Chapter 4 4 - The Thing Beneath the Floorboards

Lila barely slept after the dream.

When she woke, the glow of the mark had faded, but the memory lingered-raw and unshakable. The figure wrapped in chains, the fire licking the edges of his silhouette, the voice calling her name like it had done so a thousand times before. Find me, it had said.

But find who?

And from what?

The morning in Adrian's mansion was eerily quiet, as if the house itself knew she'd seen too much.

Lila dragged herself into the private bathroom, taking in the gleaming black tiles and silver fixtures that screamed wealth and secrecy. Her reflection in the mirror looked pale, disheveled, and not entirely like herself.

That worried her more than anything.

She was halfway through brushing her teeth when she heard it.

Tap... tap... tap...

She froze.

The sound came from under the floor. A slow, deliberate tapping, like fingernails against wood. Not fast enough to be an animal. Too precise.

She dropped the toothbrush and stepped back, heart suddenly hammering.

"Adrian?" she called out.

No answer.

She cracked the bathroom door open and stepped into the bedroom. The tapping had stopped. But now the silence was even louder.

Then she saw it.

A sliver of black smoke leaking from beneath the wardrobe. Not normal smoke-this moved against gravity, curling upward like it had its own sentience.

Lila backed away, breath caught in her throat.

Then the wardrobe creaked.

One of the doors slowly, painfully, opened on its own.

Inside was darkness-total, absolute. Too deep for such a shallow space. And from that darkness came a whisper.

"Blood of my blood..."

She bolted.

Down the hall, bare feet slapping against the wooden floors, past the eyes of those damn haunted paintings. She didn't care where she was going-anywhere but there.

She turned the corner-and slammed into Adrian's chest.

He caught her before she hit the floor, hands firm around her shoulders. "What happened?"

"Something's in my room," she gasped. "Smoke. Whispering. The wardrobe-"

He didn't wait.

Adrian took off, faster than any human should be able to. Lila chased after him, adrenaline overriding logic.

By the time they reached her room, the smoke was gone.

The wardrobe stood slightly ajar, innocent, hollow.

But Adrian didn't look surprised. He walked straight to it, placed a hand on the door, and muttered something in a language Lila didn't understand. The mark on her chest responded again-faintly, like a tuning fork caught in the same frequency.

"What was it?" she demanded. "I'm not crazy. It was real."

He turned toward her, gaze unreadable. "You're not crazy."

"That's not an answer."

Adrian exhaled slowly, then shut the wardrobe with a soft click.

"This house is old. And not everything that lives in it listens to me anymore."

That made her blood run cold. "So there are things here?"

"There are always things," he said simply. "But that whisper? That wasn't from this house."

Lila frowned. "Then what?"

Adrian looked at her, truly looked at her, and she saw the slightest hint of fear in his eyes.

"That voice came from you."

---

Later, they sat in the kitchen-a beautiful but sterile place made of marble and steel that looked more like a luxury catalog than a home. Adrian had made tea, of all things, though he didn't touch his.

Lila clutched the warm mug in her hands like it was a lifeline. "Talk."

Adrian leaned back in the chair, dark eyes fixed on hers. "You said you never knew your real family?"

She nodded. "My mother died giving birth to me. No father listed. I grew up in the system."

"Not surprising," he said. "Your blood isn't... ordinary."

"Oh great," she scoffed. "I'm not ordinary. Do I win a cape?"

Adrian's jaw tightened. "I'm serious, Lila. The mark, the dreams, the voice-they're signs. You've been claimed. Tied to a bloodline that doesn't exist in any human record."

"And you just happened to show up when it started."

"I was sent to retrieve the next of the Marked."

"By who?"

He didn't answer.

Lila's voice turned cold. "You know what's going on. You brought me here because you knew something was happening to me."

"I brought you here to protect you," he said firmly. "But yes-I knew. Or at least, I suspected."

"Suspected what?"

Adrian rose from the chair, moving to the window.

"That your blood carries an inheritance. One sealed centuries ago, when the Order of Shadows made a pact with the thing beneath the veil."

"What veil?"

"The one that separates our world... from the one that watches."

She stared at him like he was insane. "Okay, you're speaking in riddles now. Do you want me to understand or pass out?"

Adrian turned, and there was something in his expression she hadn't seen before. Not fear. Not anger.

Regret.

"I wasn't supposed to care," he said quietly. "I was supposed to mark you, awaken the bond, and return you to the Circle. But I didn't."

Lila's voice dropped. "Why not?"

He walked toward her, slow and deliberate.

"Because the moment I touched you, I felt it too. The pull. The bond. The recognition. You're not just the next Marked, Lila. You're something older than that. Something even the Circle doesn't fully understand."

He stopped inches away, voice low and dangerous.

"And now that you're awake... they'll come for you."

---