Page 54 of A House of Gold
Or the most dangerous.
13
The house has no real windows.
It took me three weeks to notice. Three weeks of walking golden corridors, sleeping in a too-soft bed, eating meals that appear on silver trays when I don’t venture to the dining hall. Three weeks of existing in Croesus’s domain before I realize: there’s no natural light anywhere. No sunrise. No sunset. I keep watching, waiting for it to change, but it doesn’t. It’s just the eternal golden glow of the house itself, pulsing like a heartbeat through the walls. The only way I can tell time is with my phone, which charges but has no service. Seems a cell tower is too much to ask for in another dimension.
Time moves strangely here. I know this because I’ve been counting. Six hours of sleep feels like ten. Even my Sunday calls with Luna don’t feel like they are actually on a weekly schedule. The clock on my nightstand says it’s Tuesday, and my body insists it’s been a month since I arrived.
The house is alive or something close to it. Aware in the way a sleeping animal is aware, not conscious, exactly, but responsive. The corridors shift when I’m not looking. I think rooms appear randomly, but I’m not entirely sure, and I’m not willing to faceCroesus to ask when he hasn’t summoned me since my last assignment.
I’m trying not to think about Croesus’ vault I’d found when I first arrived. About souls drifting like fireflies in the dark. About Barnes’ light joining them one day, one more point in a constellation of the damned. Except, this one I helped add.
I’m failing.
So I walk. Through corridors that curve when they should be straight. The house seems to tolerate me. That’s the word that keeps coming to mind: tolerate. Like I’m a guest it hasn’t decided whether to digest or display.
I turn a corner and nearly walk into someone.
“Careful.” The man catches my elbow, steadies me. “The house gets testy when people run into each other. Thinks it’s a design flaw.”
I step back, look up. He’s tall, maybe six feet, with a lean build that comes from years of activity rather than gym work. Dark hair, gray at the temples, worn a little longer than fashionable. Hazel eyes that reflect all this gold beautifully. He’s wearing simple clothes: dark pants, a gray button-down with the sleeves rolled up, no shoes, with his socks matching his shirt. There’s something old-fashioned about him, like he learned to dress in a different era and never quite updated.
“Sorry,” I say. “Still learning the layout.”
“You’ll never learn it.” His voice is dry, almost amused. “The house changes. By the time you memorize one path, it’ll give you three new ones. Best just to accept you’re perpetually lost.” He tilts his head, and those hazel eyes narrow slightly. “You’re new. The sin eater.”
“Raven.” I don’t offer my hand. Something about the way he’s looking at me makes me wary. Not threatening, exactly, just...assessing. “And you are?”
“Nathaniel. Most people call me Nat.” He doesn’t offer his hand either. “I work here. Have for a while.”
“Doing what?”
“This and that. Verification, mostly. Making sure contracts are accurate. Checking that people mean what they say.” His mouth quirks. “Truth-seeing. It’s a gift. Or a curse. Depending on the day.”
Oh.Oh.
I take an involuntary step back, and he notices. Of course he notices. Probably sees the spike of panic in whatever aura I’m giving off.
“Relax,” he says. “I’m not going to announce your secrets to the house. That’s not how it works.”
“How does it work?”
“I see lies. Deceptions. Hidden truths. Things people are trying to bury.” He crosses his arms and leans against the wall. The golden surface seems to ripple slightly under his weight, accommodating him. “But I don’t broadcast them. I just...know. It’s involuntary. Like breathing.”
“And you can’t lie yourself?”
His eyebrows rise. “And you just know that...”
“Lucky guess.” I mirror his posture, crossing my arms, trying to look more confident than I feel. I knew a truth seeker once. Another angelic “gift.” “So what do you see when you look at me?”
“Nothing.”
I blink. “Nothing?”
“Nothing hidden.” He sounds almost surprised himself. “No deception. No buried secrets trying to claw their way out. Just... you. Raw and honest and here because you don’t have a choice.” He pushes off the wall. “It’s refreshing, actually. Most peoplein this house are about ninety percent lies held together with desperation and gold.”
“I have secrets.” The words come out as if I’m trying to convince him.
