Work Text:
The manor is frigid at night. This comes as no surprise. The ceilings are high, the floors wide; a steady draft blows through the halls with every lick of wind against the walls of stone.
She wraps herself in her coat and shivers, holding her cane tighter. There is perhaps something good that comes of the chill, crushing her pale fingertips and crackling across her flushed cheeks. It keeps her focused, alert. Yes- in this place especially, she does not know what will strike at her next, what may yet be stalking through the corners of the next room.
A stilted melody winds itself around her brain and presses, unbidden, at the soft insides of her lips. She swallows it down and feels the sting of wire as it slips back down her throat, half-formed, crying for her attention. Another time. Another day, maybe. By the time she leaves this hellscape, there will be endless days: as many as she needs, as many as it requires.
There are doors, all closed, from this floor leading down to the next. She knows better than to risk entering them. One door at the end of the hall, though, has not yet opened in all her time here. Off-limits: reserved for some purpose yet to be discovered, as she was told upon her entrance, but she is no idiot. She’d caught the look in the eyes of the butler as he passed by it to take her to her own room- guarded, almost nervous. Something special is hidden behind this door. It whispers to her, dark and curious, taking her by the waist and spinning her into a slow waltz. She expects it to be locked. The doorknob too is cold under her fingers, but unlike the draft, as it twists under her slender palm, it comes as a shock of ice that freezes her to the bone.
***
He can’t sleep again.
Sometimes, he wonders whether he sleeps at all. He’s spent more time at the desk than in his bed, and more than all of that combined in the little room at the back of his own head, lost in a haze. The time passes always and never. When was the last time he stepped out?
He thinks his back aches as he moves over the threshold, clumsy and disoriented, but really, it’s a trick of his own mind. He feels fine, spry; concerningly so, as he’s able to confirm a quarter of the way down the corridor. How much has he been moving over the last few days?
“ You don’t need to know that,” they tell him, and he listens, though he knows better than to fall completely blindly for their words. They have been with him through so much, and yet in the end, they are the one he needs to guard himself against the most. Just as Orpheus spins tales with his pen, so do they with their tongue.
Tomorrow is the day, surely. He knows Alice well, though it’s been years since they last came face-to-face. She arrived with punctual timing, exactly as predicted, and she will continue to follow the course of the plan. Why does that make him feel more rather than less uneasy? From here on out, it will truly be a game, one that they know well how to play. There is no cause for concern, as he’s been assured. His own story is unfolding with every moment, every breath, every step, as the chapters before have been and the chapters to come will as well. The position he maintains now is good, excellent. He is in a prime spot to act.
Orpheus listens to the sound of his own feet against the ground, socks smooth on the old hardwood. If he focuses hard enough, he can hear his own breathing, but it’s quiet and could nearly be called timid, with how shallow it is, how deep in his chest and warm over his upper lip. He opens his mouth and huffs out a louder exhale that curls across the room and hits the opposite wall, echoing back towards him.
He may as well begin the process tonight, before he can be disturbed- but there remains the problem of the first guest, possibly the most inconvenient, and yet after Alice, the one he most desired to see. Kreiburg presents as a mystery wrapped in sheet music: reserved, clearly paranoid, and arrogant enough for the both of them; but Orpheus knows what secrets lie beneath the surface. He knows what strings to play, what keys to press. He will do what he must. Kreiburg will not pose any further issues than what Orpheus will allow for the sake of the game.
The floorboards creak, and he pauses, lifting his weight up and back. The sound comes again. Orpheus realizes it is not of his own making, but carrying down to him from the floor directly above his head. Someone is stealing through the manor, down the hall, to…
For the first time, he feels something that is closer to fear than he has experienced in a long time, stabbing unpleasantly through his heart.
“ Stay calm ,” they hiss at him, shoving him aside for control, but the strength of his reaction keeps him rooted long enough to close his eyes and regain his composure by himself. Orpheus tucks one arm behind his back, painstakingly aware of how stiff his suit feels when he should be in nightwear by now, and changes course with his mouth set into a grim line.
***
She lingers by the window and welcomes the glisten of moonlight that stains her hair bright silver. This room is quite nearly identical to her own in size and construction, but that is where the similarities end. Shedding her coat to drape it over one slender arm, she retreats further into her corner, searching out what hides in each shadowed nook and cranny. Her sight has never been very good, and she only succeeds in convincing herself of phantoms breathing their transgressions into her ears. Panic, sharp and sudden, seizes her heart in its talons and squeezes hard enough to burst. Pressing a delicate hand to her breast, she feels it, thump-thump-thump barreling into the sides of her ribcage.
There is a mirror at the other end of the room, small, cracked, covered with dust and cobwebs. Slowly, Frederick approaches it to stare down at the tiny sliver left, all that is still capable of beaming her reflection back at her. Her face is young still, naturally pretty and slender, and tapers down to a pointed chin and sharp jaw. She blinks, turning her head to one side and then the other. She is beautiful, attractive, handsome ; what they call her, she accepts, because it is all she can do except plunge further into the Tartarus of her own making. The only flaw visible from here are the dark bags under her eyes, finally plain physical evidence of the exhaustion that has been corrupting not only her mind but her soul.
If she were to raise herself up on her tiptoes, she knows, she would catch a glimpse of the rest of her body, shoulders slightly broader than she would have liked for them to be, hips rounded to an acceptable degree, arms nearly translucent with the veins prodding at her skin in points of green and blue down to her skeletal fingers. It hurts sometimes to move them, dancing over each other on the ivory of the keyboard, straining at the joints, but she cannot let herself entertain the idea of that for too long.
She turns away to hold herself in a mockery of an embrace, letting the fabric of her undergarments crinkle in her hold. The nightgown is light and airy, flowing loosely around her calves every time she moves and draped to showcase her best features as if anyone might even ever see. Frederick thinks of the beautiful women of the grand halls and the opera who crowd around her in throngs, crooning to her and pouring sugar into her ears, into her brain, into her veins, turning her sluggish and docile. She thinks of their milky skin, fine jewelry, huge ball gowns that brush the ground when they walk, and she thinks of how she wants their touch desperately, craving some sort of validation that has her crawling for their laughter; but more than that, she thinks of how bitter they make her, how the taste of bile at the back of her throat is ever-growing. Envy is the deadliest of sins. Perhaps that, then, is why it always returns to bite her twice as hard.
Lost in reverie, she casts aside the muffled sound emanating from the outer hall as another of the incorporeal murmurs and is determined to ignore it. Then the handle jiggles, lock clicking in place, and Frederick freezes in place, feeling her eyes widen. Electric dread shoots through her fragile bones, and she makes a mad scrabble to unfold the coat on her arm, but it’s too late. The door is flung open with a nearly deafening sound, and she flinches, losing her grip on both the fabric and her cane. Crimson spills over her limbs to fall in a puddle at her feet, and the staff of wood clatters down on top of it.
Orpheus stands in the doorway, staring at her as if he’s seen a ghost. His expression is more frightening than the hastiness of his entry. Frederick tries to swallow and finds that she cannot. They lock eyes. Frederick shudders, grasping blindly for her cane, and pulls herself up to a standing position. “Mr. Orpheus,” she manages, wincing at the sound of her own voice and the way it grates on the previous silence that kept the room in pendulum.
Orpheus’ face is now completely unreadable, but then again, Frederick has always been terrible at deciphering others. “Mr. Kreiburg,” he greets in kind. “Couldn’t sleep either? Or are your quarters unsatisfactory, perhaps? It’s been rather cold, I noticed myself-”
“No. No, they’re absolutely fine.” Frederick has recovered enough by now to feel her cheeks burn, knowing she’s rather made a fool of herself. “Thank you for your concern, that isn’t the issue. I was only feeling restless and decided to take the liberty of exploring further.”
It’s not a good excuse. She knows it won’t suffice, particularly because she was already told that this area is restricted. Her only consolation is that Orpheus, surely, has impeded on those same rules by entering the room as well. “I apologize if I disturbed you,” she adds stiffly, hands staying resolutely at her sides to pin down the soft edges of her gown.
Orpheus’ eyes are beady as a crow’s. He watches her over the rim of his monocle (she wonders if he sleeps with it on), still giving away nothing. Stepping into the room, he paces past her, arms folded neatly. He carries himself with careful poise, as if he’s spent hours practicing exactly how to walk in this certain manner. Briefly, as his back turns to her, Frederick considers making a mad dash for the door, but she knows she wouldn’t make it- besides, she won’t humiliate herself in front of him any further.
“Please. No apologies necessary.” When he finally faces her again, Orpheus seems much more congenial, even to a disturbing degree. He smiles pleasantly, and the skin around the monocle folds and wrinkles. “It’s a fascinating room, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you like to know what it could have been for, Kreiburg?”
Kreiburg, dropping the honorific of Mister . Frederick almost doesn’t want to answer, but that catches her off guard, makes her hesitate. It isn’t a particularly fascinating room, not really. Certainly not worth any of the suspense built up around it. “I’m not interested in causing any trouble,” she tells him, the safest answer she can give.
His mouth twists again, more wry this time and somehow more human. “You won’t be, I’m sure.”
Leaving her to wonder what that might mean, Orpheus surveys the room with a critical eye. “It hasn’t been cleaned out for a long time, has it?” He runs a hand over the webbed walls. It comes away sticky with gray grime; he makes a face, moves as if to wipe it off on his pristine suit, and pauses at the last moment, letting it drop limp to his side instead. “The butler should have taken better care of it.”
“I heard that it’s restricted. Perhaps the lord of the manor forbids even the butler from entering.” Frederick scoops up her coat and dusts it off. Ironically but thankfully, the floors aren’t half as musty as the walls.
“Perhaps.” Orpheus offers her another cryptic stare, long and searching. “Kreiburg…”
He pauses. Lets the last syllable trail off into the heavy space between them, before: “Why are you here? ”
“... I apologize.” She lets that sink in before continuing. “I would rather not give that sort of information away so easily.”
She is here for a reason, yes. As he must be, as all of them are. The details of it are for no ears other than her own. Perhaps he thinks that he’s caught her off guard, that now he has some sort of control for her, believes he has the right to interrogate her. When she draws herself up to full height, she’s taller than him, and she gleans a good amount of satisfaction from the ability to look down on him. “Good night, Mr. Orpheus,” she throws over her shoulder without looking back. Her hand comes to the doorknob again; it’s just as cold as it was before, and that gives her just enough pause to hear when he speaks again:
“ Kreiburg. ”
His voice is more insistent this time. Frederick considers simply behaving as if she hasn’t heard him. Reluctantly, she turns on her heel, arms coming back down to clamp at her sides. “…Yes?”
Orpheus glances at her from an angle. His pristine white suit doesn’t look so clean anymore; there are wrinkles around the bottom and the lapels. “Would you like to accompany me to the greenhouse? I was thinking of taking a jaunt-”
She bristles. The audacity he has- she cuts him off.
“Why should I consider that?”
“ Because. if you don’t, you’ll be up for another hour anyway, at least. Perhaps you won’t return to sleep at all. Why simply idle away your short time here?” Orpheus’ mouth ticks back up into a little self-satisfied smirk as he moves past her, brushing her frozen hand aside to open the door himself. “If the greenhouse wouldn’t be to your satisfaction, you’re more than welcome to suggest an alternative. I only thought that the clear air might help both of us. I do suffer from a bit of insomnia myself.”
That one second of contact, skin on skin, sends a shiver all the way up her arm, swiftly replaced by an indignant burn.
“You presume to know such things? You don’t even know me at all,” she scoffs, though she does step aside to let him through. “If you desire my company so, I’ll walk with you there, but I don’t promise anything more.”
As soon as Frederick speaks, she regrets it. Orpheus has done nothing during their short time here but alienate himself to her. She despises him, and he must feel the same way about her to antagonize her with such persistence. Still, though, there remains something that does not allow her to turn him down. It might very well be fear, but then- why should she fear him? She reminds herself that he is a novelist, nothing more, a man who spends his days writing and dreaming away at a desk. Perhaps that is where his peculiarities emerge from after all. Why, then, do her palms still sweat and her stomach prickle?
“Excellent.” Orpheus strides down the corridor, and Frederick shuffles to keep up, wrapping her coat back around herself as she does. “A shame that the other guests are all resting,” he adds as she catches up at the very top of the stairs, “or I might have asked you to play something.”
“You assume that I would have agreed.” Frederick huffs her way past him, cane clicking on each stair as she makes her careful way down.
“I know that you would have.” He keeps pace with her now, and she can’t decide whether that offends her more or less. It’s better than him being behind her, at the very least. She hates the feeling of a stare on her back, but those shrewd black eyes in particular watching her every move might have driven her into a scrambling run.
“Come now, I’ve heard a lot about you,” he presses onward when she doesn’t respond. “Frederick Kreiburg, the celebrated pianist. The great composer’s son? Famed throughout Europe? If I’d asked, straight up, would you really have refused to show off your talents?”
Frederick stops at the base of the stairs and grips her cane until her knuckles turn white. Orpheus is mocking her, she can hear it, she can taste it in the sound of his grating voice. He’s stopped walking too, and she can feel him lingering just over her shoulder.
“Or am I wrong?” he asks then, and when she looks up, he’s leaning against the rail, arms crossed over his rumpled suit- and she can remind herself that he isn’t as put together as he might like her to believe.
“You’re wrong,” she tells him, though she doesn’t elaborate on what part. Every part- all of it, none of it. Why does he make her question so much?
“Hmm.” Orpheus smiles again. His demeanor has changed; it can’t just be entirely in her mind. He seems taller now, and she feels more on edge than ever. “My apologies. I meant no insult.”
In the greenhouse, after a minute-long march of silence, Orpheus gestures towards the benches at the far right of the room. “Unless you would rather return to your room,” he oozes with hospitality.
Frederick squints at him for a good long moment, trying to decide if there’s really a choice lying in his words at all. He stares back at her, eyes rounded slightly and almost innocent enough to convince her. She exhales, watching her own hair flutter with the movement, and makes her way to the bench facing the windows, laying her cane over her lap.
Orpheus takes a seat opposite her, crossing his legs and seeming pleased with her ‘decision.’ He takes a glance around the room, finally lowering his monocle. It lays in the palm of his hand a moment, glinting as the moon streams in and hits it just right; then it disappears into his pocket. Somehow, it’s easier to take him more seriously without it. He looks younger, fresher.
“Plants- flowers, especially- are quite interesting. Inspiring, wouldn’t you agree?” He’s looking up over her head at one of the bushes behind her. Frederick resolutely ignores the urge to look as well and stays staring straight ahead, as if he’ll disappear once she lets him out of her sight. “They start out small and insignificant, but blossom into something entirely different. They must grow into their own beauty.”
“The same could be said of anything living.” Her eyes flick down to the little patch of grass on the floor between them, dotted with white and purple buds.
Orpheus laughs and returns his gaze directly to her. “Perhaps. In some cases.”
“ Perhaps ,” she repeats sharply, “you simply spend too much time with your books.”
“Ah, but you forget.” He spreads his arms, broad and simple. “I write mysteries and horror, not romances.”
“I never said anything about romances. Don’t attempt to twist my words. It won’t work.” Frederick scowls and returns his gaze through the whites of her lashes, and any of the ice towards him that might have melted even a bit returns all at once.
“I’m not. ” Orpheus almost has the gall to look peeved before he sighs, closes his eyes, and turns his head to the side. When his eyes open again, he is as tranquil as ever before- or rather, as fitfully calm; the unnerving quality of his eyes remains. “Besides, you wouldn’t even be entirely wrong if you did.”
Frederick stays silent. Orpheus casts her a look from the side that just might linger on amusement. “As a child, I wrote fantasies, the sorts that you could only dream of. New worlds, strange characters… an attempt, poor as it may have been, to live another life, to see beyond what already was. But perhaps you’d know a bit about that yourself?”
“Creativity is required in a composer.” Frederick turns up her nose at him and stares down the slanted angle of it. “I know enough. I know it well.”
“ Composer, ” he repeats, muses, rolls it over and over in his clever mouth. “Are you really, though? How many works have you produced? Your father- he was nothing short of a genius, yes? I’m not a musical man myself but I know what an impact he’s had.”
“You’re quick to contradict yourself, are you not?” Frederick doesn’t spit back, she never spits and she doesn’t snap, either, but her teeth dig a little into her lip to turn the pale skin paler and it crinkles. In disgust? Shame? “What did you say earlier, famed throughout Europe -”
“Celebrated pianist, ” Orpheus corrects without missing a single beat. He leans forward and laces his hands, slender fingers stacking one on top of the other. He could be a pianist too if he tried. Frederick wishes she could hammer each of his joints down into the body of the instruments. “I never complimented any of your other talents.”
“Are you calling me a fraud?” She watches the way the plants stir throughout the room, shadowing half his face. His cheekbones are less sharp without the monocle, leading to a gentler jawline. He looks spoiled, too comfortable, and she would truly believe that if not for the ever-present impression that he is trying too hard. He is trying too hard to impress, trying too hard to present himself as the cleverest in the room, trying too hard to dig under her skin.
“No.” He smiles. Still Frederick hesitates to call him oblivious. “All I mean is that- forgive me, perhaps there is a reason you sell yourself as something you aren’t. And ,” he hastens on, seeing the subtle wrinkle of her nose, “before you get some other sort of distasteful idea, I really don’t mean for it to offend you.”
“Funny,” says Frederick dryly, unamused. It is funny that he thinks he’s in any place to speak. “Until now you haven’t been very concerned at all about whether or not I would perceive your words as insults. Besides, it isn’t myself that I sell. It’s the music, Mr. Orpheus. The way it is with you and your books, if it’s too difficult for you to understand something you doubtless have no experience with. They pay handsomely to hear the notes from my fingers. I give them new meaning and make them my own.”
“But of course. That was all I meant.” Orpheus squints and when he opens his eyes wide again, they seem less shiny than before, more matte than gleaming. “You’re.. correct, anyway.”
He’s full of surprises, isn’t he? Frederick slides a hand under her own chin to prop it up, feeling the smooth slide of her cheek over her worn knuckles and finally feeling intrigued enough to listen closely as Orpheus goes on:
“About how it is, with my books, your music. It is rather similar, I suppose. Regardless, I’m certainly in no position to be judgmental of your lifestyle.”
Frederick watches him for the length of another sustained breath before rising from her seat, swaying slightly as she does. Her gown stirs at her knees and draws tight at her hips as she slides her hands down it again, knowing how delicate the fabric becomes in the single panel of moonlight that strikes her through the window.
She looks at him again and suddenly it makes sense to her. The deliberate fashion in which he conducts himself. His fashion itself- pressed suits, pristine cravats, well-ironed trousers; and the monocle: an ever-present recall to the dandies of the aristocracy, a society that Orpheus, despite how practiced his imitation is, would never truly fit into, not once the hawks picked past his opaque glass exterior- and Frederick would know, she’s lived it all already. He tries, so very hard, and there is something to be admired in the resolution of it.
“Perhaps we may be able to come to an understanding on some matters after all,” she muses, begrudging.
Orpheus’ gaze skirts hers and dances instead over the folds of her dress as she drifts, the ghost of a dandelion, huddled into her arms and trapped between him and herself. “It’s a beautiful dress,” he says.
Frederick should be peeved that he is still holding back, remaining aloof despite the odd intimacy of the few words they’ve shared, but it’s difficult to feel any more animosity towards him than she already has. “I know.” She lingers on that and doesn’t smile, but she isn’t frowning so much either when next she glances at him.
Orpheus meets her gaze, and it’s a bit of a challenge not to blink, not to let him gain that last satisfaction now that they’ve both seen through each other at last. In the end, though, Frederick, losing herself in the fatigue that’s been creeping up on her, is forced to look down, lashes fluttering. Inexplicable shame twists inside of her. She doesn’t see his face again after that and instead turns, facing the opposite window and groping for her cane. “Excuse- me,” she says, voice peculiar and languishing at the edges. “I think I’d better go back to bed after all. I’m feeling very tired.”
“Is that so? You’d better rest, then. We’ve a busy day awaiting us tomorrow, I’m sure.”
His voice follows her up the stairs and then she’s suddenly halfway through the doorway, feeling, quite ironically, like the Orpheus of Greek mythos- nearly free, struggling not to glance back a last, desperate time- when he speaks once more.
“Goodnight, Miss Kreiburg.”
And her traitorous head turns, lips parted, to see him still seated there, sprawled over the bench as if he owns it and all the room that surrounds it, with the monocle still off and that crafty innocence to his eyes; and she is reminded that he is a fox of a man, guileful, arcane. She turns on her heel to flee, cane beating a stuttering rhythm, and does not breathe again until she is back in her room with the door locked behind her and the halls silent once more.
***
He is not surprised to see her go. Disappointed, perhaps, but it’s only to be expected. Orpheus fits the monocle back into the groove between his brow and cheekbone and watches until she is no longer visible, though he can still hear the stuttering rhythm of her hasty flight. A beautiful dress- and he thinks of the pretty things that he was put into, soft frills and lace. He always gave them to Alice even though they were too large on her and she had more than enough of her own more suited to her size. They would play at dress-up in the empty storage room on the second floor, out of sight, out of mind; she fascinated by the hem of the dress as it spilled to the ground like a train and twirling in the mirror with childish delight, he in a worn suit he’d either scavenged or bartered for, always on pins and needles, listening for the creak of the floorboards outside.
He stands, huffs to himself, and brushes his hands of some imaginary dust. The past is all that: the past.
Garnet draws his eye. She’s left her coat here, folded over itself and threatening to wrinkle. Orpheus considers taking it over his arm, perhaps leaving it at her doorstep. In the end, he passes it by without lifting a finger; let her return for it if she dares.
At the top step, he turns to survey the greenhouse in its quiet dignity and thinks of how, if not for the little red coat sitting lonely on the bench, he should never have imagined the solemnity to be disturbed by such a droll little conversation as the one they’d held. He looks over it for a moment until he, too, is struck with a sudden urge as the moon smiles with all her benevolence through a new panel in the wall, drawing closer by the minute. Through the sound of the heavy door slamming behind him, through the sound of stifled breathing, Orpheus hears laughter at the back of his mind.