“An heir,” Lady Hargreaves’s mother corrected.

  Gemma felt a sinking dread at the thought of Lord Avon’s wife, isolated on those terrible northern moors. How lonely she must feel surrounded by violent waves and rocks, to be brought there as a young wife, then abandoned until she became a mother. Did she miss the girlhood she had left behind?

  “It’s a shame he married a tradesman’s daughter,” the dowager continued, her voice croaky with age. “Money or no, the heir’s blood will be sullied.”

  Gemma’s eyes roved the ballroom, landing on Lord Avon’s golden form. He was surrounded by people, lords and ladies alike, each lapping up every word that left his handsomely curved mouth. A man stood beside him on the fringes of the crowd, both somehow simultaneously within and outside of it. She recognized him as Lord Hargreaves purely from his Algaraan features. She lingered on his eyes, brown and deep-set, a serious tilt to his mouth that offset Lord Avon’s gaiety.

  Suddenly, Lord Hargreaves’s gaze met her own, and she reddened at being caught staring. She lowered her gaze to the dance card in her hands.

  Within moments, she felt a presence by her elbow. A deep voice caught her attention, and she dared to lift her eyes to see Lord Hargreaves asking for the next dance.

  * * *

  —

  They were married in the spring.

  Images flashed through Leena’s mind—at times vivid in color, at other moments blurred and slightly hazy with age. Still, despite the years that had passed, Lady Hargreaves’s wedding came to her in sharp detail, as if her happiness on that day had cemented the memory in the ghost’s mind.

  Leena felt Lady Hargreaves’s exuberance as she bound her hand to Lord Hargreaves, the ribbon clasping their fingers together as a priest said a vow to the Saints. She saw Lord Avon standing as the best man. She saw the way Lord Hargreaves looked at his wife, as if entranced. She felt Lady Hargreaves’s own response to her husband, the twisting of love and devotion.

  She never once saw Lady Avon.

  * * *

  —

  Leena awoke with a gasp, lurching forward, squinting frantically in the early-morning light that broke through the window.

  The salt circle remained unbroken.

  Lady Hargreaves stood on the other side, wringing her hands in silent entreaty. So, she had not been laid to rest after all. But Theodore Daye maintained his habitual stance beside her bed, guarding Leena through her sleep.

  Great emotion rippled from the ghost boy as he gestured angrily toward Lady Hargreaves. The room grew colder, and frost crept over the windowpane. Leena could see her panting breaths as swirls of smoke.

  With this drop in temperature, Lady Hargreaves began to dim.

  “No…Theo—” Leena staggered out of bed, but it was too late.

  Lady Hargreaves was gone. Theo had banished her.

  “Saints damn it!” Leena cursed.

  Lady Hargreaves had not returned to possess her, but to warn her. Even while the salt circle remained intact, ghosts still sometimes left imprints of themselves inside Leena’s mind while she slept. Especially here in Weavingshaw, where Leena felt more tethered to the dead than anywhere else. Even now, Leena continued to sense Lady Hargreaves’s desperation like a steady hum in her chest, a plea for Leena to do something, but what that something was Leena had no clue.

  Theo had flinched at her exclamation, and Leena’s expression softened.

  “I’m sorry, Theo,” she said quietly. “I’m not angry at you. You were only protecting me. I just wanted to know what Lady Hargreaves had to say.”

  Theo nodded slowly, but he had hunched over, his small frame crowded in on himself.

  Leena rose from the bed, approaching him cautiously. “I truly mean it, Theo. Thank you.”

  Theo looked as if he wanted to speak, but, not for the first time that morning, the words of the dead were lost to her.

  * * *

  —

  Leena searched for a portrait of the 16th Lady Avon, Percival’s wife, but she could not find it.

  The gallery in which they’d had their initial tour was filled with portraits of the Lords of Avon, all blue-eyed, all fair-haired. There was the 1st Marquess—bewitchingly handsome, drenched in light, making it look like the golden glare originated from him. Leena remembered what had been said on that tour: that Weavingshaw’s initial purpose had been to be a fortress, Morland’s frontline protection from the Casland invaders. When the King had given the property to the 1st Marquess of Avon, it had comprised only the burnt remnants of a house and untamable lands, with orders to ready it as a stronghold.

  To Leena, it seemed an impossible task—especially the more she saw of the north. Even the ocean was not safe. She’d caught glimpses of shipwrecks and ruined hulls left on the beach, centuries old.

  It was an impossible task. The 1st Marquess should’ve failed, the Avon root cut, Weavingshaw a pile of forgotten bricks.

  Yet standing here, nine hundred years later, staring at the portrait of the 1st Marquess, she wondered how he had managed to transform Weavingshaw into this enduring bastion. Beyond the Marquess’s handsomeness, the artist had given his face an almost beastly expression, his sharp features molded in cold aristocratic cruelty. Leena felt a quiver race up her spine at the thought of what, exactly, the Marquess might’ve done to ensure the continuation of his line.

  Her eyes then drifted toward the last Lord Avon’s portrait, and she could not help but contrast this painting with how he appeared in both Moira’s and Lady Hargreaves’s memories. He was younger in this rendering, dressed in a crimson hunting jacket with a musket slung over his shoulder. He still wore his silver insignia ring, but the wedding band was not yet on his finger. In Moira’s memories, there had been a different smolder to him—a fever that was all-consuming.

  That had, in fact, consumed Moira to her death.

  * * *

  —

  All four of them met in the same gallery that evening.

  Leena, Rami, and Mrs. Van had spent the afternoon scouring the attics as the rain persisted outside, unveiling trunks filled with clothing from centuries past: dusty dresses with wide hoopskirts; linen pantaloons; musty, white-powdered wigs. There were also other hidden treasures, but the diary was not one of them.

  St. Silas had returned from the smugglers’ caves in a foul mood, his wet hair plastered to his forehead in thick tendrils, mud caking his boots. “I found only boxes of old rifles,” he told them grimly.

  “What’s next?” Rami asked, loosening the cravat at his throat in frustration.

  “The crypts.” St. Silas’s gaze flickered to the portrait of Lord Avon, his first acknowledgment of the painting since his arrival at Weavingshaw. “Tonight we go to find Percival Avon’s tomb.”

  The crypts were hidden deep beneath Weavingshaw—cavernous and seemingly endless, with sudden drops and blind ends, deadly as a devil’s fist.

  “They were designed by the First Marquess of Avon,” St. Silas explained as they descended the steps to the cellar. “He was a paranoid man. He kept all the heirlooms, as well as the family mausoleum, down there.”

  Rami seemed entirely unimpressed with the 1st Marquess of Avon. “Why go to all that effort?”

  “He feared grave robbers, so he constructed crypts that would be impossible to traverse without a map.”

  “These family heirlooms,” Rami said, “must be worth a fortune if he had to build a city under Weavingshaw to protect them.”

  St. Silas’s mouth twisted without humor. “That’s the irony. It would be his own ancestors—penniless and desperate—who robbed his tomb.”

  It was half past two in the morning; not even the servants stirred when St. Silas led the Al-Sayers into the wine cellar. Lining the walls were stacks of wooden shelves that must’ve held countless bottles of wine once, but which were now empty save for dust. Each of them carried kerosene lanterns, but they provided only a weak defense against the encroaching darkness.

  St. Silas walked the entire length of the cellar, inspecting each shelf. Finally, he tapped one booted foot on the floor and a hollow thud resounded.

  “Here it is.” St. Silas knelt down, swinging open a concealed door. The hidden latch was nearly indistinguishable from the rest of the tiles, easily missed in the dim lighting.

  Rami shone his light into the passage, revealing winding stairs that descended into pitch-black. “Steep.”

  Leena peered as well. The entrance looked like an open mouth, framing the steps like teeth, waiting to swallow them whole.

  St. Silas pulled Rami back just as he was beginning his descent. He took the lead instead, his lantern illuminating the path onward. Leena went second, and Rami brought up the rear. There wasn’t a railing to hold on to, just a stone wall that grazed her palm whenever she used it to steady herself.

  “Do you have a map?” Leena asked, no longer able to stand the silence.

  “Last step,” was St. Silas’s only response as he tilted his lamp downward.

  His reticence worried her more than his answers.

  The ground leveled as they walked a long stretch of passageway, the light from their lamps pooling in the crevices of the curved ceiling. Here, even the scurrying of small rodents was magnified. They passed a doorway barred with metal railings, a rusted padlock still hanging from the handle, and Leena shuddered to think what lay behind it.

  St. Silas seemed to know which direction as if by instinct, taking turns without a moment’s hesitation, although each passage shared the same rough-bricked outline.

  “…a cold finger,

  That’s where the ring will go,

  Merry in the ground,

  We’ll toast her shadow…”

  Rami’s voice weaved through the darkness, reciting an old Golborne tune often sung during the Festival of Demons to keep the spirits at bay.

  “The sound of a dying cat would be a marked improvement.” Leena could hear the abject disgust in St. Silas’s voice, but neither he nor Leena told Rami to stop. Perhaps he was as glad of the break in the silence as she was.

  They walked for another long spell, the darkness sitting heavily on their chests. Evenly spaced torches jutted from the walls, and Rami reached to kindle one with his own light. The sizzle of the flame meeting the wick was loud within the narrow hall.

  St. Silas whipped round, a harsh command wrenched from his mouth. “Rami, step back!”

  “Wha—?” Rami began to ask, but it was too late.

  An explosion erupted behind her, where Rami had been standing moments before.

  Instant. Thunderous.

  Leena felt her body hurled against the stone wall, St. Silas’s unyielding arms confining her in place. The debris flew around them, but she remained untouched. St. Silas pulled himself away from her only when the silence overtook them.

  Heart hammering, Leena pushed forward past St. Silas, shouting her brother’s name. Images of Rami’s body strewn on the floor, charred and lifeless, flashed in her mind. She staggered toward him, horror rising in her chest with every second in which he didn’t answer.

  “I’m here, Leena. I’m all right.” It was Rami’s voice, corporeal through the thick haze. “It’s just smoke.” He let out a loud cough. “Lucky for me, or I’d be dead.” Another cough. “Or have lost another hand in a completely unrelated accident. No one would believe that story.”

  She grabbed his arm and they stumbled through the smoke together, holding their breath until they cleared it. Rami cleaned the soot from his face with the back of his sleeve, leaving streaky residue over his cheeks. The entirety of Leena’s back was a grit-covered mess from the wall, and her hair was ashy, as if she’d powdered it in the old fashion. St. Silas had been far enough away from the initial explosion that it hadn’t affected him at all.

  “Are you all right?” St. Silas lifted his lantern to Leena.

  “Yes.” She flushed. “Thank you for your assistance.” St. Silas did not respond, his assessing eyes searching her. She tried to wipe her face free of dust. “Rami was behind me when the explosion occurred. What happened?”

  “The explosive mechanism from the hidden trap must have backfired, so only smoke was released.” St. Silas began relighting Rami’s and Leena’s fallen lamps. “You were lucky. Some of these traps are too old to function properly. The next one might not be so forgiving. Do not touch anything without my explicit command. And don’t light any of the torches; they are all designed to explode.”

  Both Leena and Rami looked outraged.

  “You could’ve warned us!” Rami took back his lamp with more force than necessary.

  “Consider yourself warned.” Without another glance at either of them, St. Silas pressed forward, and the Al-Sayers had little choice but to follow.

  Leena was not sure how much time passed. The crypts felt as if the hours didn’t reach them, as if time itself stood still, too weary to progress in these decrepit halls. They had entered the crypts shortly after half past two; surely they must have been walking an hour at least. She hoped that they were not too far from their destination.

  Just as she was about to ask St. Silas, who always carried his timepiece with him, she felt a wet trickle slide down her nose. When she wiped it on her sleeve, she found blood.

  Leena drew back in surprise. She thought she’d been too far from the explosion for it to have caused any damage, but the bleeding would not stop.

  First it was the left nostril. Then it was the right. Then it was both.

  Carrying the kerosene lamp prevented her from searching her pockets for her handkerchief, so she used her sleeve to stanch the flow of blood.

  Gradually, the passage narrowed until they were forced to walk shoulder to shoulder with the walls. Both St. Silas and Rami dipped their heads to navigate the low ceilings. And all the while, Leena silently tried to control the bleeding, irritated with her body’s response. First, she had lost control with Moira and needed to be rescued, and now she was injured and risked slowing them down.

  Then Leena began to taste the metallic acidity of blood at the back of her throat. Stubbornly, she tried to swallow it down, but the backward flow from her nostrils had intensified, making her choke.

  The hall expanded suddenly into a large cavernous space just as Leena dropped her lamp and began coughing up blood.

  She couldn’t catch her breath, and tears were welling in her eyes from sheer terror. This was the third time she’d experienced the feeling of being choked to death.

  St. Silas was beside her in an instant, tension tightening his face.

  “What is it? What’s wrong? You are hurt,” he demanded, bending near her as blood splattered on his collar.

  Rami wasted no time in reaching into her pocket and thrusting two copper coins toward St. Silas.

  St. Silas understood and struck them together furiously.

  The blood flow stemmed instantly, and Leena was able to grasp her first gulp of air after what felt like years.

  “Are you possessed? Is she possessed?” St. Silas turned to Rami once he was more certain that Leena could breathe.

  “I don’t know,” was Rami’s frantic reply. “Leena?” He reached into his pocket and handed her his handkerchief.

  She didn’t immediately respond as she wiped her nose and chin. She was unsure if she had been possessed. It hadn’t felt like a normal possession. She had been mistress of her own faculties throughout, she had been grounded in her surroundings and could control her own limbs without resistance.

  And yet—

  It was as if something had been hemorrhaging her from the inside, turning her vital organs against her.

  It was certainly not the explosion that had caused it, as she’d first predicted, but perhaps something had awoken because of it.

  She brought a shaking hand to her forehead.

  “Leena?” St. Silas urged.

  “I’m here. It’s me,” she responded, removing her hand from her forehead in an attempt to regain some control.

  St. Silas and Rami exchanged doubtful looks.

  “Where did you hide the parchment that night we met Lady Hargreaves?” St. Silas asked, his intent gaze never wavering from her face.

  Leena’s eyes swung to his, and even in the dimness of the corridor, her cheeks were red. “Of all the questions in the world,” she began in outrage, “this is the one you choose?”

  St. Silas looked more reassured, helping her up with a rare grin. “It’s the only one that came to mind.”

  “Of course.” She continued to dab the handkerchief on her clothes, the blood entirely soaking the white fabric. St. Silas handed her his own without another comment.

  Once they began walking again, Leena could not focus, her mind shifting from horror to abject anger. How had she found herself, in the span of less than a week, at the mercy of two otherworldly creatures?

  She was now certain that although she had not been possessed this time, something in these crypts was trying to harm her. Why else would it have responded to the copper coins? Whatever it was, it was likely drawn to her in the same manner as the spirits aboveground. And yet, the ghosts—more often than not—had some purpose in finding her. It seemed to her that the creature in the crypts had only one intention: to harm her. But why?

  “Where did you hide the parchment?” came Rami’s suspicious voice, breaking her thoughts.

  She was glad of the shadows within the crypts, hiding another infuriating flush. St. Silas tactfully didn’t answer.

  She paused. “In a hidden pouch,” she responded vaguely. “Where else?”

  She could see St. Silas’s shoulders silently shaking ahead of her, and she longed to bare her teeth at him.

  Leena had the lingering apprehension that whatever had tried to choke her was following them, and that the copper coins had deterred but not vanquished it. She felt a real fear that the crypts held more than the Avon family’s final resting place. She tried not to alarm the others, but she furtively threw glances around her with every turn of the passage.