He visibly tenses, but his gaze shifts from mine. “Can I get you anything else, Ms. Ford?”

I just shake my head.

Whatever they gave me turned me ravenous. I clear my plate quickly, along with the warm chocolate soufflé delivered immediately after. The only sound in the room is the echo of my fork clinking against the plate. I’m satisfied, but I eat until the last bite and set my silverware down. I wonder why Guy isn’t here for dinner and when he’ll finally show up. Crude ideas of what our meeting will be like come easily because of an afternoon spent agonizing.

My gaze flits around grand surroundings, noting the long, skinny windows that frame freedom like a painting. Where would I go? Where am I? Am I even near New Rhone anymore? When I look over my shoulder, my eyes land on Norman in the doorway. “I’m ready for the tour,” I say.

His reply comes with a clasp of his hands. “Delightful.”

Carter appears from the kitchen as if he’d been waiting there. My fists shove into the shallow pockets of my jeans as I follow Norman and Carter follows me.

“If a room is unlocked, you are free to enjoy,” Norman explains cheerfully. He takes me around the ground floor, and I count doors and windows. None of the closed doors are included on the tour. There’s a chapel specially installed for the staff at Norman’s request. When he tells me to use it anytime I want, I can’t tell if it’s an invitation or a suggestion. Carter is our silent shadow and makes neither invitations nor suggestions.

Norman seems excited to show me the second floor, which has a game room, home cinema, gym, and another smaller, more intimate dining room. His smile vanishes when I don’t react. But then his eyes light up. “I saved the best for last,” he says.

He leads me down the marble stairs, back to the ground floor. On the way, I think how if I weren’t forced to stay here, I’d have died and gone to heaven. But I don’t realize how true that is until we reach my first slice of happiness in twenty-four hours: the most impressive library I’ve ever seen. Endless books line the walls of a room that somehow manages to be both overwhelming and cozy.

My lips part, inching open until I’m gaping. My head tilts to take in the sheer quantity of books surrounding me. I trace my finger over leather binding, embossed titles, glossy authors. Everything from Atlas Shrugged to Interview with the Vampire to The Velveteen Rabbit. My hearts skips and swells as I recognize stories I’ve read, ones I want to read, and even more thrilling, so many I’ve never heard of.

Norman’s voice disrupts my literary worship. “Perhaps it’s time to rest again. You’ve had a trying day.”

I sigh. “And still no answers.”

“I can’t promise you will ever get your answers; that’s up to the Master of the House. For now, dear, that will have to be answer enough.”

I swallow down the curse I’m tempted to hurl at him. Despite his involvement in keeping me here, I’m not so sure he has any more choice in the matter than I do. So far he’s been kind to me, and though I’m distrustful, it doesn’t seem that taking my anger out on him gets me anywhere. I decide to reserve that for Guy Fowler.

Even having slept much of the day, Norman is right that I’m exhausted. Sleep sounds welcoming. Carter fades into the shadows after a warning look, but Norman follows me up the steps to the third floor.

“Cataline,” he says when we reach the landing.

I turn and face him.

“There’s nothing much to see on your floor. It’s mostly guest bedrooms and storage. However . . .” He points up stairs that fade into darkness, where not a light that I can see shines. “Do not go to the fourth floor.”

“Why not?”

He inhales deeply. “That floor is meant only for the Master of the House, and when necessary, staff. He is very particular about his space.”

I shrug my shoulders with defeat. “Whatever. Goodnight.”

With that, I leave Norman and his sudden grimness at the mouth of floor four.

The equipment’s hum suits the room’s grey, steely surroundings. Machinery that never rests heats the space, but warmth seems inherently wrong for all the sharp edges. Indiscriminate file cabinets filled with data close us in. Files are labeled, alphabetized, slid, shut, and locked into place. Cameras guard the most important corners of the mansion and transmit here. From this underground security chamber, I am even more transcendent than usual. My shoulders depress with a deep and overdue exhale.

“I can handle this, sir,” Norman says to my back. “You have more important things to worry about.”

I ignore him as screen number four of twelve distorts, erratic scribbles marring the black-and-white dining room.

“I know how this type of behavior upsets you,” Carter mutters as he rewinds the footage.

“You say this isn’t the first time?”

“She has fits now and then. So far only during the day when you aren’t around.”

“She should be thankful for that.”

“Give her time,” Norman says. “There’s bound to be some wreckage until she settles.”

I turn to face him with an arched eyebrow. “It’s not the wreckage that concerns me. It’s the disregard for your authority and the lack of a routine. We don’t ask much of her. It shouldn’t be so difficult to acclimate.”

“Put yourself in her shoes,” Norman says under his breath. “It’s only been a week.”

“This is the time for authority. There’s no room for mistakes in our world, you know that. Even the smallest one can change everything. If I could ignore her antics, I would. I don’t give a damn what she does with her days. But disobedience has to be cut off at the source.”

“I understand, but all I’m suggesting is some patience. Maybe I can give her something to make her feel more at home. Is there anything in her apartment she can have?”

“Like I have time to go snooping in her apartment. She seems to like Mexican food—why don’t you have Michael make her some of those chicken tacos?” He frowns when I laugh. “Don’t treat her like such a child, Norman. She’ll adapt. If she doesn’t, I’ll just have to put myself in her path. How’s that for an idea?”

“Not a good one, Master.”

“If she behaves this way while I’m here, it’ll come to that. Once she sees tantrums won’t be tolerated, she’ll have no choice but to accept her situation. However, if she snoops, or if she insists on being difficult, she might unknowingly walk into a world she couldn’t even dream up. A world where I’m this,” I say, touching my chest and lowering my voice, “and that’s information she can never know.”

“Sir?”

I glance down at Carter and then the screen. Cataline sits in a tall chair at the dining table. She’s still for so long that I find myself studying her face. The camera turns her unblinking blue eyes a shade of grey. Her cheeks are probably pink to match lips that are too feminine, too shaped like a heart for my taste. As though she picked a rose from its vase and rubbed it over her white skin. In monochrome, her hair is a tangled inky web waiting for prey. Waiting for me.

“Is everything all right, sir?” Norman asks.

“Why?”

“You made a noise.”

I raise my eyebrows just as Cataline’s body jerks into motion. Without warning, she lunges across the table, reaching out for something.

“Here we go,” Carter says.

I’ve been bad. Locked in my room for five days because I tried to smash a dining room window with a candlestick. And when I noticed cameras in every shadowy corner of my room, I broke them all. They were replaced by the next morning, but I’ve been imprisoned ever since.

Days are beginning to blur together. I watch time pass on a desk calendar I sneaked into my room from the library. Each day I tear away a page, thankful that it isn’t one of those calendars with jokes or images of baby animals. I know I’m almost two weeks into captivity, and I can spend up to an hour tracing the bold, red date with my finger.