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the gargoyles with long, lascivious tongues and wild, wide eyes. This was the room Blue had told her not to enter.
     
    “What was that, hmm?” Petra whispered, scratching Milyi behind his soft ears. He ignored her, continued to sniff under the door, scratching at it now in earnest. But he got quiet when a noise came again. It wasn’t a crash this time. Something far fainter. A wail? A cry? The wind? What was it?
     
    “Is someone in there?” Petra called quietly, glancing up and down the hallway. There was no one around. “Hello?”
     
    No answer. But then that cry again. Was it human? It had to be. She was suddenly sure that someone was trapped in that room. Maybe one of the staff, as they’d been cleaning? Surely Blue would understand her going in under those circumstances, even if it was, as he’d told her over and over, “dangerous.” She couldn’t imagine what could be so life-threatening—was he remodeling? Exposed wires, holes in the floor?
     
    Whatever it was, she could handle it.
     
    Petra used the key to unlock the door, scooping Milyi up in her arms before pushing it open. The room was dark, cool. It smelled a little like Blue’s room—of leather and mahogany. She felt along the wall for a switch, the dog shaking and whining in her arms, finding one and flipping it on. The light came on in a lamp across the room. It had a brown and white Tiffany shade, shedding a circle of light on the leather chair underneath.
     
    The room was lovely, clearly a library or study of sorts. Is this where Blue disappeared to in the middle of the day, she wondered, looking at the rows upon rows of bookshelves. There wasn’t anything dangerous here.
     
    Then she saw it.
     
    It was the same goddess statue she’d seen in the video upstairs, the one with her tongue sticking out, her many, many arms waving about her head. The moment she saw it, she recognized the room in an instant. There was no mattress on the floor, but it was the same room. The shelves weren’t empty now—they were filled with books. Poetry by Goethe and Rumi and Rilke. Hundreds of oversized art books, books about architecture.
     
    Maybe it was just the old memories this place stirred up in Blue that were dangerous?
     
    Milyi cocked his head and growled. Petra frowned at him and then looked in the direction he was staring. The dog gave a short, strangled yap, his legs begging for purchase, trying to run in her arms. She held him tighter, walking toward the far wall. The door was almost invisible to the naked eye, aside from the knob and the keyhole, its mahogany surface blending into the bookshelves on either side—but it was definitely a door.
     
    They both heard it again—a muffled cry? Was there someone in there? Petra looked from the key in her hand to the door, unsure. She’d come this far, she realized—and nothing bad had happened. Besides, if someone was trapped in there…
     
    She moved to unlock the door, shifting Milyi in her arms. The dog struggled, his whole body twisting, excited by the noise, picking up on the rise in Petra’s pulse, the sweat beading on her forehead, the adrenaline rushing through her blood.
     
    “Hold still,” she whispered, fumbling with the key. The dog barked—a loud, shrill noise—and she gasped, unable to hold him any longer. He jumped to the floor, knocking her arm out of position, the key falling. Milyi yapped happily, once again in “fetch” mode, grabbing the fob between his teeth and trotting toward the door opening into the hall.
     
    “No!” She gasped, lunging for him, sprawling on the floor and grasping onto his tail. The dog yipped, pushing with his back legs, and wiggled free. He bolted for the open door. “Milyi!” she wailed, scrambling to her feet to give chase. By the time she reached the hallway, he had disappeared.
     
    She heard the noise again behind her—was it human? Standing at the door, she hesitated, but there was nothing she could do without the key! Maybe she