I stick my hands in my coat pockets, since it’s considerably cooler up here, and my hand hits something hard. A small smile graces my lips when I feel a flashlight that I know for certain I didn’t put in there.

I pull it out and turn it on, and confirm that there is a massive amount of dust in here. In fact, I’m almost tempted to turn and walk out, but I soldier on when I spot a lot of hanging portraits.

The frames have mostly rotted and collapsed, leaving several in the floor, but a few still mostly hang, though the images and canvases have all cracked, leaving no distinguishable features.

All but one.

One remains, and it’s in eerily pristine condition, also looking freshly dusted and cleaned.

I recognize the woman with calculated eyes and a menacing smirk staring at me from that image.

It’s Idun.

My stomach turns, and a part of me wonders if one of the guys didn’t take care of it earlier or something. Or perhaps throughout time.

All the others have fallen to decay, but hers is perfect.

She’s perfect. Exquisite, really. Polished and prim in her very decadent dress and jewels, flawless skin, and perfect posture.

She’s slightly more daunting on this scale than the small portrait painted on the square piece of cloth Arion carries around with him in his jacket pocket.

I don’t understand how he can kiss me and tell me he wants me, while silently pining for the true love of his life. Evil bitch or not, he loves her, and he’s denying it for them.

I turn and head away from the painting, since I’m here to learn about the ones forgotten, not the one everyone else remembers.

All the way up the winding staircase, the pattern continues. The portraits that have managed to hang are too corroded to see the image, left to suffer the elements throughout time. But another pristine image of Idun comes into frame once I reach the next floor.

I pause at this one, because it’s a portrait of her with Vance, her hand on his chest, as they both give the artist a serious, fierce expression. I almost don’t recognize him with the longer hair sticking out from under the top hat he’s donning.

They’re in front of a massive home with VH at the top of the entryway, and a very frivolous carriage is in the background like it was staged there to show off the trifecta proof of wealth—home, clothes, and fancy ride.

I turn and start walking down the hallway of the newest, massive floor that is easier to navigate than the downstairs seemed.

I step over a few fallen portraits and rotted piles of old furniture, finding even the worst portraits to be in surprisingly better condition than said furniture.

I push through, room by room, finding nothing that sticks out, and too creeped out to investigate for too long. At least until one of the guys gets up here.

In another room, I weirdly find three portraits that almost look hidden away, even though they’re hanging up in the same pristine condition as all of Idun’s portraits.

There’s one of her with Emit, one with her and Arion, and lastly, one of her with Damien…all on one wall.

I move closer to study them, finding those portraits just as serious and fierce as the one with Vance.

These three show off the same wealth trifecta, and two of the guys look wildly different. But not Arion.

My brow furrows as I step in closer, recognizing how very similar Arion and Ace look in this image—clothing and all.

I thought it was turn-of-the-century clothing. Clearly I was off that mark, considering Idun’s been under for much longer than that. In fact, those are the exact pants and shirt he was wearing, and that’s the exact hairstyle he had.

How…far back did his mind have to travel in order for him to get as close to human as possible for that astral projection thingy? At times like these, the gist doesn’t help me out all that much.

Putting a pin in that, I glance over to see Damien’s dead eyes in his portrait. His white-blond hair looks just as freakishly perfect on him as ever, though it’s tied off in a ponytail that drapes over his left shoulder.

My gaze flicks back over to see Arion’s happier eyes, and I note his hand is on the small of her back and not groping her ass.

He looks so content there. So at peace.

Emit’s portrait is different. It’s more…solemn. Almost like he was forced to pose in nice clothes, and he wanted the artist to capture his annoyance. I idly notice the collar of his fancy dress shirt has been painted with a tear and a wrinkle.

A noise stirs overhead like a bat is in here, and I quickly get the hell out of that room, slipping a little on the slick floors.

I move up the stairs again to the top floor, sticking close to the stairs, instead of wandering into the wider parts with just a flashlight to guide me, since I don’t want to risk getting lost in this place.

There’s one direction that intrigues me. I’ll visit it when someone else gets up here. Surely that’s coming in the very near future.

Just as I top the stairs, my heart breaks a little. Even knowing as little as I do about them, it’s still not hard for me to realize I’m now on the right floor to see where my people stayed.

Instead of doors to open, there are cage bars to forgotten prison cells that likely imitated bedrooms.

I walk into the first one with a cage door ajar, and the door falls off completely, thudding and clanging to the ground. Jumping out of the way lands me in the room a little quicker, and I shuffle along, as the echoing slowly dulls.

We’re in the towers.

She actually locked them away in the towers. I bet the lightning was terrifying at this altitude. I doubt rubber was an option back then, and there’s so much metal in here that it’s as though this was done on purpose. Surely she didn’t force them to endure every lightning storm…

My stomach churns, even as I force myself to look around at the mostly corroded piles of rust where some of the metal wasn’t quality enough to withstand the test of time.

There’s a semi-standing metal structure in the corner that draws my attention amidst the rubble of the rest of the room. The second my fingertips brush it, my heartbeat drops as if on its own, and my knees wobble as my vision quickly dims.

The taste of the air changes, and my head swims. When my eyes reopen, a familiar sense of frozen invisibility hits me, while the room I’m in transforms into something else entirely.

Did I just accidentally pull up a death window?

A small mat in the corner draws my attention as beautiful light spills into the room. The cage door is back on, looking fresh and new. The dust has cleared, and my gaze jerks over as the sound of muffled sobbing draws my attention.

There’s a tall, slightly hunched woman on the ground that I recognize…from Vance’s death window. That’s Caroline.

Her eyes slowly blink open, and she huffs out a small whimper, as she wipes her tears and shakes her head.

My eyes take in the immaculate stones and dust-free environment I’m now in, but my heart breaks more when I realize that mat in the corner is her bed, and she has no furniture.

The metal structure in the corner is a chair of some sort, with straps and chains and various other painful bindings. My brow furrows, until I hear the snap of the door being slung open.

I startle, and my eyes widen painfully as the woman from the pristine portraits strolls in, more menace in her eyes than I’ve ever witnessed from one person.

The artist did a shit job of capturing that.

Caroline quickly sits up straighter and stares down at the ground, not making a single sound.

Idun starts talking in a language I don’t understand, and Caroline just nods along very quickly. But Idun grows more and more…interested in the chair, and without any warning I pick up on, she suddenly grabs Caroline by the hair.

I’m frozen to my spot, unable to do anything but helplessly watch, as Caroline screams.

Idun throws her in the chair, and I turn when I hear a light whimper, spotting a man far across the hallway that I didn’t notice in the dark. He stares with lifeless, sad eyes before turning and going into another barred room.

Caroline continues to scream, and I force myself to look back to see what Idun’s doing to her. Just as she gets her latched into the chair, a vicious barking noise has me jumping—actually jumping.

My vision swirls as the image fades quickly, and I blink into the darkness that quickly engulfs me.

My flashlight is shining at the metal chair I’m still barely touching, and I realize this chair is a death spot. For Caroline. How? I thought she was an immortal who couldn’t die even for a little while.

I’m so tied to this family that I’m somehow being guided to impossible death spots.

That same vicious growl I didn’t get to investigate in the death spot vision sounds out from behind me, and I swallow thickly as it continues on.

Not another wolf. Not another wolf. Not another wolf. Please, don’t let it be another wolf.

Slowly—oh so slowly—I turn with a mounting lump of dread gathering in my stomach. My light turns with me as the growl steadily intensifies, and the second the light connects with glowing yellow eyes on a beast like I’ve never seen, a scream freezes in my throat.

A long line of slobber drips from its very toothy mouth that is right below its long, wet snout.

Yellow eyes, long snout, big teeth…

Yep. That’s all I need. Especially when the thing lunges at me without any warning whatsoever.

Threads explode from under my coat, my clothing quickly grappling for the beast…but somehow, for the first time ever, I completely miss, and the threads get jerked out of the room by the erratic winds before I can scramble for a second try.

I fumble for the vials absent from my bra. Even if I hadn’t been changed into new underwear, it’d be empty because I didn’t want airport security mistaking me for a terrorist.

There was no airport security. Not that it matters at the moment.

My coat is too pretty to ruin, so I do the only other thing I can think of in a sheer moment of terror. I turn toward the lone window in the room, stumbling over my feet just barely as I break out into a sprint. Narrowly, I dodge gnashing teeth, as I hurl myself into the air with all my strength.

A scream whips out of me the second I take the leap, and the beast snaps at the air behind me, while my stomach rushes up to my mouth. I barely get one word out, before I’m screaming again.

CHAPTER 16

VANCE

As tempted as I am to go up there, I’m sure Violet would like some time alone to process, especially with all those bloody paintings still in there. At least twenty or more of us with Idun…

“He’s been gone too long,” I note, staring off into the distance in search of Emit, distracting myself from the fucking Idun-mess Violet will likely be hostile over.

“We should have torn them down like I said to do,” Damien tells me like he can see right through me.

“Idun’s cleaned and restored them recently. Let’s not anger her too much by tearing down her relics,” Arion answers, staring up the mountainside. “So what did she mean by uh-oh?”