Leonardo placed his hand on the knob, feeling something indescribable—a warmth that wasn't quite heat, more like heat trying to be heat. It was unsettling, the sensation of something almost but not quite right.

  "I hate this," Leonardo muttered, opening the door and stepping inside, closing it behind him. The pressure from the door lingered, pressing against him as though it were reluctant to let him pass.

  The section of the mansion he entered stretched out before him, an endless hallway that seemed to go on for a couple hundred steps before ending abruptly at a final wall.

  Next to the wall was a staircase, most likely the one Anna had explicitly warned him not to go up.

  He walked down the hallway, lined with doors on one side and large windows on the other. He couldn't help but wonder why the doors were there—perhaps for guests? He opened one to peek inside and saw a large room, fully furnished with nearly every necessity except a bathroom.

  They all shared a single bathroom at the end of the hall, which seemed like a waste of time in a mansion this grand.

  Leonardo paused as he walked down the hallway, glancing at the row of doors lining the wall. "Why are these rooms here?" he wondered aloud, his curiosity piqued. "Guest rooms, maybe?"

  He turned the handle of one of the doors and pushed it open. Inside was a large, well-furnished room, complete with a bed, a desk, and a wardrobe.

  It seemed to have almost everything someone might need—except for a bathroom. The realization struck him as odd.

  "They all use the one at the end of the hall? That's such a waste of time," he mused, closing the door and moving on. "You'd think a place this big would have dozens of bathrooms."

  Leonardo pondered the logistics.

  "Where does all the waste even go? Is it one of those unsolved mysteries of the tower?" He imagined the heads of the families discussing it, their lofty titles and inflated egos preventing them from addressing such mundane concerns.

  Maybe the scarcity of bathrooms was deliberate—a subtle power play, a way to impose some twisted form of order.

  "Maybe it's designed to deter anyone from actually using it," Leonardo thought. He imagined how their thoughts might go: "I'd like to use the bathroom, but there's always someone else there.

  If they see me like this, my status will plummet. I'd be known as the 'potty head.' I can't allow that!" Leonardo chuckled at the idea, picturing their proud faces twisted with indecision.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "That would definitely cut down on bathroom visits," he muttered to himself. "Their egos and sense of pride always come first, even before basic needs." The thought of such men irritated him.

  He could almost see the tower's heads fitting that description perfectly, their self-importance overshadowing practicality.

  "Absolutely insufferable," he concluded. "The heads are definitely the type. But do their heirs fit the bill too?" The thought lingered, like a bad taste in his mouth.

  The windows along the hallway were enormous, stretching almost to the ceiling and lined with thick red curtains visible even from outside.

  Leonardo recalled noticing them when he had first entered the tower through the intricately crafted gates. Red seemed to be a theme here, a color that didn't exactly blend with the surroundings.

  It clashed with Volnia's gothic aesthetic, which Leonardo missed dearly, with its towering dark structures and narrow alleyways that reached up to the sky.

  "Volnia," he sighed, nostalgia washing over him. He didn't miss the interiors, though. Even the most modest couch here had offered him more comfort than his bed back home.

  As he walked past the doors, he admired their craftsmanship, each one a work of art.

  The bathroom should be at the end, Leonardo reminded himself, his steps echoing in the empty hallway. His thoughts drifted back to Altan, remembering the intensity in his eyes.

  Anna was right. Altan had been planning to kill him. But why? why. Was it just because he was a guide? Leonardo's grip tightened on the sheath on his side.

  "I'd trade being a guide if it meant saving my life," Leonardo thought, frustration building up inside him. "But if I did that, my name wouldn't be on the Mo—"

  His breath hitched, his pace quickened as panic began to set in. Thoughts raced, and his vision blurred until he collided headfirst into the wall at the hallway's end.

  "Ah, the end," he muttered, rubbing his head. A large painting hung there, depicting a figure he didn't recognize. The air around him felt hot, unnaturally so. "Why is it still so warm? Where is this heat coming from?"

  He turned his gaze to the side and saw the staircase Anna had warned him about. He felt the pull of exhaustion; his body ached for rest. How long had it been since he last slept?

  "Day one, I entered the museum," he mumbled to himself, trying to piece together the timeline. "Met Elara and Anna… Day two, met Marquis and Richard… then the explosion."

  Had it really only been three days? It felt much longer. The days had bled into each other, endless and exhausting.

  He thought of the sun in Moerlan, always brighter, larger than it seemed here. Everything here felt smaller, more confined, as if even the sun itself was being swallowed up.

  Leonardo's eyes drifted back to the door he had come through, noticing the doorknob. It looked tarnished, almost scorched, as if someone with burning-hot fingers had held it recently.

  "That wasn't me," he whispered, a shiver running down his spine. Something wasn't right. He felt the press of unseen eyes, the heat, the feeling that something was out of place.

  He couldn't shake the nagging sense of dread that clung to him as he turned away from the stairs and walked towards the bathroom.

  He exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders loosening just a fraction as he leaned against the cool, tiled wall.

  The heat clung to his skin, a constant reminder that he was far from home, caught in the tangled web of the tower and its inhabitants.

  He closed his eyes, trying to focus on the steady rhythm of his breathing, but the unease lingered, whispering in the back of his mind.