Chapter 2 Hollow Guest

Morning came with a veil of low mist and a silence Mira couldn't name. Thornwick Hall seemed to be holding its breath. The fog lay thick across the grounds, curling like smoke around hedgerows and climbing the stone walls as though the house itself exhaled it. Not even birdsong stirred in the trees.

Mira wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and stepped into the corridor. The chill had crept in overnight, sinking into the wooden panels, into the rugs, into the marrow of the place. The air smelled faintly of damp stone and old fire.

She had not slept.

The letters she'd found the night before still haunted her desk cryptic, half-burned, unsigned. She had spent hours sorting them by date, by handwriting, by tone. Most were written in a hurried scrawl, the ink blotted and faded. A few were meticulous. They shared a single refrain:

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

That line surfaced over and over again, in different variations, sometimes alone on the page. She didn't know what or who the Hollow Guest was. A metaphor, perhaps. Or a code name. Maybe even a title, something used among those in the family's inner circle. But one thing was clear: it meant danger. And it meant return.

The last letter was dated 1849 twenty-three years before the fire that took Tomas's life.

Whatever had begun here, it had started long before.

The east dining hall had been opened for the first time in years. Its windows were tall and warped slightly by time, fogged at the corners. A modest table had been set two plates, a kettle, cold bread and butter, and a jar of thick preserves.

Leo stood at the far window with his arms folded, staring into the fog-covered garden. The mist made him seem part of the stone, unmoving, stern. Mira hesitated in the doorway, watching him.

He didn't turn when she entered. "The heir is arriving today," he said, voice low.

Mira raised an eyebrow. "I thought he was already here."

"He was. Left for Velbridge town the day you arrived. Supposedly to collect documents from the solicitor. He's returning at noon."

She crossed to the table and poured herself tea. It was weak but hot. She drank it slowly, watching him over the rim of the cup.

"Do you trust him?" she asked.

Leo's jaw twitched. He didn't answer immediately.

"Gregor Thornwick is a quiet man," he said at last. "Spent years abroad. Rumor is he refused the inheritance at first. Said the place was cursed."

"And now?"

"Now he wants to restore the Thornwick name," Leo said. "Which means pretending nothing happened here."

Mira stirred her tea. "That won't last long."

Leo turned his gaze from the window. Their eyes met. There was something in his expression she hadn't seen before a flicker of something too careful, too guarded. He wasn't just skeptical of Gregor. He was watching him. Measuring him.

"I've seen men wear borrowed names before," Leo said. "They rarely fit."

Later that morning, Mira returned to the library, where the dust seemed thicker than ever, the curtains still undrawn. She lit two of the wall sconces and set to work.

She pulled the old Thornwick family tree from the archives drawn by hand in faded ink, the edges gilded with flaking gold. It stretched over five generations, branching in elegant calligraphy from the first Lord Edmund Thornwick down to his grandchildren. Lords and ladies, knights and landowners. Sons born to fortune. Daughters married into power.

But one name caught her eye: Aster Thornwick, born 1831. Died 1850.

Only nineteen.

And no cause of death.

She checked the letters again. Three were signed only with an A. And two referenced someone called "the guest who cannot inherit."

Could Aster have been the first Hollow Guest? Cast out of the line? Disinherited quietly?

Why?

She traced the tree again. The next heir was Elias Thornwick, Aster's younger cousin. He inherited the estate at twenty-two. But there was a strange blankness between 1849 and 1852-three years when the estate was officially under "trustee guidance." What had happened in those three years?

The fire that killed Tomas may have been recent, but the truth was older. Much older.

Footsteps echoed softly from the corridor. Mira looked up, expecting Leo. Instead, a tall woman entered, severe in both posture and expression. Her gray dress was plain but clean. Her dark hair had been twisted into a tight bun. She looked like she had once been beautiful, before time and sorrow pulled the softness from her face.

"You must be Miss Mira," the woman said. "I'm called Heddie. Housekeeper, more or less."

"More or less?" Mira asked.

"There's not much left to keep," Heddie replied with a shrug. "But I know every brick in this place."

Her accent was from Velbridge-clipped but old-fashioned, like someone who had stayed long after everyone else left.

Mira studied her. "Were you here... when it happened?"

Heddie's mouth tightened. "I was."

"You knew Tomas, then."

"I did," Heddie said softly. "He was a good man. Quiet. But sharp. Not easy to fool."

Mira stood. "Do you think... do you think he was trying to expose something?"

Heddie didn't answer. She looked at the letters spread across the table, then at the Thornwick family tree Mira had laid beside them.

"Be careful where you dig, Miss," she said after a long pause. "This house buries things deep. Especially the truth."

Then she turned and left.

By noon, the fog had begun to lift.

Mira stood in the courtyard, arms wrapped around herself, as a dark carriage rolled through the gates. The wheels moved slowly over the stone drive. A footman opened the door and out stepped a man in his early forties, tall and composed.

Gregor Thornwick.

His coat was finely tailored. He wore gloves, and a silk cravat at his throat. His skin was pale, and his hair beginning to thin at the temples. He had the posture of a man who had grown up in private rooms and boardrooms alike-a man who had learned early that silence was power.

Mira expected him to glance her way.

He didn't.

He greeted no one but Leo, who met him at the steps. The two exchanged brief words. Mira couldn't hear them, but Leo's jaw tightened.

Then Gregor disappeared into the drawing room, and the door closed behind them.

She didn't see him again that day.

But she could feel it something had changed.

In the afternoon, Mira returned to the west wing, her boots echoing through the long-abandoned halls. The fire damage was worse here-charred beams, blackened walls, dust so thick it muffled every step.

She stopped at the staircase where Tomas had last been seen alive.

The bannister was half-melted. The stairs above were sealed off now boards nailed over them, warning signs posted by the trustees. Mira touched the wood. Cold. Silent.

Had he died here?

Or had he been dragged?

Outside, church bells tolled faintly from the village. Mira wandered toward the rear stables, half-distracted by her thoughts.

Then she saw him.

A boy-barely seventeen, thin, in a crooked hat-was hauling crates toward the servant's entrance. His shoulders were hunched, his clothes too thin for the cold.

"Niall?" she called out.

The boy froze.

He turned slowly. Their eyes locked.

"You're Niall," she said.

He dropped the crate. "I....I shouldn't talk-"

"You gave me the letter," she said gently. "From Tomas."

He stared at the ground, color draining from his face.

"I won't tell anyone," Mira said softly. "I just want to understand. What did Tomas tell you?"

Niall hesitated. His lips parted, but no sound came. Then, at last:

"He said... 'If anything happens, she deserves to know.' He looked scared, miss. Really scared."

"Do you know what he was afraid of?"

The boy nodded slowly. "He said someone in the family... he was going to confront them. He went upstairs with a letter in his coat. Said he was heading to Lady Ansel's chambers."

Mira's breath caught. "Lady Ansel?"

"She was old," Niall whispered. "And angry. But Tomas said she knew too much."

"Is she still alive?"

Niall shook his head. "Died the winter after the fire."

Mira felt her hands tighten into fists. Too many secrets had gone to the grave.

That evening, Thornwick Hall grew quiet. Servants retired to their quarters. The hearth in the drawing room burned low. Shadows lengthened through the hallways.

In the library, Mira sat alone again. A single candle burned beside her. The letters were spread out like a battlefield accusations, confessions, warnings. No signatures.

She picked up one.

"He returns, wearing another name, but carrying the same ruin. I know he's not who he says he is."

She read it three times.

Was it about Elias Thornwick?

Or about Gregor?

The Hollow Guest-whoever they were-had never been gone. Not truly.

Outside the house, the ashes had settled long ago.

But inside?

Something had begun to burn again.