Three Hybrid Brothers Locked Me in Their Tower, and the Man Who Sent Me There Is the Real Monster novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: The Three

I said when on the fourth night after the meeting.

I said it on the Ledge, in the keeper's room, with the iron door standing open behind me.

I had come back across the causeway at low tide, alone, with a bag over my shoulder.

Nobody had stopped me or asked why.

I found a fire laid in the little stove and my brass key lying on the washstand.

The outside key hung on its chain from the bedpost, where I had left it.

I stood in the middle of the room and looked at the narrow bed with its heavy quilt.

Then I went to the head of the stair and said their names.

I did not shout.

I said Magnus, and Rook, and Ansel, in an ordinary voice.

I heard three doors open below me before I had finished.

They came up the stair in a row, in shirtsleeves, with their hair wet from the wash.

They looked like men who had been waiting on the landing with their boots off.

They stopped at the door, and none of them came in.

"It's the one rule I made," I said.

"Nobody comes into this room without my say.

"I'm saying it.

"All three of you."

Rook gave a short, startled laugh.

Ansel took off his glasses, folded them, and put them in his pocket.

Magnus stood in the doorway with his hands at his sides and looked at me, and said nothing at all.

"Shut the door," I said.

Magnus shut it.

He turned the brass key in the inside lock, slowly, and held it out to me on his palm.

I took it and put it on the table.

"That's mine," I said.

"Nobody locks anything tonight.

"Not a door, not a word, not a hand."

"Yes," said Magnus.

I took off my coat.

I took off my sweater and my boots and my trousers, one thing at a time, and let each one fall where it landed.

I stood on the stone in front of the stove in my underwear, with the firelight on my skin and three men watching.

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