Chapter 111: After Escaping the Locked Room

The Black Room, with its irregular shape and shifting walls, stood as the final monument to a tragic pair of lovers.

For centuries after their deaths, wave after wave of newborn vampires had filled that place with the mindless screams of creatures stripped of reason, their howls becoming part of the tragedy left behind. Romance had long since perished within those walls. 

In its place stood only cold discipline, absolute control, and ruthless suppression, transforming the Black Room from a prison of love into a prison of order.

Sophie unconsciously took a step backward.

The movement caught Jane's attention immediately. They were still standing close enough to reach one another with a single step. If Sophie retreated any farther, Jane's hand would no longer be able to touch her. Meeting Jane's searching gaze, Sophie forced herself to appear calm, swallowing the uneasiness that had settled deep inside her chest.

She cleared her throat, restoring her usual bright, melodious voice.

"I smell awful," she said. "I should probably wash up."

"It's your clothes that smell," Jane corrected without hesitation. "You smell nice." Her nose wrinkled ever so slightly in disgust. "Throw that rag away. Wear the clothes I had prepared for you instead."

Sophie nodded absentmindedly.

At this point, as long as she could leave this place, she would have agreed to almost any condition.

"So..." she asked impatiently, "how do you actually open the door?"

Perhaps she disliked the urgency in Sophie' voice.

Or perhaps the secret of the Black Room belonged exclusively to the Volturi.

Jane rested one finger beneath her chin and pretended to ponder the question for an absurdly long time. Only after allowing Sophie' anticipation to build to its limit did she finally smile sweetly and say,

"It's a secret."

Her innocent appearance was dangerously deceptive.

It invited leniency almost automatically. Had anyone else teased her like this, Sophie would certainly have become irritated. Instead, she merely stood there looking helpless, sincerely trying to think of a solution that would satisfy both of them.

Jane crooked a finger. "Come here."

Sophie obediently stepped closer.

"Close your eyes."

She did exactly as instructed. As though worried Sophie might secretly peek, Jane's cool, delicate hand slowly climbed the back of her neck, gently pressing downward until Sophie instinctively lowered her head.

Following that subtle pressure, Sophie felt another cool breath brush softly across her cheek, mixed with Jane's familiar sweet scent. They had moved astonishingly close, far too close.

Honestly... I'm not the sort of person who cheats, Sophie grumbled inwardly. Did she really need to get this close just to make sure I wasn't peeking?

"Finished checking yet?" she asked after waiting several long moments. "I promised I wouldn't peek."

Her impatient voice seemed to startle Jane. The next instant, a soft palm suddenly covered her closed eyes.

Jane's voice drifted so near that it almost brushed against her ear. "Once you're outside, if you run into trouble, remember to ask Alec for help. He's... the closest thing to another me in this world."

She paused briefly before continuing. "But try not to cause too much trouble. Alec is carrying the responsibilities of the entire Guard by himself now. Do you understand?"

Darkness swallowed Sophie' vision completely. Normally, that kind of helpless uncertainty would have frightened her, yet somehow, the gentle hand covering her eyes became an anchor.

Little by little, the anxious urgency inside her faded away. She nodded.

It was enough. Jane hadn't been asking for anything more than that simple acknowledgment.

"The door's open."

Without warning, the hand covering Sophie' eyes withdrew. She immediately opened them and instinctively looked toward the stone door behind her.

It remained firmly shut.

"Not that one."

Jane reached out, caught Sophie by the wrist, and gently guided her in another direction. With unmistakable satisfaction coloring her voice, she explained, "The Black Room's exit moves."

Sophie froze. As a university student raised in the modern world, she had seen countless movies and novels featuring moving doors and hidden passages.

But knowing that this mechanism had been designed centuries earlier by someone long dead still left her speechless. She hurried toward the new doorway and cautiously stepped forward.

This time, she walked straight out of the Black Room.

"So every wall actually has a door..." she murmured, looking back in amazement. "I simply didn't know the method... or the pattern of how they move."

Meanwhile, Jane had remained seated the entire time. The hidden exit had opened for her automatically.

"Jane..."

Sophie held onto the edge of the stone doorway, almost afraid that if she let go, it would close again before she finished speaking.

"Thank you."

She hesitated briefly before smiling. "Actually... you're nothing like Alec."

Jane raised an eyebrow. "In what way?"

Sophie studied her for a moment before answering thoughtfully. "Fire."

She smiled faintly. "You're fire. It doesn't matter whether you're warm enough to burn someone or hot enough to light their way. You're still fire."

The comparison sounded almost like a riddle. Yet Jane understood immediately.

Remembering the merciless way Alec had treated Sophie aboard the helicopter, Jane found herself speaking on his behalf almost instinctively.

"Alec always held back against you," she said, her tone becoming unusually gentle. "Outside the training grounds, almost every vampire who attacked him ended up dead."

No matter what, the last thing Jane wanted was for Alec and Sophie to become enemies. She lowered her voice even further.

"Sophie... you're the only exception."

The stone door slid shut once more. Jane remained alone inside the Black Room, sealing herself away from the outside world once again.

Ahead of Sophie stretched only a single corridor. She wandered aimlessly, hoping to run into one of the guards on duty.

Someone familiar. Someone kind. Someone like Vera.

The map she had once drawn on her arm had long since faded during days of constant travel and fighting. Later, while bathing and changing clothes, she had casually washed away the remaining traces herself.

Fortunately, the strange forgetfulness that had plagued her for so long seemed to have disappeared after leaving Italy. The route back to her room remained perfectly clear in her mind.

The moment she stepped outside the Black Room, her heightened senses returned in full. The vast palace once again unfolded before her awareness.

An entire world waited to be explored.

She merely intended to find someone and ask for directions. Someone she recognized, someone friendly.

The instant that thought crossed her mind, she effortlessly sensed every moving and motionless presence within an astonishingly large radius. Her awareness spread across nearly the entire Volterra Palace.

It didn't take long before she selected a target and hurried after him.

A broad-shouldered Volturi guard with red eyes.

"The date?" The burly guard scratched his head thoughtfully. "It should already be July."

Like most vampires, he had lived apart from human society for far too long to care much about the passage of time, much less humanity's Gregorian calendar.

"Before Aro left," he continued, "he mentioned that Kino and Aurora are getting married this month. He ordered us to keep watch over the wedding gift he prepared. The moment he returns from Greenwich, we'll head straight to Finland to attend the ceremony."

July.

So it was already July.

The month after Midsummer. The final chance this year for Moonheart Grass to bloom.

"Thank you."

Sophie realized she had forgotten the large guard's name. After expressing her gratitude, she turned to leave.

"You've become awfully polite today, Sophie."

Instead of ending the conversation, the guard looked surprisingly interested in chatting with her a bit longer.

"Oh, right. How's your Italian coming along?"

Seeing her stare at him in confusion, he laughed. "Don't look at me like that. Alec secretly mentioned it to me. Demetri knows too."