Chapter 3 Beneath The Ash

The moon hung low over Thornwick Hall, bleeding silver through the clouds. The halls were hushed except for the occasional creak of the old beams above Mira's room. Somewhere deep within the house, wind whistled through a cracked window frame soft, constant, like breath from a sleeping ghost.

Mira sat at her desk, her candle nearly spent, eyes scanning the Thornwick family ledgers once again. But her thoughts weren't on ink or paper.

She was thinking about Gregor Thornwick.

Something about him unsettled her. He had arrived with no warmth, no questions. No curiosity about the estate he now owned. Most heirs, even distant ones, would at least feign interest in old portraits or room layouts. But Gregor barely looked at the place. He spoke little. And he didn't look at her at all.

Yet she caught the smallest glance when he first entered the flicker of recognition.

It chilled her more than the wind.

By morning, Mira found Leo already in the west garden, sleeves rolled, leaning against the cold stone wall. He wasn't looking at the ruined wing. He was looking at the well.

"You're up early," she said.

"So are you," he replied, pushing off the wall.

"I didn't sleep." She hesitated, then added, "Gregor's strange."

Leo raised an eyebrow. "You only just noticed?"

"No, not just that. When he arrived, he looked at me like... like he'd seen me before. Or my brother."

Leo folded his arms. "That would mean he knew Tomas."

"But how?" she asked. "Gregor's been abroad for twenty years."

Leo was quiet a moment. Then he said, "There are gaps in his story. I asked where he'd spent most of the past decade he gave three countries but wouldn't say when. Something's off."

She nodded, her hand tightening around the papers she held.

Then she offered them to him. "These are from the archive room. Ledgers. Letters. One of them was sealed inside a wallboard."

Leo glanced over them, frowning. Then paused at a passage:

"A. Thornwick warned her, but she chose him anyway. When the Hollow Guest returns, we'll all pay for the betrayal."

"That again," he muttered. "The Hollow Guest."

"I found a name in the family tree. Aster Thornwick. Born 1831, vanished 1850. No death record."

Leo tapped the paper. "Maybe he was the Hollow Guest. Or maybe he found something like Tomas did. And paid for it."

Mira looked up at the burned west wing. "You said once you thought the fire was just the beginning."

Leo nodded. "Let's find where it really started."

The west wing was closed off, the doors bolted since the fire. But Leo found a rusted crowbar in the old stables, and together, they pried the hinges loose. The hall beyond was black with ash and decay. The air smelled of soot and damp rot. Mira covered her mouth as they stepped inside.

They moved slowly past scorched portraits, collapsed beams, the remains of what was once the drawing salon. Charred floorboards creaked beneath their steps.

"This was where Elias kept his private study," Mira said, pointing to a partially collapsed door.

Inside, the ceiling had mostly caved. But the back wall-though blackened-still stood. Behind a fallen bookcase, Leo spotted it: a trapdoor, scorched at the edges but intact.

"You see that?" he said.

They cleared the debris and pulled it open. A wooden stair descended into darkness.

"I don't like it," Mira murmured.

"That's how you know it's worth seeing," Leo replied.

They descended carefully, the smell worsening with each step. Beneath the ruins was a narrow cellar-stone walls, low ceiling. And at its center: a desk, untouched by fire. The walls around it were lined with filing cabinets, some still locked.

On the desk lay a single book. Open. Its title burned off.

Mira ran her fingers over the page. Inside were records-not financial ones, but personal.

She whispered aloud. "'Guest Room Expenses: 1849.' Look-this isn't from Elias's time. This is older."

She flipped to the back. There, written in faded ink:

"Aster arrived under silence. His inheritance denied. I did as I was told, but I will not forget his eyes." M.T.

Leo froze. "M.T.?"

Mira's eyes widened. "That's Marin Thorne. Your mother."

Silence hung between them like a blade.

"She wrote this," Mira said quietly. "Your mother saw Aster. Knew what they did to him. She stayed quiet. And it destroyed her."

Leo said nothing. He walked slowly to the back wall, breathing through his teeth. Then his voice, low:

"They made her erase him. They made everyone erase him."

Back upstairs, neither of them spoke for a long while.

They sat across from each other in the old library, the cellar dust still on their sleeves.

"I thought revenge would feel sharper," Leo finally said. "Like a knife. But it's more like drowning."

Mira looked at him. "What do you want to do?"

"Find everything they buried. Name every person they tried to erase. Aster. My parents. Your brother. All of them."

"And then?"

Leo met her eyes. "Burn the Thornwick name to the ground."

Mira nodded slowly. "Then let's start digging."

That night, a storm rolled in-thunder shaking the walls, rain battering the windows.

Gregor Thornwick stood in the upstairs corridor, watching the firelight flicker below. He held a letter in his hands, the seal cracked. His jaw tightened.

He did not notice the housekeeper, Heddie, standing just out of sight in the shadows. Her eyes fixed not on Gregor but on the portrait of Lady Ansel hanging above the stairwell.

Her whisper was so quiet the wind almost carried it away:

"You brought this on us. All of it."

And then she was gone.