“Mia?” Leo’s voice was cheerful, echoing off the limestone. “I brought fresh soursop. I thought we could try a new infusion tonight.”
“March 12: Subject inhaled nutmeg oil at 8 PM. Reported ‘floating dreams’ and a metallic taste. Pupils dilated. No memory of the following three hours.”
Inside, she gasped.
Mia woke to sunbirds tapping at the glass, misted the ferns in her bathrobe, and cooked with ingredients she harvested ten feet from her bed. She learned the personalities of the plants: the dramatic chili orchid that drooped if its soil varied by a single degree, the stubborn clove tree that only fruited after a simulated thunderstorm (Leo had installed a sound system for that).
She wasn’t a curator. She was a test subject. Penthouse- Tropical Spice
Mia spun. A man stood by an open-plan kitchen that looked like a laboratory for alchemists. Bottles of amber tinctures and jars of dried chili hung over a stove. He was older, with salt-and-pepper hair and eyes the color of star anise. Leo. The owner.
“April 3: Subject F. Given tea with double-strength long pepper and mace. Became intensely amorous toward a reflection. Woke confused, with scratches on her arms. Fascinating.” “Mia
The paradise was a cage. And the key was no longer in her pocket—it was brewing, dark and fragrant, in the kitchen above her.
But on the ninth night, she found the ledger. Reported ‘floating dreams’ and a metallic taste
The front door clicked. He wasn’t supposed to be back for two more weeks.
The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime, releasing a wave of humid, fragrant air that was utterly at odds with the steel-and-glass skyscraper behind Mia. She stepped out into the private vestibule of the penthouse, her sensible flats silent on the cooled limestone floor. The key, warm from her pocket, turned in the lock.