Chapter 1 The Return To Thornwick

Velbridge, Autumn 1872

The carriage climbed the hill like a breath held too long, silent except for the crunch of gravel beneath its wheels. Mira sat inside, wrapped in a dark shawl, her gloved hands resting stiffly on her lap. The road twisted through mist-draped fields, each bend unveiling more of the landscape she hadn't seen in five years: gnarled hedgerows, stone fences long surrendered to ivy, and the ever-looming silhouette of Thornwick Hall. Wide-shouldered. Gray-stoned. Broken.

Time had not repaired it. Neither had memory.

She leaned closer to the window as the estate emerged, cradled by old oaks whose branches clawed at the sky. The hall rose like a monument to unfinished grief. Its west wing was still blackened, five years after the fire. The roof sagged in places, and vines curled through shattered windows like fingers reclaiming a corpse. A place that had once hosted lords and luncheons now sat like a tomb on the hill.

Mira did not shiver, though the air was cold.

She had come here for workor so the letter claimed. A formal summons, stamped by the estate's legal trustees:

"You are requested to assist in the archival restoration of Thornwick Hall's records before the new heir takes full possession. Lodging and stipend provided."

Polite. Official. Unexpected.

She had almost burned it.

And yet, here she was.

The carriage halted with a jolt. Mira gathered her things slowly. Her gloved hand paused on the door's iron latch, heart quickening as the scent of damp earth and burnt wood seeped in. She stepped out, boots crunching on gravel, and lifted her gaze to the hall.

The facade remained intact, but scars were everywhere. A scorched pillar. Windows warped from heat. Stone blackened by soot but never scrubbed clean. Thornwick Hall had not healed. Neither had she.

"You sure this is where you meant to go, miss?" the driver asked from his seat, casting a wary glance at the ruin.

"I'm sure," she said, her voice steady.

He didn't press her. Just nodded and reached back to lower her trunk with a grunt.

She didn't wait for him to help. She hoisted it herself, arms straining with the weight of books and letters, and crossed the moss-flecked stone steps toward the main doors.

The oak doors arched, ancient, and flanked by weathered gargoyles groaned open under her touch. Inside, the air was thick with dust and old silence. Light slanted in from tall windows, cutting through the dimness like reluctant memory. Dust floated like spirits in the air.

Mira stood in the grand entry hall, her breath catching. She remembered this place. The scent of beeswax and old parchment. The hollow echo of boots on marble. She had last stood here the night Tomas died.

Her older brother. Loyal. Quiet. Steady in ways she had never been.

He had served as steward of Thornwick Hall for six years before the fire. When he died, she hadn't come to the estate. She had stayed away away from the whispers, away from the grief that refused to settle. And then, two days after his funeral, an envelope arrived. No seal. No sender.

Just his final words.

"I've seen something I shouldn't have. If anything happens, look in the ledgers from '52."

She had clutched that letter like it was still warm from his hand. And yet what haunted her most wasn't the words, it was the delay.

Tomas wouldn't have sent it late. He wouldn't have risked that.

Weeks later, she learned the truth.

A village stable boy, Niall, had confessed to the vicar. Tomas had given him the letter the night of the fire, instructing him to deliver it only if something happened. But when the estate burned and guards sealed off the grounds, Niall panicked. He feared punishment, blame, reprisal. So he hid it. Kept it hidden for weeks until guilt forced him to slip it through her gate, anonymous and silent.

Mira had never spoken to the boy. But she never forgot his name.

The hush of the hallway was broken by a quiet voice.

"Thought you'd come through the side entrance."

Mira turned sharply. Her eyes met a tall man leaning against the archway, arms crossed. His coat was worn but clean, the lapels pinned with a small insignia she couldn't place. A thin scar curved across his jaw, and his posture-relaxed but alert-suggested the kind of man who knew where every door and every threat was.

"I don't know you," she said cautiously.

"Leo," he said. "Security detail. I'm here on behalf of the estate trustees."

"You knew I was coming?"

He gave a half-shrug. "I make it my business to know who walks into places like this. Especially when they've lost someone here."

She went still. "You know who I am."

"I know your name's Mira. I know your brother was Tomas. And I know you're not just here for the job."

She said nothing. Her silence wasn't agreement, but it wasn't denial either.

Leo studied her. His eyes were sharp, but not unkind. "Who are you really?"

"Someone looking for the truth," she said.

He pushed off the wall. "Then we may have something in common."

The estate office had been sealed since the fire, its wood swollen and its hinges rusted. Mira forced the door open, coughing as years of dust billowed into the corridor. Inside, the room was exactly as she remembered: shelves of ledgers, stacked from floor to ceiling. Documents lay in half-ruined piles. Ash clung to the corners of parchment like forgotten fingerprints.

She moved toward the lower shelf and pulled the heavy ledgers from 1852.

As she slid the final one free, a soft thud broke the silence. Something small had fallen-caught in the spine, tucked like a secret.

A leather pouch.

She crouched, opened it, and removed a bundle of folded letters. Dozens. Each on thick, brittle paper, edges yellowed by time. No signature. But one thing stood out: the seal on every page was broken and smeared. The Thornwick crest.

She read the first line aloud.

"If this is found, know that Thornwick stands on stolen names and ruined lives. The fire did not begin in the west wing. It began decades before."

Her heart pounded.

Tomas had known. He'd found this.

And it had cost him his life.

That night, the rain fell soft and steady against the tall windows of the Thornwick library. Mira sat at a long table beneath the flicker of weak firelight. The letters were spread before her like the remnants of a storm unfolded, read, re-read. A map without a compass.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. Leo appeared in the doorway, his coat dusted from the rain.

"You're up late," he said.

"I could say the same for you."

He entered, glancing at the letters but not touching them.

"I remember that seal," he murmured. "My father had one like it. Before they took everything from him."

She looked up. "Your father worked here?"

"He was a steward," Leo said. "Like Tomas. Found out the Thornwicks were falsifying land grants-taking property from tenant families by forging claims. When he tried to speak up, they crushed him. Branded him a thief. Blacklisted him. My mother died not long after. I was fifteen."

She watched his jaw tighten.

"They ruined him," he said quietly. "And they never paid for it."

Mira nodded slowly. "My brother might've been trying to do the same-tell the truth."

Leo's gaze flicked to hers. "Maybe that's why he died."

Her fingers trembled slightly as she turned one of the pages. One line stood out in slanted ink:

"When the Hollow Guest returns, the house will fall from within."

A chill rippled down her spine. She didn't know what it meant yet.

But the way Leo stared at it made her think-maybe he did.

By morning, Mira had claimed a corner of the east wing as her own, the papers laid out in organized rows. The house remained quiet, but never still. Doors creaked without wind. Floors groaned beneath unseen footsteps.

She visited Tomas's old quarters stripped of personal effects but still heavy with presence. Beneath a loose floorboard, she found a journal. Entries written in shorthand. A habit he had always kept from childhood.

She recognized three recurring initials: A.T.

Later, she asked Leo. "Who was A.T.?"

He paused. "Aster Thornwick."

She blinked. "There was no Aster in the family tree I reviewed."

"No. Because they erased him."

Leo didn't elaborate.

But something in the way he said it made her blood run cold.