ᴅɪsᴘᴇʟ ᴍʏ ʙᴏʀᴇᴅᴏᴍ | ᴍᴀʀᴀᴅᴇᴜʀs' ᴇʀᴀ

Chapter 50: Little Bird in a Big Cage

Mulciber Manor

The tongues of the candles quivered, leaving warm orange blots on crimson velvet cushions. Scarlet carpets, golden bowls, and bulky candelabras were here and there. It smelled of hot wax, nutmeg, and olive oil. The round, windowless room looked like a pillow turned inside out; everything in it was soft and fluffy.

Emily sighed, forced herself to open her eyes and screamed. Next few moments she tried to bring her thoughts in order and calm down. What at first she took as a body turned out to be only a sculpture of incredible beauty, constructed right in the center of the round room. Emily stared at it, incapable to tear herself away from the monstrous and magnificent work of art.

The sculpture had empty blind eyes turned to the ceiling, framed by snow-white eyelashes carved by an anonymous artist. Tangled hair fell on the shoulder, hanging on the side where a zigzag cut started from the protruding shoulder blade. The white girl pressed her arms to her chest as if she was trying to hold the stone drops of blood from falling. She didn't care about the slender veil slipping from her thigh, and the lacerated wound stretching from somewhere under her rib cage was etched in all its terrible splendor.

The one who created this sculpture was a huge asshole.

Emily finally moved her hand and felt an unusual, excruciating weakness as if her body had been banned from moving, leaving only the ability to realize its own helplessness. Imperius curse.

"Woke up, honey?"

Emily jerked, turned her head with an effort, and just went cold. In this new disgusting world, her personal god was Anthony Mulciber.

He stood in front of her in an elegant suit, with black diamond cufflinks, hair stylized and with the intoxicating scent of cologne. Anthony looked divinely handsome, and this only made things worse.

Mulciber smiled affectionately as they only smile at their loved ones and their victims, came up to Emily and lowered a tray with food on a nearby table. It immediately smelled of stewed vegetables with rice and barberry. The smell was so intense that Emily felt sick and almost shut down.

Anthony shook his head and with a subtle movement thrust something under her nose. Her head cleared and the colored spots stopped jumping before her eyes, but the terror engulfed her with renewed force.

Mulciber took a few steps back and attentively examined his captive from head to foot.

"You look awful," he spoke amiably, and his long hand fell smoothly on the thigh of the stone lady.

Mulciber never did a thing without a reason. In his every action, his every word, his every glance, there was a hint. Trying to figure out his game, Emily's eyes darted from Mulciber to the sculpture. His hand settled on the hip of the stone lady, and this gesture had so much meaning.

Emily shivered. She looked again at the statue, more attentively than before, at its lively features, as if trembling thin lips, sharp shoulder blades, cuts that ran down her back.

Mulciber laughed, observing Emily's face distort in horror.

"You guessed, didn't ya?" he asked breathlessly, licking his lips.

He gently passed his hand over the breast of the stone girl, pausing on the nipple, closed his eyes, indulging in memories, and sighed.

"Her name was Greta," he whispered. "Greta Merel. My father met her at the Ministry and since then has fucked her at long winter nights, while my mother, disgraced by a mudblood whore in her own house, sobbed in the bedroom. I kept wondering how this scum could look into my mother's eyes after all that?"