Stained Glass Kings | ONC2024

ii. snow roses and porcelain masks

The forest in the winter is coated in silver.

The trees are crooked black fingers, pointing up at the sky. Their jagged roots are sharp, surrounded by thick clouds of snow. The road running through the mist is a writhing snake.

"Really thought you were smarter than this, Divya," Amir says as his Chevrolet Camaro crackles through the empty road.

On the passenger seat, Divya concentrates on fixing her makeup in the sunshade mirror. The stench of his citrus air freshener is overwhelming. They have had this conversation a hundred times in the last four days.

"Almost a hundred thousand dollars an year. I'm doing a degree in music. Do you know how many years I'd have to play to make that amount otherwise?" Divya sighs. "Why can't you just be happy for me?"

Amir snorts. "My girlfriend's going into prostitution. How am I supposed to be happy about that? What if someone finds out?"

Divya raises a perfectly shaped eyebrow-one which took a good half an hour to do. "I thought we weren't official."

He makes an irritated noise. "That's not the point."

She has long since accepted that she is his girlfriend in the loosest possible definition of the word. To Amir, with his undercut and his crypto stash and his engineering degree, she is just a pretty girl to hang on his arm and show off to his Hindu parents. Anyway he still drives her places sometimes and is sweet to her mother so she lets his faults slide. Even his five to ten other side chicks.

Whatever. She doesn't care. There's time in life to find a loving and emotionally fulfilling relationship. For now, Amir will do.

"It's not prostitution. I'm only playing the piano."

"Billionaire offers to pay 100k to play the piano in the middle of the woods," he rolls his eyes. "Not even you could be this gullible. Bet he said blow my trumpet and you heard play my piano."

Divya applies a third coat of dark red lipstick just to keep her hands busy. She's been second guessing herself all day. Amir doesn't have to say it out loud.

She spent a lot of time in front of her mirror this afternoon, trying to get everything perfect. Her dark hair ironed silky straight, her bronze cheeks dusted rosy gold, her mahogany eyes lined smoke black. She knows she looks pretty. Gorgeous, even. It doesn't help the constant gnawing in her stomach though.

The map on her phone leads them deep down a narrow side road before the signal drops completely. They have to manoeuvre the Camaro through the ice for still another mile to reach the gigantic iron double gates of The Glass Estate.

"Whoa."

It's the biggest gate she has ever seen. It's topped with metal spikes sharp enough to impale a person right through and has raw white roses growing between the bars, the vines thick with thorns. It opens automatically, eerily silent, a pair of metal arms beckoning in.

"You have no idea what you're getting into, do you?" Amir shakes his head as the car glides through.

Divya's heart pounds in her ears. Even behind the silky mist and the large yard out front, the mansion in view is terrifyingly large. It is a brownstone monster-- spiky turrets of rotten teeth, stone bridges of crooked limbs and a hundred hooded windows of void dark eyes. She can count at least seven storeys of grey brick. A thousand red rose vines drip down the walls. The glittering glass dome of a conservatory sits hunched in one corner.

Right in the middle of the snow thick garden is a fountain, its water frozen solid into crackling ice. Standing inside it is a huge macabre statue of a winged man impaled on a spike, his arms spread wide and his mouth open in a silent scream.