I couldn’t bear the feverish excitement in his eyes. I looked past him. He seemed more horrifying than ever with his crown and his yellow-crusted bandages. He was going to rip out my heart. Right now, right here — with his handlers and wife in the next room. If Dromo was right, the queen was listening at the door — not that she’d stop him from killing me. All she cared about was making sure that I didn’t replace her. I shuddered. Speak his language, Rafe had said. Talk crazy. But how could I talk, when I couldn’t think?
Chorda ran a hairy hand down his velvet robe. “I will leave this room tonight in my human skin.”
“Will you tell your subjects how you broke the curse? How many human hearts you had to eat to get the job done?”
“It’s the beast that kills. When I’m human again, the beast’s sins will not be mine.” He took my dial from around his neck and laid it on the table in front of him. “And now I know the way into the human world. I will go to this tunnel” — he tapped the dial’s screen — “and I will join it as a man.”
And I’d shown him the way. He’d slip right past the quarantine line. He’d infect the West. All because of me. Chorda watched me, enjoying my fear. Hate surged in me — hate for the evil thing that he was. Hate for his insanity. I was verging on crazy as well, so why not give in to it? Do the insane. The unthinkable. What did I have to lose?
I took a breath and then forced myself to do the absolute last thing I wanted to: I moved closer to Chorda. “It’s a test, you know,” I said in as steady a voice as I could manage.
The patches of whiskers above his eyes twitched.
“So far you’ve failed.” I pulled the bobby pins from my hair and let it spill over my shoulder in a dark wave. “Are you going to fail again?”
His eyes narrowed. “What test?”
“Take my heart if you want, but you won’t break the curse that way. Know why?”
He grew still, watching me with the luminous eyes of a predator. Make him believe. I leaned across the table. “Because I have to give it to you. Keep stealing hearts and you’ll stay an animal forever.” I ran my eyes down his body, letting my disgust show. “The beast has to win the girl’s heart, that’s how it works. How it’s always worked.” I tapped my chest just above the neckline of my dress.
He dragged in a breath, and time hung in the air between us.
“Make me love you,” I said softly. “And my heart is yours for the taking.”
“How?” The word was no more than a low growl.
I pushed aside a place setting, including the steak knife, which I so desperately wanted to snatch up. I leaned across the table. “Let Rafe go.”
Chorda rocketed to his feet, the veins in his neck standing out like rope. I gaped at him. “No,” he snarled as curved claws sprung from his nail beds. “The hunter stays.”
The urge to flee buzzed through my veins like a drug, but I gripped the edge of the table and dug in. Run and the tiger would pounce. I waited until I could open my mouth without screaming. “Fine. Act like a beast; stay a beast.”
His eyes were wild, and I knew that if I wasn’t very, very careful, he’d break my neck on impulse. “Or find another way to win my heart,” I added and held out my hand, but I couldn’t stop it from shaking and I couldn’t take back the gesture.
Chorda’s mottled features relaxed. Bending, he turned my hand over and kissed my trembling wrist.
Suddenly, the door flew open and the queen stormed into the room. She paused, taking in the scene and yet clearly seeing it so wrong. “You don’t need to win her heart, darling. You have mine!” she cried.
Chorda beckoned her to him. “You love me?” He cast me a sly glance as if we were sharing a joke. “With all of your heart?”
I wanted to warn her, to yell Run! But my vocal cords were frozen.
“Yes.” The queen hurried over to us, thrusting a furious finger at me. “She’s just after your crown. She doesn’t love you. But I do.”
Her voice edged on hysterical and I almost felt sorry for her. She was walking right into Chorda’s trap. But I couldn’t worry about her. I had to get as far away from Chorda as I could. And this was my chance. With his attention on her, I slipped my dial off the table and edged toward the open door. Not too fast. Not so he’d notice me.
“So your heart is mine for the taking?” Chorda purred, turning the queen in his arms so that he stood behind her.
She stiffened. She must have guessed the terrible double meaning of his words. “I just meant that I love you and —”
Chorda cupped her chin and tilted her face to his, as if to kiss her. Then he raised his other hand. His two-inch claws slipped forth.
“No, please!” The queen struggled in his hold. “I’ll go to the feral house. Or put me with the lionesses. I’ll —”
With one clawed hand, he tore open her throat. The queen thrashed in his arms, trying to get away as dark blood streamed down her neck. Her mouth opened but no sound came out. He’d sliced through her vocal cords. And then she sagged, though there was still life in her eyes. Chorda caught her flowing blood in the cup of his hand, brought it to his mouth, and lapped it up.
I skittered backward — unable to take my eyes from the scene, unwilling to turn my back to Chorda. He reached around the slumping queen and slashed her bloodstained chest once, twice.
I whirled and tore for the hall, leaving behind the sounds of bones cracking and a splatter of liquid. At the door I glanced back to see Chorda kiss his queen on the mouth and drop her to the floor. Crimson blood dripped from his fist. He was holding her heart in his hand! With her twitching body at his feet and his velvet robe flecked with red, Chorda lifted the heart to his lips.
I spun into the hall. So many doors, so many halls. Which would get me out of here? I couldn’t open them all. I raced past a brass cage of an elevator and pivoted. Elevators and stairs went together, yes? I tugged at the nearest door and saw a spindly staircase that descended into darkness.
Down I went, into a darker, grimmer part of the castle. I ran through the rabbit warren of a basement — so like the chimpacabra tunnels — turning corners and skirting the entrances to darkened halls. The warren ended in a large, poorly lit room, and I skidded to a stop. Either Chorda himself or his handlers were going to come after me. I needed to find someplace to hide.
A stainless-steel worktable gleamed in the center of the room, laden with jars of chemicals and bolts of fabric. Mannequins lined the walls, some nude and some wearing colorful clothes of leather and fur in various stages of completion….
I focused on the long zippered bag on the worktable — a body-sized bag — and my thoughts slowed until they crystallized into one chilling realization: This is where Cosmo’s mother had been turned into clothing. And the same thing was now happening to other manimals.
Something clacked across the room. With a tap, I darkened my dial, tucked it into my dress, and darted among the mannequins. In the far corner, a seamstress sat hunched over an old-fashioned sewing machine, her wide back to me. She wore a dirty kimono and seemed completely focused on her work, which had to be unending. Torn clothes lay piled on the floor by her feet — maids’ uniforms and white jackets like Dromo’s.
There was nowhere in this room to hide, but maybe I could swap my silk gown for something less conspicuous. I crept as close as I dared, snagged the hem of a maid’s dress, and dragged it to me. When the seamstress set the machine clacking once more, I snatched up the dress and stood. Again she paused, but only to fold the jacket that she’d been working on. I edged away from her, but then a collar with a glinting buckle fell from the folds of the maid’s dress and hit the floor with a ping.