After we crested the top of the staircase, I ran my hand against the wall of the long corridor, the other tightened on my cane, reassuring in its presence. Sconces were placed at uneven intervals, deepening that sense of unsteadiness that followed me up the stairs. It almost gave one the feeling of having had too much champagne.

Sweat beaded along my brow. I didn’t feel right. Vaguely, I heard the quiet hissing of snakes. I squinted toward the sconces; they’d been fashioned after cobras. The bulbs bulged where their bodies coiled, their fangs exposed. It was creepy décor, fitting enough for a murderer.

Despite using my cane for support, I stumbled forward. The young woman caught me before I hit the ground, her brow crinkled. “You don’t look well, Miss Wadsworth. Let’s get you to bed to rest for a bit.”

I dragged in a laborious breath, my chest burning.

“Why aren’t you…” My lids drooped, my mind going sluggish. I staggered against her. My vision blurred and panic set in, chittering and clicking along my spine. Drowsy, I slid my focus back to the hissing serpents. If I squinted, I could just make out faint traces of mist. Oh, no. I’d not planned on being exposed to an airborne contagion. My father’s worries came flooding back. “But I didn’t eat or drink anything here.”

I thought I’d been prepared for this confrontation, but he had created rules I’d never dreamed up before; Poison in the air. I stopped moving. I needed to get back to the stairs. My mind spun so quickly I had to put my head between my knees to keep from vomiting.

“Agatha, I… I don’t feel well.”

“Oh!” Agatha clutched my arm, keeping me from tumbling down into darkness and back down the stairs. “The fumes from the cleanser might not agree with you. Dr. Holmes is still perfecting the formula.” She pointed to her nose. “Cotton. I almost forgot.” She tied a scarf about her face. “Not everyone has a reaction to it, but I’m pretty sensitive to most strong scents. That’s why Dr. Holmes makes me remember the cotton. I won’t be helpful to him if I get ill.”

I staggered a few steps farther, knees shaking. This was no cleanser. At least none that I’d ever encountered. “Why doesn’t he give them to his patrons?”

“He doesn’t run a charity, miss. If he handed out cotton to everyone who rented a room here, he’d be out of money. Plus, this doesn’t happen with everyone. He said he only cleans the corridors like this once in a while. Today seems to be one of those rare occasions.”

She left me and swiftly moved forward, pausing at the end of the corridor, opening doors that I swore were bricked up. I fell against the wall, fighting the darkness creeping into the corners of my vision. I needed to get out of this place. Immediately. My sense of self-preservation screeched wildly to hurry, but whatever he was poisoning me with worked fast.

With a final shove, I stumbled a few feet back toward the stairs, head spinning as a giant portrait loomed before me. It seemed as if the eyes followed me as I collapsed to the floor, trying desperately to crawl back the way we’d come. I heard the bones in my knees crack, the pain blinding in its fury. Two hands lifted me up.

“Now, now, Miss Wadsworth,” a cool voice said. “Stop fighting me.”

I feebly thought of my blade sheathed at my thigh. It was utterly useless to me now. All my preparations, my certainty. Gone.

“It’s time you met your true match.”

His voice was the last thing that tormented me before I plunged into blackness.

FORTY-SIX

CAPTIVITY: NIGHT ONE

MURDER CASTLE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

16 FEBRUARY 1889

My throat felt like hot coals had been shoved down it. My eyes leaked tears as if in mourning.

It was as though my body understood before I did.

The devil had come to claim me.

And I would soon die.

A hissing from somewhere above stole into the room, robbing me of consciousness.

Sleep, deep and endless. A blessing hidden inside the curse.

FORTY-SEVEN

CAPTIVITY: NIGHT TWO

MURDER CASTLE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

17 FEBRUARY 1889

Darkness greeted me as I cracked my lids. Oppressive like summer heat. I stirred, desperate to rouse from unnatural sleep. For a moment, I couldn’t recall where I was. Then fragments of memory came back. Before I sat up, I heard the creaking of a door. A slice of yellow light spilled like entrails across the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut.

Counted my breaths.

This was a nightmare. Like the ones that had haunted me these past months. A trick of the mind. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

I opened my eyes, only to scream.

A figure with horns stood over me, and though I couldn’t be sure, it sounded as if he hissed right before the darkness swept in to do his bidding once more.

FORTY-EIGHT

CAPTIVITY: NIGHT THREE

MURDER CASTLE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

18 FEBRUARY 1889

Drip. Drip.

Drip.

The scent of gasoline mixed with mustiness and other noxious odors twisted my stomach. It was different from when I’d last awakened. Another smell greeted me, an old familiar friend. Copper and pennies and metal. Vaguely, I wondered if the dripping I heard was blood. Something clattered nearby. It sounded like bones. Too many. I imagined an army of the undead, coming to claim me. I thrashed about, furious, as the hissing began in earnest. I knew what that meant. He was dosing me again. Toying with me until he grew bored.

I screamed, the sound echoing around me, though there was an oddness to it. As if I was submerged in a chamber beneath the sea. I had a growing suspicion that no one could hear me. No one but him. Wherever I was, no sounds escaped.

In the distance, I swore I heard the devil laugh in delight.

A nightmare. I was having a nightmare and would soon be awake.

It was the last thought I had before Satan dragged me back to Hell.

FORTY-NINE

CAPTIVITY: NIGHT FOUR

MURDER CASTLE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

19 FEBRUARY 1889

Drip. Drip. Drip.

An incessant dripping dragged me to the surface of a troubled sleep. Before I cracked my eyes open, I became aware of an icy chill seeping into my body. The surface below me was as hard as ice.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I commanded my eyes to open, but they refused, the lids still too heavy to lift. Panic started at the edges, winding its way further into my consciousness. Fatigue could not account for my inability to rouse myself. Several moments passed, my thoughts fuzzy yet buzzing with an undercurrent of urgency. A puzzle piece I was missing. Tremors raked my body as my unbound hair tickled my neck. When had I taken it down? I swore snakes or worms were crawling over my skin. Perhaps even maggots. And I couldn’t do anything about it. Imaginary walls seemed to heave and crumble with each breath. Was I buried in a grave?

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Open your eyes! I thought, furious my lips refused to form the words. Was I no longer in my body? I couldn’t understand how nothing seemed to work. My mind was alert but the rest of me remained immobile. Then it locked into place. I’d been drugged. I tried sitting up, but it felt like a malevolent force had its knees in my back, keeping me shoved down.

A few terrifying moments passed and my fingers twitched. Bolstered by the improvement, I splayed my hands against the mattress, only to realize I’d been deposited onto the floor sometime in the night. My fingers slid over what felt like packed dirt. I rolled to my side and patted the ground for more clues and jerked my hand back. I’d touched something wet.

“T-Thomas?” I finally managed to whisper, reaching into the darkness for an anchor to keep me in this life, this present, this time. I did not want to be torn back into that place of nothingness. I did not want to contemplate the blood I was certain now coated my hands.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Images of Thomas lying upside down, gutted and drained of blood, assaulted my senses. Were they fragmented memories? Fear propelled me up and out of the haze. Or perhaps it was love. There was no greater force on earth, nothing quite as powerful as love. Neither hatred nor fear could ever hope to possess the same amount of strength. I gathered those thoughts, clutched them close, and pushed myself into a sitting position, taking in the darkened room.

A lone candle flickered somewhere behind me. I blinked as my surroundings came into place. I seemed to be in some sort of storage chamber or cellar. From what I could make of it, the dripping noise, blessedly, was just an old leaky pipe.

I slumped down, focusing on the bigger worry of how I’d gotten here and why I’d been drugged. More images came back to me, though I was uncertain of them. A man with horns. Hissing. A room without sound. Now that I was awake, these seemed to be fantasy.

Except my current location was definitely a nightmare.

I glanced at my clothing—a thin nightgown—and froze. The trousers I’d had made in Romania were gone. As was my scalpel belt. Someone had undressed me. They’d touched me and I couldn’t even allow my mind to process the violation of my person or I’d spin wildly out of control. Revulsion twisted my stomach until I choked bile down. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe. To not lose myself to the horror. I would survive and I’d make him suffer.

I tentatively reached up, feeling for any lumps or injury. My hair was unbound and the bun had been removed, along with my hairpins. I frowned, running my fingers through the tangles, hoping to dislodge any of the missing pins. Nothing.

I forced myself to sit straighter, the motion prompting my body into a state of alertness. Followed quickly by nausea. I doubled over and concentrated on finding calmness again, breathing slowly until I was sure I wouldn’t vomit.

More of the room came into focus, my clarity improving the longer the drug worked its way out of my system. What I’d first thought to be a cellar was similar in appearance to a laboratory of sorts. A shard of fear lodged itself under my skin.

“No.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling like a coward. Then I forced myself to remember what had brought me here to begin with. Whom I was fighting for. It became easier to recall I was fearless in the face of fear. I was capable of so much more than I’d ever imagined.