“Under any circumstances,” Zachary mutters to himself, recalling the overheard phone call. They hadn’t planned on letting him go. There probably wasn’t tea, either. “They knew who I was the whole time,” he tells Dorian. “The one who answered the door was in Vermont pretending to be a student, it took me a while to recognize her.”
Dorian frowns but says nothing.
They sit in silence as the cab speeds up streets.
“Is Mirabel the one who paints the doors?” Zachary asks. It seems relevant enough to ask.
“Yes,” Dorian says. He does not elaborate. Zachary glances over at him but he is staring out the window, one of his knees bouncing restlessly.
“Why did you think I knew her?”
Dorian turns and looks at him.
“Because you danced with her at the party,” he says.
Zachary tries to recall his conversation with the woman dressed as the king of the wild things but it is fragmented and hazy in his mind.
He is about to ask Dorian how he knows her but the cab slows to a stop.
“At the corner here is fine, thank you,” Dorian says to the driver, handing him cash and refusing change. Zachary stands on the sidewalk, attempting to orient himself. They’ve stopped next to Central Park, near one of the gates pulled closed for the night, and across from a large building he recognizes.
“Are we going to the museum?” he asks.
“No,” Dorian says. He watches the cab drive off and then turns and jumps the wall into the park. “Hurry up,” he says to Zachary.
“Isn’t the park closed?” Zachary asks, but Dorian is already walking ahead, disappearing into the shadows of the snow-covered branches.
Zachary awkwardly climbs over the icy wall, almost losing his footing on the other side but regains his composure at the expense of getting his hands covered in dirt and ice.
He follows Dorian into the park, looping around deserted paths and leaving tracks in unblemished snow. Between the trees he can make out something that looks like a castle. It is easy to forget that they are in the middle of the city.
They pass a sign declaring part of the frosted foliage the Shakespeare Garden, and then they cross a small bridge over part of the frozen pond and after that Dorian slows and stops.
“It appears the night is moving in our favor,” Dorian says. “We got here first.” He gestures at an archway of rock, half hidden in the shadows.
The door painted on the rough stones is simple, less ornate than the one that Zachary remembers. It has no decorations, only a gleaming doorknob of brass paint and matching hinges around a plain door that looks like wood. The rock is too uneven for it to fool anyone’s eye. At the top there are letters that look carved, something Zachary can’t distinguish that might be Greek.
“Cute,” Dorian says to himself, reading the text over the door.
“What does it say?” Zachary asks.
“Know Thyself,” Dorian says. “Mirabel is fond of embellishment, I’m amazed she had the time in this weather.”
“That’s half the Rawlins family motto,” Zachary says.
“What’s the other half?”
“And Learn to Suffer.”
“Maybe you should look into changing that part,” Dorian says. “Would you like to do the honors?” he adds, gesturing at the door.
Zachary reaches toward the doorknob, not certain he truly believes this isn’t all some elaborate prank, part of him expecting to be laughed at, but his hand closes over cold metal, round and three-dimensional. It turns easily and the door swings inward, revealing an open space much larger than it should possibly be. Zachary freezes, staring.
Then he hears something—someone—behind them, a rustling in the trees.
“Go,” Dorian says and pushes him, a sharp shove between his shoulder blades and Zachary stumbles forward through the door. At the same second something wet hits him, splashing over his back and up his neck, dripping down his arm.
Zachary looks down at his arm, expecting blood but instead he finds it covered in shimmering paint, droplets falling from his fingers like molten gold.