Seth’s bedroom was dark, cramped, and stuffy. The only noises came from below: grunts and groans that raised every hair on the back of Esme’s neck.
‘What’s making those sounds?’ Lillian hissed.
‘Quigley’s chimeras,’ Seth whispered. ‘He was a scientist who used to work with my father, and he died a few months ago. My father hasn’t been able to keep Quigley’s creatures under control, so he’s caged them all down in the brig.’
Esme shuddered. She’d met Quigley and his chimeras before.
Seth stepped forward and lit a gas lamp by his bed. In the flare of orange light, Esme saw drawings plastered to the walls, as if this room were a dark mirror of Ariane’s at the Anais. These were simple sketches, in a child’s hand, depictions of the monsters the younger Seth might have imagined lurked under h
