(Ruby's POV)
The car is a silent tomb on wheels.
Mrs. MacLeod doesn't speak. The driver doesn't speak. The only sound is the swish of tires on wet asphalt and the frantic drum of my own heart. I watch London blur past the blackened window—a world of light and life I'm being driven away from. Each glowing pub, each crowded bus stop feels like a stab. A normal life. A free life.
You belong to me.
His words circle in my head like vultures. I wrap my arms around myself, the soft wool of the dress suddenly feeling like a uniform. A prisoner's uniform.
"How long is the flight?" My voice cracks the silence, too loud.
Mrs. MacLeod doesn't turn. "Long enough."
That's all I get. I swallow down a hundred other questions. What's it like? Is he really… disfigured? What will I do there? They pile up in my throat, bitter and choking.
We arrive at a private airfield, away from the bright terminals. It's all chain-link fences and shadows. A sleek, silver jet waits on the tarmac, stairs down, looking like a predatory bird resting. A man in a crisp uniform stands at the bottom, unblinking in the drizzle.
This is it. The point of no return.
Mrs. MacLeod gets out, and I scramble to follow, my legs stiff. The cold, damp air hits me, smelling of jet fuel and rain. I'm ushered up the stairs. No tickets. No security. Just a step from one cage to another.
Inside, the jet is all muted cream leather and polished wood. It's obscenely luxurious. A palace in the sky. There are deep armchairs, a sofa, a table with a crystal decanter glowing amber in the soft cabin light. It's warm and quiet.
It's the most beautiful room I've ever been in, and it makes me want to vomit.
"Sit," Mrs. MacLeod says, gesturing to a chair by a window. "We will take off shortly."
I sink into the chair. It molds around me, hugging me in comfort I don't want. I fumble for the seatbelt, my fingers clumsy.
A different, younger woman in a neat uniform appears. "Can I offer you a drink, miss? Champagne? Water?"
She calls me 'miss'. Not 'prisoner'. The normality of it is disorienting. I just shake my head, unable to speak. She smiles a small, professional smile and disappears behind a curtain.
The engines start with a low whine that builds to a roar. The jet begins to move. I press my forehead against the cold window, watching the ground crew, the lights, the world shrink away. My last tether to everything I've ever known, snapping silently.
As we lift off, London becomes a twinkling grid, then a smudge, then nothing but cloud.
"You should sleep," Mrs. MacLeod says from the chair opposite. She's taken out some knitting, of all things. The needles click-clack with a steady, maddening rhythm. "It will be easier."
"Easy?" The word bursts out of me, edged with a hysterical laugh I barely recognize. "Nothing about this is easy."
Her clicking needles pause for one beat. Then resume. "Acceptance makes it easier. Fighting it will only make you tired."
"Is that your advice? Just accept it?" I turn to look at her. Her face is a landscape of lines and stern resolve. "You work for him. You help him do this."
Her eyes, those flint-colored eyes, meet mine. There's no apology in them. But no cruelty either. It's something emptier. Duty. "I work for Sterling Manor. I follow the rules of the house. You would be wise to do the same."
"What are the rules?" I ask, desperate for any map, any guide to this terrifying new world.
"You will learn them. The main one will be made clear upon arrival." She looks back at her knitting. The subject is closed.
Frustration burns in my chest. I look back out at the endless dark. Time loses meaning. There's just the hum of the engines, the click of needles, and the vast, empty sky.
The attendant brings a tray with a delicate china cup of tea and a small sandwich, even though I didn't ask. I ignore it. My stomach is a hard knot.
I must doze off, because I'm jerked awake by the pilot's voice crackling over the speaker, calm and smooth. "Beginning our descent. Please ensure your seatbelts are fastened. We'll be on the ground shortly."
Descent? To where? I peer out the window. Below is an inky darkness, no city lights. Just black. Then, as we drop through a layer of cloud, I see it.
The moon breaks through, casting a sickly silver gleam on a wild, churning sea. And on the very edge of a monstrous cliff, rising out of the rock like a broken tooth, is a house.
No. Not a house.
Sterling Manor.
It's a castle of shadows and sharp angles. Turrets claw at the cloud-chased sky. Windows are dark, blind eyes. A single, narrow road snakes up the cliff face to its gates. It's completely isolated, surrounded by nothing but roaring ocean and jagged rock.
It doesn't look like a home. It looks like a maw. A beautiful, terrible mouth waiting to swallow me whole.
A whimper escapes my lips before I can stop it.
Mrs. MacLeod puts her knitting away. "We're home," she says, and the word 'home' has never sounded so much like a curse.
The jet lands with a surprisingly gentle bump on a private, lit runway carved into a plateau near the cliff base. The door opens. The sound that rushes in is immediate and overwhelming—the roar of the wind and the distant, rhythmic crash of waves hundreds of feet below. The air is sharp with salt and cold, so cold it steals my breath.
A black car, identical to the one in London, is waiting. The wind whips my hair and my dress around me as I'm hurried from the warm jet cabin into the cold car. The transition is so fast it feels like I'm being passed between jailers.
This drive is shorter, but the road is a winding nightmare. We spiral up the cliff, the headlights catching gorse and craggy rock, the sea a yawning black void to our left. I squeeze my eyes shut.
When the car finally stops, I open them.
We're inside a vast, cavernous courtyard. The manor looms above, even more imposing up close. Ancient gray stone, covered in ivy that looks black in the night. A massive, iron-studded door stands at the top of a short flight of steps.
The door opens before we even get out. Light spills onto the steps, and two figures stand silhouetted in the doorway.
My heart is in my throat. Is one of them him?
But as we get out, I see they are both women. Staff. They stand perfectly still, their hands clasped in front of aprons, their faces blank. Not welcoming. Not hostile. Just… empty. Waiting.
Mrs. MacLeod leads me up the steps. The wind howls through the courtyard, pushing at my back as if herding me inside. I cross the threshold.
The entrance hall steals what's left of my breath.
It's not a hall; it's a cathedral. A vaulted ceiling disappears into shadows high above. A floor of black and white marble stretches out, cold and gleaming under the light of a monstrous crystal chandelier. It's all soaring stone, tapestries of hunting scenes that look violent and old, and a fireplace big enough to park a car in. A fire roars in it, but it does nothing to cut the deep, bone-seeping chill.
It's the most opulent, soulless place I have ever seen. Every sound—our footsteps, the crackle of the fire—echoes into a vast, hungry silence.
"This way," Mrs. MacLeod says, her voice flat in the enormous space.
She leads me up a grand, curving staircase, past portraits of stern-faced men and pale women who seem to watch me with disapproval. The house is a museum, and I am the unwanted guest.
We walk down a long, carpeted corridor lined with doors. It feels endless. Finally, she stops, opens a door, and stands aside.
"Your room."
I step in. It's another shock. After the Gothic grandeur of the hall, this room is… beautiful. It's large and airy, done in soft creams and pale blues. A four-poster bed with a silvery canopy dominates the room. A fire crackles in a smaller, more delicate fireplace. There's a writing desk, a bookshelf, a sitting area by a tall window currently shrouded by heavy velvet drapes.
It's a princess's room. A gilded cage with a very pretty view.
"The bathroom is through there," Mrs. MacLeod says, pointing to a door. "Your clothes will be brought up tomorrow. Dinner will be sent to your room tonight. You are not expected elsewhere."
She turns to leave.
"Wait," I call out, my voice small. "The… the main rule. You said I'd learn it."
She pauses in the doorway, her back to me. For a second, she doesn't speak. Then she says the words, and they drop into the lovely room like stones into a still pond.
"You have the run of the house, Miss Banks. Except for the west wing. It is forbidden. For your safety."
And with that, she is gone, closing the door softly behind her. I hear the distinct, final sound of a key turning in the lock.
I'm locked in.
I stand there, frozen, in the middle of the beautiful, silent room. The fire pops. The wind moans outside the drapes.
Forbidden. For your safety.
Every fairy tale, every scary story I've ever heard, rushes back to me. The one place you must not go. The one door you must not open.
It's a test. It's a trap. It's a challenge.
My eyes drift across the room, and land on the bed. There, placed neatly on the dark blue silk of the pillow, is a single flower.
A black orchid. Exotic. Velvet-petaled. Unfathomably rare.
It's a welcome. It's a warning.
It's a message.
And as I reach out a trembling hand to touch its cold, perfect petals, I know with a certainty that chills me deeper than the sea wind:
The inspection is over. The real game has just begun.