Chapter 4 4

The door opened at 7:00 AM.

Alys scrambled under the covers, pulling the duvet up to her chin.

It was Arthur. He carried a tray with toast and tea.

"Mr. Greer is indisposed," Arthur said, setting the tray down. "He suggests you acquaint yourself with the grounds. Stay out of the West Wing."

Alys nodded, playing the part.

For three days, she didn't see Gustaf. She didn't see anyone.

But her body was fighting her. The sanitarium had kept her sedated for years. Now, without the daily cocktail of pills, the withdrawal was hitting.

Alys was walking down the main corridor when the floor tilted. Sweat broke out on her forehead. Her bones felt like they were vibrating.

She collapsed.

"Mrs. Greer!"

Arthur was there. He caught her before her head hit the marble.

Alys seized, her teeth chattering.

"It's not epilepsy," Arthur muttered, checking her pupils. "It's chemical."

He didn't call a doctor. He didn't call Gustaf. He carried her to a small staff room and brewed a pungent tea that smelled of valerian and kava.

"Drink," he ordered.

Alys drank. The shaking stopped. She grabbed his hand, squeezing it.

"Thank you," she mouthed.

Arthur looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time. He saw the person, not the pawn.

"Be careful, child," he whispered. "This house eats weak things."

Once Alys could walk again, she found the greenhouse.

It was a glass cathedral attached to the rear of the house. Inside, the air was humid and thick with the scent of earth.

An old woman with silver hair stood by a workbench. She was pruning a Datura plant-Devil's Trumpet. Highly toxic.

She didn't turn around.

"Do you know this flower can stop a heart in three minutes?" she asked.

Victoria Greer. The matriarch.

Alys walked up to her. She picked up a pair of shears. She reached past Victoria and snipped a dead leaf off the Datura, careful not to touch the sap.

She pulled a notepad from her pocket and wrote: Only the dose makes the poison.

Victoria turned. Her eyes were sharp, blue ice. She read the note. She looked at Alys's hands, steady despite the withdrawal.

"You know botany?"

Alys nodded. Her mother taught her.

"Your mother was a smart woman." Victoria handed Alys the shears. "The gardener is an idiot. He's drowning the Wolfsbane. Fix it."

It was a test. Alys passed.

By the afternoon, Alys had the keys to the greenhouse. It was isolated. It had its own ventilation. And in the back office, under a pile of seed catalogs, she found an old desktop computer.

It wasn't connected to the main network, but it had power.

Alys pulled a bootable USB drive from the false bottom of her heel. It contained a sandboxed operating system, untraceable. She wasn't just coding a bypass algorithm; she was building a ghost inside their machine. The door beeped.

Her fingers flew across the keys, hitting a kill switch command. The screen went black instantly, the RAM wiped clean.

Gustaf rolled in. He looked at Alys, then at the computer.

He wheeled over and touched the casing. It was warm.

He looked at Alys. He didn't ask.

He tossed a velvet box onto her lap.

"Put it on. We're going out."

Alys opened the box. A diamond necklace. Heavy, gaudy, old-fashioned. It was a collar.

She put it on.