Four Of A Kind

Chapter 37: [2.10] A Fire Hazard of a Fairy Tale

Cassidy’s face flushed crimson.

Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

No words came out.

I sidestepped around her and continued down the hallway, leaving her standing there with her water bottle and her confusion. Behind me, I heard something that might have been a strangled scream of frustration.

Last door on the left.

Sabrina’s door was exactly what I expected from someone who spoke in riddles and appeared from shadows like a budget ninja. Plain dark wood. No decorations. No name plaque. No stickers of corgis wearing sunglasses. The door looked like it belonged to a monastery, or maybe a prison cell, or possibly the entrance to some kind of forbidden archive.

I knocked twice.

Silence.

The hallway stretched empty behind me. No sign of Cassidy. She’d probably retreated to her room to plot my demise, or maybe just to kick furniture.

I raised my hand to knock again.

“…come in.”

The voice was so soft I almost missed it. Drowsy. Like someone talking from the bottom of a well, or maybe from underneath seventeen blankets during a winter morning.

I turned the handle and pushed the door open slowly.

And stopped.

What the…

The room was a disaster zone.

Books everywhere. Stacked on the floor in crooked towers. Piled on chairs until the chairs had given up any pretense of being furniture and had become book shelves instead. The nightstand had disappeared entirely beneath a mountain of paperbacks and leather-bound volumes. Clothes were draped over the desk chair. Empty tea cups formed a small civilization on the windowsill. The curtains were drawn tight against the evening light, casting everything in a dim twilight that made the chaos feel almost dreamlike.

Did a library have a seizure in here? Is this a cry for help? Should I be calling someone?

I spotted her on the bed.

Sabrina lay on her back, one arm thrown over her head, her lilac hair spread across the pillow in a halo. An open book rested on her chest, rising and falling with each slow breath. Her purple eyes were half-open, unfocused, staring at nothing in particular. She looked like a princess from a fairy tale, if the princess had decided to let her room become a fire hazard and also had terrible interior decorating instincts.

Also, she was wearing lingerie.

That’s lingerie.

Burgundy lace.

Her purple eyes tracked to me with the speed of molasses in January.

“You brought my order. Put it on the nightstand.”

I looked at the nightstand.

The nightstand was not visible. The nightstand existed only as a theoretical concept beneath a mountain of books that would need an archaeological expedition to excavate.

I navigated through the minefield of paperbacks scattered across the floor. My foot kicked something, and I glanced down to see a copy of Crime and Punishment skitter across the carpet. The book on Sabrina’s chest, I noticed as I got closer, was The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

Huh. Iris loves the movie.

I found a small clearing on top of the book mountain and set down the boba and the Buldak ramen packet. Mission accomplished. Time to retreat.

“Wait.”

I stopped.

Sabrina’s voice drifted through the dim room like smoke.

“I need to sit up.” A pause. Her purple eyes stared at the ceiling. “I don’t want to.”

Okay.

She lay there for another long moment. The book on her chest rose and fell. I waited. She didn’t move.

Then she raised her arms toward the ceiling.

“Pull.”

I stared at her.

She stared back.

Her purple eyes were half-closed but utterly serious.

The contract didn’t mention this. I’m pretty sure the contract didn’t mention any of this. Where’s the clause about pulling half-naked heiresses out of bed? Did Vivienne forget to include that section?

I sighed.

Internally.

On the outside, my expression didn’t change.

I stepped closer to the bed and took her hands. They were small. Cool. Soft in ways that suggested she had never done manual labor in her entire life, which was probably accurate. My fingers wrapped around her wrists.

I pulled.

Sabrina came upright with all the resistance of a ragdoll. The book on her chest tumbled away and landed somewhere in the chaos of the bed. The movement brought her body into full view, and I suddenly had a very clear understanding of why the lingerie industry continued to be profitable.

She blinked slowly at me.

I was standing directly in front of her. She was sitting on the edge of the bed. Our faces were inches apart. I was still holding her hands.

Her expression remained completely neutral.

She’s not embarrassed. She’s not self-conscious. She’s looking at me like I’m a specimen under a microscope.

I released her hands and stepped back.

Sabrina looked at the boba on the nightstand. Then back at me.

“I’m not awake yet.”

She said this as if it explained everything.

“Feed me.”

“You want me to feed you.”

“Yes.”

I should refuse.

But something in those half-lidded purple eyes told me this was exactly what she wanted. She was waiting to see if I would flee like all the other assistants probably had.

Seven previous assistants. Seven failures. How many of them ended up in this room? How many of them saw this exact expression?

I picked up the boba.

Put the straw to her lips.

She accepted it without hesitation. Her eyes closed as she took a long, slow sip. The taro tea traveled up the straw. Her cheeks hollowed slightly. A small sound escaped her throat, quiet and content.

I stood there holding a boba cup to a nearly naked girl’s mouth while she drank.

My sister can never know about this. No one can ever know about this. If Felix finds out, he’ll never let me live it down. If Cassidy finds out, she’ll probably set something on fire.

Sabrina released the straw.

“The ramen.”

Of course. The ramen.

I looked at the Buldak ramen packet in my hand.

Then I looked around the room.

Books. More books. A graveyard of empty tea cups. Clothes draped over surfaces that were never meant to hold clothes. No kitchen. No microwave. No hot plate. Nothing that could transform dry noodles into actual food.

“You don’t have a way to cook this in here.”

Sabrina blinked at me. Slowly. Like I’d stated something painfully obvious.

“No.”

“So I need to go to a kitchen.”

“Yes.”

“And come back.”

“Correct.”