Music Box (The Dollhouse Books, #4) by Anya Allyn Page B

first year here, only moving up to a room inside the castle sometime after she had her babies. But I had no liberty to wander the chambers—Voulo had complete control over my movements.
    Behind the gauzy curtains of the bed, Balthazar slept on.
    When Voulo came to open my compartment once again, I left for the ocean passage, and ate the meal of thick soup and crusty bread that sat on the table in the vestibule. And then waited. I had no way of knowing how many hours had passed or how close the morning was drawing to dawn. I decided to take a chance and return to the chambers early.
    Stealing inside the half-open door, revulsion crawled over me—as it did every time I entered the chambers. Balthazar remained still, but I sensed the insane, restless desires inside his mind.
    The chambers resembled a painting of one of the old renaissance masters, with lamps picking out the small details in the midst of impenetrable darkness, with a demon lying in wait for the unwary. And I had been one of the unwary. From the first time I had set foot in the dollhouse, wheels were being set in motion. Tunnels within the dollhouse led straight to the castle, straight to Balthazar and his horror and madness.
    I crept to the set of drawers that stood next to the cribs. Quietly, I pulled the top drawer open. Swollen with moisture from the underground, the drawer wasn’t easy to budge. I almost gave up for fear of making a sound, but then the drawer slid out. Inside were the remnants of folded baby clothing. Much of it had rotted away. I opened each of the drawers in turn. Most contained clothing and tiny shoes. One drawer was filled with gold and silver baby rattles and jewelry. There was nothing that I’d hoped for—a diary of Etiennette’s or some secret, stashed letters from Reed. But then, I guessed if such things had been here, they would have been found and destroyed long ago.
    Taking the key from my bodice, I slipped it inside a silver jewelry box. If I kept it in my clothing, it could too easily slip out at any time, and my journeys to the ocean would be exposed.
    I turned, staring around the hollow spaces of the chambers. There was nothing else here that looked like it had belonged to Etiennette, apart from the baby cribs. Lamplight dimly lit Balthazar’s desk and chair. The chair was tall and arch-shaped, with a cut-out that resembled a four-leaf clover. The desk was mostly made of metal, with ugly faces engraved into it—it looked like a lumbering beast sitting in the shadows. I remembered Balthazar sitting at that desk writing on the first night I had been sent here. My legs trembled as I stepped over to it. I knew he would not want me touching his things. My heart leaping in my chest, I examined the items on the desk—there wasn’t much except inks and quills. A shelf of ancient, moldering books sat above the desk—scrolls and more books were piled on the desktop. Ink bled along the edge of one of the books—could that be the one he’d been writing in? I lifted the huge, heavy book down from the shelf and opened it. It seemed to be a journal, of sorts. It was difficult to read—some words were in an old kind of French or old kind of English, and many words that I did know seemed to have different spellings. I guessed that his speech had been changed somewhat over the centuries by his interaction with more modern inhabitants of the castle, as his speech was far easier to understand than this. But I could understand enough. I pulled a lamp closer, its light spilling across the yellowed pages.
    My back chilled at the headings of the chapters—all girls’ names—Isabeau, Perette, Ragonde, Dauphine, Souveraine.... Girls who now stood for eternity in Balthazar’s cabinets. He had detailed the villages the girls had been stolen from and the measures used to silence their families. Some appeared to have gone willingly, seeking a better life, but most had been abducted. There were descriptions of times they had displeased him,