Chapter 4 Names That Should Not Be Spoken

The storm had passed by morning, but Thornwick Hall seemed no brighter for it. The windows were still heavy with moisture, and the fog hadn't yet lifted from the hills. Mira moved through the halls like a ghost, her thoughts haunted by the cellar, the records, and the name no one had dared to speak for over two decades.

Aster Thornwick.

He had been the Hollow Guest before the fire. Before Elias. Before Tomas.

The original shame the family tried to bury.

Leo was already waiting for her in the old chapel, which hadn't been used since the fire. Dust covered the pews like frost. Light slanted through cracked stained glass, coloring his face in fragmented reds and greens.

"I sent a note into the village this morning," he said without looking at her. "To someone who might remember Aster."

"Who?"

"A seamstress named Mrs. Dorrin. She used to work in the house when she was a girl. She was dismissed the year Aster vanished."

Mira raised an eyebrow. "You trust her?"

"No," Leo said. "But I trust what time does to guilt."

Mrs. Dorrin arrived by noon, her back stiff, her mouth pursed. She looked at Thornwick Hall as if it were cursed. When they brought her into the library, she refused to sit.

"I have only a little time," she said.

Leo got straight to the point. "Do you remember a boy named Aster Thornwick?"

The old woman hesitated. "No."

Mira stepped closer. "Please. We think what happened to him connects to the fire. And to people who died because they knew the truth."

Mrs. Dorrin's hands trembled. She sat down.

"They made us swear never to speak his name. They told us he died of illness. But he didn't."

Mira leaned forward. "Then what happened?"

The woman's voice dropped to a whisper.

"He was the true heir. But he refused to marry the girl the family chose. He was... in love with someone else. Someone they thought improper. The family turned on him. Locked him away. And one day... he was gone."

Leo's mouth tightened. "You don't know what happened to him?"

"No," she said. "But his room was sealed. No one ever went inside again. Until the fire."

Mira blinked. "Until the fire?"

Mrs. Dorrin nodded. "The day of the fire, I saw Tomas-your brother, miss carrying a set of keys. The old keys. The ones that opened the locked wing."

She looked at Mira with something like grief.

"He must've found Aster's room."

That night, Mira wandered the third floor, guided only by memory and instinct. The hallway near the western tower was colder, darker. Most of the doors hadn't been opened in years. She stopped at one carved with thorns-a motif repeated nowhere else in the house.

Her fingers brushed the keyhole. The lock was ancient.

Behind her, Leo appeared, carrying a rusted keyring.

"I searched Tomas's old desk," he said. "Found these."

The key slid in with a soft click.

Inside, the room was perfectly preserved.

Faded blue wallpaper. A writing desk by the window. A sketchbook on the bed, still open. And on the wall, a portrait unfinished. The face was gentle, youthful, intelligent. But the eyes were what caught Mira. They looked... like Gregor's.

Leo stepped toward the sketchbook. "Drawings," he said. "Of the estate. Of people. Of... a woman?"

Mira stared at one page. A girl with dark hair. Stern mouth. Watching the artist with a quiet intensity.

"That's not a noblewoman," she whispered.

"No," Leo said. "That's Marin Thorne. My mother."

They left the room shaken.

Later, as Mira passed through the corridor, she saw the housekeeper, Heddie, lighting candles in the side hall.

"Heddie," she said, voice steady. "You knew about Aster."

The older woman didn't flinch. "I was here when it happened."

"Why didn't you say anything?"

Heddie turned, her expression unreadable. "Because every servant who spoke the truth was sent away. Your brother tried. So did Leo's father. So did I. And now look at us."

"You knew Aster?" Mira asked.

"I was his nursemaid," she said softly. "He called me Hedge."

Mira blinked. "Then what happened to him?"

Heddie looked her in the eyes.

"He didn't vanish. He was hidden. Forced to live as someone else. Someone quiet. Someone outside the Thornwick name."

Leo had just stepped into the corridor behind Mira

"Then who is he now?"

Heddie hesitated.

Then, with a grim breath, she said:

"Gregor. Gregor Thornwick is not who he says he is, he's not the heir

"He is Aster".