The house came apart around me like a dropped mirror. It didn't fade into soft motes. It broke into sharp, glittering pieces of light and shadow, and through the gaps came the real place underneath.
Her sanctum was cold. The angles were wrong, the kind of wrong that makes your eyes water if you follow a wall to where it meets the ceiling. Every surface was smooth and dark and seemed to swallow light, so that the room was dim without having any shadows in it. The air was thin. It smelled of roses, and under the roses something metallic, like ozone or old blood. Somewhere below hearing, a huge contained power thrummed, the way a dam hums when you stand on top of it.
