“The thing that opened the door was a beautiful man—a man with golden hair and a collar around his neck. But he was not a man. There was nothing human in his eyes.” One of the princes—it had to be. “I—I’d pretended to fall so I could buy myself more time to see who opened the door. When he saw me on the ground, he smiled at me—and this darkness leaked out of him …” She lurched toward the bucket and leaned over it, but didn’t vomit. After another moment, she said, “I managed to look past him into the room behind.”
