose

Olivia’s phone vibrated on her way to the Castle.

Tobin didn’t bother with a greeting. "Angela told me to remind you that I can get you a plane out of there within a few hours, and why on Earth aren’t you coming home to help her make you more money? You didn’t want to do the interview, you didn’t need to do the interview, and Angela’s about ready to shoot your firstborn child to get you back here pressing wealthy flesh like you’re supposed to. And by firstborn child, I mean the cat."

Tell Angela if she hurts one hair on Drusilla’s fluffy tail, I’ll go Jackson Pollock on my nudes, Olivia replied. Also, kindly let her know that the interview was a puff profile piece that the damn journalist has been emailing me about for three years, and to be honest, it was just an excuse to come here again. The interview went terribly, by the way, so glad you asked. What is it about me that makes people think I’m interested in their lifestyle criticism?

Tobin was quiet for a beat. Do you want me to answer that, or can you hear me raising my eyebrow from all the way in Chicago?

Olivia bit her lip, but she did manage a smile. The interview, in spite of coming with pizza and beer, had left twists of barbed wire in her chest. Hearing Tobin’s voice helped.

You did look professional, right? he said. Angela requires me to at least ask.

Is my long-suffering manager there? Olivia asked.

Right across from me this very moment. She says hi.

I’m sure she does.

You’re wearing the purple suit, aren’t you?

Her smile widened.

You are. Tobin groaned. God, you look like the love child of Willy Wonka and the Joker when you wear that thing.

You know you love it, Olivia said.

And I know you know you piss your handlers off when you wear it. You’re an artist, Liv. Aren’t you supposed to have this innate sense of color coordination?

I do.

Then why do you insist on wearing things that look like they were filled in by a kid with crayons?

She owned a number of custom suits, but her favorite was the coattailed, three-piece plum with silver pinstripes. Whenever she wore it, she felt like she should do a song and dance around a light pole—not that anyone wanted to hear her sing. She loved wearing it for interviews because it gave her a shit-ton of confidence while doing something she generally didn’t like to do.

Olivia liked people, but journalists made her nervous. She felt better when she intimidated them right back by assaulting their retinas with the unapologetic combination of purple suit, peacock blue hair, orange and pink hibiscus tattoos on her right shoulder and neck, and small hoop earrings ascending in rainbow colors up one ear, silver studs up the other. Add in red patent leather pumps and the graffiti rose at her left wrist, and no one had ever had trouble picking Olivia out in a crowd.

Angela had fits every time she dressed like this, which was most of the time. In her manager’s mind, Olivia should look like a sleek, composed fashion icon, not a fashion victim. As far as Olivia was concerned, Angela did a hell of a job managing her flagship gallery and working with Tobin to set up local appearances, but Olivia resisted every effort the woman made to manage her.

She wore what she liked because she could. What other reason did she need? She was an artist. A certain amount of sartorial eccentricity was allowed, even expected. Olivia wasn’t afraid of being noticed, she could afford to look how she wanted, and she didn’t have to stand for other people telling her to tone her rainbow down just because they preferred a low profile.

Tobin sighed. Can we expect any fallout from the interview?

I hope not. Most of the problem areas were off the record.

Most?

His problem areas are still on the record. I, on the other hand, was careful. If looking subdued is what I need to be taken seriously, I’d rather continue expanding my insult repertoire to come up with new ways I can tell people to shove it.

Oh God, what did you say this time?

Off the record? I said he was a goat-sucking scab stain who could stick his dick in an Antarctic crevasse and twist. But I said it politely.

That bad, huh?

I don’t even mind that he called me derivative. Who the hell isn’t? But he did that thing. You know that thing. Where they call me cute and suggest I need to adult more like them?

Oh shit.

Tobin had been there for the bad reviews, the tense encounters with all of the inevitable people who thought her nudes were in poor taste and her Inferno pieces were blasphemous. Tobin had also been there the last time someone in a normal suit told her to clean the colors off her face, grow up, and get a job.

Olivia slumped in her seat. "I don’t think Angela needs to do damage control for this one. In fact, I’d rather she didn’t. I’d rather burn my bridges with the Tribune altogether."

But then how will you trick your handlers into setting up air travel and a hotel room for you on the business dime the next time you want to go back to Chicago? Why didn’t you just say you were visiting family? Angela understands family. And I don’t care one way or another—I just book what you tell me to.

Because I’m not here for family.

You didn’t have any problem lying about going there for an interview, Tobin said.

"But you wouldn’t believe me if I said I was visiting family. You’d call people in white lab coats to drag me into a hospital for a CT scan. Look, I’ll come home Saturday afternoon like we planned. Maybe I’ll even go see Rebecca tomorrow morning if she’s open to her crazy sister inviting herself over for impromptu brunch. I think I can afford one day off that has nothing to do with art, don’t you?"

Mind telling me what you’re up to, if not a family visit? Tobin asked. Did someone die?

Olivia reached inside her purse where she’d stored the manila envelope filled with the letters. The paper crinkled when she touched it, but she didn’t take the letters out. Just wanted to reassure herself they were there.

The snow has buried half my home in a dense cloud of white. I jealously prize my view, but there is charm to being snowed in as well, with newly strung lights hanging cheerfully above the drifts that have plastered themselves against the windows. The last time we suffered such a snow, I had to burrow myself out to the ledge like a mole, but I dug so far out that I nearly toppled over the side of the building.

I would much rather remain indoors this year, ensconced in the paradox of the snow around me and the eminently comfortable warmth of my home, and write to you.

I needed to see an old friend, she said.

That’s what Skype and FaceTime are for.

I don’t know if he has that, and it’s not the same.

He?

Don’t even, Olivia said. I made a promise, all right? Uh oh, sounds like you’re breaking up. Oh, look, a tunnel.

I’m onto you, Rowe. He sighed again. "Okay, I’ll try to hold Angela off, but I will not be responsible if she decides to fly over there and save you from yourself. And remember, you need to be on that flight tomorrow afternoon, ’cause the Art to Heart fundraiser is tomorrow evening. You hear me, Rowe? That’s this Saturday. It’s in your calendar."

Tobin, you’re going to remind me about it tonight and tomorrow morning, and my calendar will remind me about it, too. You are such a mother hen. I won’t forget. You know, I took care of myself just fine before I hired you.

"I’m still going to remind you. Because I know you. And about the interview piece… As usual, it’s just one paper, one review. Excuse me, one profile. Don’t take it to heart."

Olivia sniffed and rubbed her nose to convince herself not to tear up again. Anger usually translated into tears for her, which made everything worse, because then hack journalists and other such sundry fellows could chalk her anger up to being ‘overly emotional,’ as though tears were somehow weaker than being narrow-minded. I’m not taking it to heart. I’m fucking pissed.

"I can hear that. I hope your friend is a calming friend. Have a good mini vacation. And remember, you’re coming home tomorrow afternoon."

Thanks, Mom.

Rowe, I swear, if you call me that again, I’m going to double my salary, because I’m not paid nearly enough to be your mother.

Have a good weekend, Tobin.

You, too, Liv.

She ended the call and slid her phone into its purse pocket, wiping away the last stray tears left over from the horrid interview—which had been going so well while they’d talked about her art but had fallen apart as soon as the subject had turned to her, when both the journalist’s contempt and her sensitivity to his specific brand of contempt had surfaced. It was always the perfect storm. Deep down, Olivia knew other people’s opinion of the way she presented herself wouldn’t make her react like that if she didn’t halfway believe they were right. But if she was wrong, she didn’t want to be right, and a journalist should have known better.

Half of Tobin’s needling was just hot air. He knew she liked it when he pecked at her. He was a gentleman and a scholar keeping her on track with her schedule or on task with her commissions in addition to her own work, so she put up with him and paid his salary on time every two weeks like clockwork. He made sure of it. After all, he handled her finances, too.

Armed with her second cup of coffee, Olivia paid the taxi driver and stepped out onto the street across from the building that had been home for most of her young life. After leaving Castle Apartments over six years ago to go to university, she’d come back less than a handful of times. The last had been for Rebecca’s wedding. After that, she’d stayed in New York and never felt any need or desire to return.

The building hadn’t changed much, the façade respectable and plain. French doors and brief wrought iron balconies lined each side, some with small tables or potted gardens or bicycles. The only truly unusual element was the penthouse suite itself, which comprised the entire twenty-first floor. Olivia spotted the greenhouse, tucked against the side between the suite and the concrete balcony wall that surrounded the penthouse porch.

Most of the walls of the penthouse were actually tinted picture windows. Odd for a man who preferred his privacy, Olivia’s mother had once said to their neighbor over a glass of wine. Olivia hadn’t thought it was so odd. If she had to be cooped up in one place all the time, she’d want a lot of windows, too, and it wasn’t like anyone would be able to see in during the day.

The indelible mark Olivia had left on the building eighteen years ago wasn’t visible from the street. She resisted the impulse to go around to the alley she’d once frequented so often, where she’d first met Mr. Griffin in the night shadows. She didn’t need to check if it was still there. His latest letter was still fresh on her mind:

The roses on my balcony are dormant, of course, but I persist in my efforts to coax the greenhouse bushes to flourish so that I may have roses year-round. Even if my latest rose-related endeavor does not succeed, we both know I always have yours, which is not subject to the harshness of a Chicago winter. More than the delicacy of the roses I struggle to nurture, yours was made for this city.

A graffiti rose—rough, spiky, amateur, urban, still beautiful—made with stolen spray paint by a little girl in pigtails and a pink Power Ranger shirt. Petty crime that had led to the promise that brought her back today after years of correspondence during her college and post-college days.

Olivia stroked the rose’s miniature on her wrist—her first tattoo, a symbol of where she’d come from and what she needed to be. A reminder of why she was going to walk into her old home when she’d never wanted to come back.

Inside, the first floor had the appearance of a four-star hotel lobby, with marble floors, columns, and three lavish, open lounges. A middle-aged African-American man was reading the Tribune in one of the seating areas. She didn’t recognize him, but she did the couple who came up from behind to meet him—friend or family, Olivia assumed.

Mrs. Kingsley sat at the reception desk by the brassy mailboxes. The windowed room wasn’t always occupied, but the apartment’s main computer system was locked in there, accessible only by Mrs. Kingsley and the super. Sometimes Mrs. Kingsley waited in there to give potential tenants a tour or to help with the groups that rented the lounges or conference rooms.

Mrs. Kingsley typed loudly in front of a bright screen that highlighted her face. Her long nails clicked on the keyboard. Twenty years Olivia had seen her doing the same thing. She had more gray hair now, her bronze skin was more leathery, and the computer was newer. Otherwise, she was still the exact same woman who’d frowned when younger Olivia had slid across the lobby’s marble floors but who’d also given her candy canes at Christmas.

She looked up when Olivia walked in. Olivia couldn’t mistake the head-to-toe inspection she seemed to get from most professional people over the age of twenty-one.

Mrs. Kingsley opened the sliding window. He knows you’re coming. Go on up. All you should have to do is knock. She kept her tone neutral, but she smiled as Olivia nodded and headed for the stairs.

On an average day, Olivia would ride the elevator, but Mr. Griffin kept part of his art collection on the landings. God knew how Mr. Griffin had the balls to leave a fortune in his stairwell when his only security was a no-nonsense landlady and a somewhat stocky super who mostly spoke Czech. Mr. Griffin had written to her about his personal collection, but he’d never mentioned a robbery, so either his security was better than she thought or his collection was the private art world’s best-kept secret.

Vanity played a part in her ascent as well. Floors three, seven, and twelve featured paintings from her Art Nouveau collection. Mr. Griffin had also managed to snag an O’Keeffe, Kahlo, Klimt, and even a Mucha, of which Olivia was insanely envious. She leaned against the stair railing and stared at the Mucha for a while, grinning like a teenager who’d just had her first kiss. A few other pieces on the way up were more modern or abstract, in styles she respected but had never fully delved into herself. Whenever she’d tried, they’d made her feel more pretentious than usual.

Climbing twenty-one flights of stairs had seemed like a good idea at the time, but in spite of a few stops to admire the paintings, she was panting by the time she reached the top floor, and her feet were killing her. Olivia was a fan of walking, but most of the time she walked in parks. On solid, sensible, flat ground. None of this vertical nonsense. And usually in better shoes.

The top floor hallway was short and welcoming, with just one surprisingly ornate wooden door, made more for a stately mansion than the entrance to an apartment. It reminded her of Ghiberti’s work on the Florence Baptistery. The figures carved within were too miniature for her to discern what they were even when standing close, as though the artist had hidden the truth of the image in plain sight, with an answer only if one looked at it in just the right way. There wasn’t enough room in the thin hallway for her to see it all in its entirety, and she’d always been crap at those Magic Eye games. After walking by all that nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century art, it was as though she had passed through some kind of veil all the way back to the Renaissance, maybe earlier.

Captivated as she was, she almost forgot to knock.

Olivia reached for the large brass door knocker, but her breath caught in her chest, and she lowered her hand.

Mr. Griffin hadn’t seen her for six whole years. If he owned a computer, he could have found pictures of her on the Internet, but she didn’t know what kind of technology he had or how plugged into it he was. When she’d left for college—back when her appearance had still been determined by what her mother would let her leave the house wearing—people had walked by her without a second glance. That didn’t happen anymore, even on a less outré day.

Usually, Olivia didn’t care two cents for how people thought she looked, but she wasn’t without her moments of insecurity, and after the interview, she had a few pennies in her back pocket.

Liv, sweetie, get it the fuck together.

Olivia reached for the door knocker again and knocked three times. Whenever these thoughts crept through her head, she had to remind herself that people who made her feel like this weren’t worth her time. And the corollary: people who were worth her time would never make her feel like this. It would only take one afternoon to determine if Mr. Griffin was indeed the man he seemed to be in his letters, the strange friend he’d been whenever they’d crossed each other’s path in the alley.

Everyone in Castle Apartments knew Mr. Griffin. He owned the building. It was just that so few people had ever seen him. He sometimes spoke to tenants through an intercom system, but he rarely left his apartment. All anyone knew were the stories that kids told each other, that parents told their kids, and that adults told each other. Which meant no one knew anything but everyone thought they knew something.

When she was a kid, before she met Mr. Griffin for the first time in person, all Olivia had had to go on were those stories. Jason of 8E had claimed that Mr. Griffin was seven feet tall. Jason had seen him on the balcony one day from the neighboring building and said he was completely covered from head to toe with those things Muslim women wear, you know, the black robes that cover their face. He’d said Mr. Griffin had to duck to get back inside.

When Olivia and her friend Ellen were careening through the apartment building playing hide and seek, Mr. Weiss, the old man who lived alone in 3D, would tell them that Mr. Griffin ate wicked little children who ran in the halls and disturbed other tenants.

Mr. Kao from 9E, Ellen’s father, had explained that Mr. Griffin had been in an accident that left him terribly burned, and that was why he covered himself up and stayed locked away. Mr. Kao had also said that Mr. Griffin never left his penthouse, but Olivia definitely knew that wasn’t true.

She removed her slouch hat to tuck it into her purse just as the doorknob turned and the door opened.

Somehow, she had forgotten how tall Mr. Griffin was. Even with her wearing four-inch heels and tall herself without them, he towered over her. The door was larger than any other door in the building, but he still had to bend down to look into the hall. Olivia had dated a basketball player for four months her sophomore year, and she remembered being constantly surprised by him as well. Mr. Griffin was taller.

Olivia, Mr. Griffin said warmly. It is so good to see you again.

He held his gloved hand out to her, and Olivia took it. Her hand disappeared in his, just as it had when she was a child.

Mr. Griffin wore scarves wrapped around his face, and he concealed himself further with a hood. The only exposed part of him was a strip between the scarves so that he could see out. The corners of his eyes crinkled in a smile. The eyes themselves were black almost to the edge of his whites, like ink spilled beyond pre-drawn lines, and the skin around them was grayish and leathery. She couldn’t remember seeing him in such good light before.

Come in, come in. He guided her into the apartment, releasing her hand as they entered the great room. If approaching his door was like walking into the Renaissance, walking into his home was like entering a modernized fantasy world, which tickled every artistic sensibility in her body.

The style was all swirls and scrolls and golden light. The great room received sunlight from three directions, and the afternoon sun set every gleaming crystal, porcelain, and brass surface to its best advantage. Dusty rose, cream, and gold were softened here and there with sage green, an unexpected palette for a bachelor. The wall to the left separated the great room from what Olivia assumed was the bedroom. In the great room itself, three small partitions off the entrance broke up the space, but he never had to lose too much of the light or the view.

On the partition farthest from them, across from a cream-colored chaise longue, he’d hung the first painting he’d bought from her—not an Art Nouveau piece that would have better matched his décor, but one of the Infernos instead. Olivia liked to keep track of who purchased originals, but she hadn’t known he’d bought this one until now, even though it was the third painting she’d sold, before Olivia Rowe had become a desired signature. He must have purchased it anonymously.

She shrugged off her embroidered overcoat as she approached the painting. It was out of place in the room, dark in comparison to the light Mr. Griffin seemed determined to bring into his home. Even one of the nudes would have been more appropriate.

She had painted the entire piece in a single night. Olivia had what she knew was exquisite fortune to be one of those rare people who could stay up late and get up early without harsh consequences. She liked her coffee, but she didn’t resemble a zombie in the mornings—a useful trait during international travel. However, she was a night person by nature. As sunset brightened the reflections against the skyscrapers and the city lost its monochromatic dullness, her creativity awoke, peaking sometime around ten, though the bulk of her work