The halls of Ashenholt did not sleep.
Even in the breathless silence of night, something pulsed beneath the stone — something that didn't belong to the living. It echoed in the marrow of the walls, in the bones of the floor. Like a heartbeat buried deep in the manor's ancient skin.
Marcella awoke to it.
She sat upright in bed, heart racing. For a moment, she thought it had been a dream — that cold pressure against her skull, the feeling of eyes she couldn't see. But then the sound came again.
Footsteps.
Not a servant's shuffle. Not a guard's patrol.
Marella swung her legs off the bed and rose slowly, listening. The moonlight filtered weakly through the frosted windows. Lira was gone — dismissed hours earlier after the brittle supper with the Montclairs. Marcella hadn't thought to ask for company that night.
She regretted that now.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three precise raps on her chamber door.
Marcella froze..
