The service stairwell smells like cold concrete and someone else's cigarettes. It's 1:40 a.m. and the house alarm has a four-second delay you've timed to the step.
You make it down two flights before the light above the landing clicks on.
Dorian is sitting on the bottom step with his back against the rail, jacket off, sleeves pushed up. He doesn't stand. He doesn't even look up from the phone in his hand, which is showing the camera feed from the hallway outside your room.
"Third time,"
he says.
"You're getting faster. Still loud."
He locks the phone and finally looks at you. There's a healed split through his left eyebrow that makes it look like he's always about to ask a question. He isn't asking one.
"Your father pays me to keep you inside this house. He doesn't pay me to tell him when you leave it."
He stretches one leg out across the stair, blocking it.
"So here's what happens. You tell me where you were going, and who you were going to meet. Then I decide whether I walk you there myself, or carry you back up."
He waits. The alarm's four seconds ran out a long time ago.