Chapter Three
ELODIE
The kettle’s whistle split the quiet of Anhe Fei’s flat, shrill and urgent as steam ghosted through the dim air. It smelled like a memory. Dry herbs, incense, the faint trace of salt and iron. My mum’s scent used to linger like that, in old scarves and worn bedsheets, until the grief swallowed it.
“What else does it say?” she asked, pouring the boiled water over tea leaves with the same steady grace she did everything else before settling at the round kitchen table with the weight of someone who already knew the answer.
I wasn’t sure how she knew something had happened. But when I returned home from the Drunken Lion’s Pub, half an hour ago, there was a note pinned to my crooked front door.
Our old neighbour had long since earned the right to summon me with so little. She’d taught me martial arts beside my mum, cooked for us after long hospital days, and hovered like a storm cloud with a soft heart, making sure I would wake up every day.
So I wasn’t surprised to find her awake as dawn approached. She always woke while the moon still ruled the sky, as if daylight itself was something she didn’t entirely trust.
When I stepped over her threshold, under the once gilded number six, she insisted that I tell her about that grandmother of mine.
That’s when I realized I was too stunned by the sheer thought and amount of inheritance to even question the other, just as important, aspects of the encounter. For example, Lilian Thornbury.
My eyes moved again down the article I was reading. It was one of the few I could find on the Thornbury family and their estate, Thornhill.
“The Thornbury family is one of the most prominent dynasties in Europe, dating back to the early 18th century,” I read aloud. “They have considerable economic influence and remain among the closest families to the Crown to this day.”
Anhe Fei hummed, setting down her tarot deck. She had numerous tarot decks scattered around her flat. There were ones adorned in every colour of the rainbow, strange ones with fairies and unicorns, and others with creatures that haunted my childhood nightmares.
But today, she chose the one I preferred the most. The old and tattered Chinese deck, gifted to her by her late grandmother.
The Deck of Fates, as she called it. I didn’t believe it could tell anyone’s path, but she still insisted on reading mine.
And I went along with it, hoping the cards would know what to do when I didn’t.
“They are also known for numerous acts of charity,” I continued. “The current head of the dynasty is Lilian Thornbury—”
At the name, Anhe Fei chose three cards and laid them face down on the table with a strange deliberation.
“—Granddaughter of the late Orion Thornbury, who died of tuberculosis in 1928. His death was followed by a series of misfortunes which linked the family’s name to numerous superstitions.”
Anhe Fei shook her head, the tight bun on top unmoving. “Tuberculosis is a horrible death to die,” she said softly.
“Aren’t they all?” I muttered, earning no reply, just the slow flipping of the first card. I felt a tug inside me, and I leaned closer to the hand-painted crimson cards.
The Devil.
A chill worked its way into my spine, the sight of the card a little too on-the-nose.
“The Devil represents your shadow self,” Anhe Fei murmured, her voice low and distant, like she was half-elsewhere. “You’ll have to face what you’ve been avoiding. Parts of you that may not be kind.”
A weight lodged in my throat.
She flipped the second card. A blindfolded woman holding two blades, one for each hand. The kind of balance that came with tension, not peace.
“But if you make the right choices…” Her fingers hovered, then revealed the last. A blonde boy, serene, dangling upside down by one leg, with chains around his ankles. The hanged man. His face unnervingly calm, as if he welcomed the pain. My chest tightened as I stared.
“You’ll find a new perspective,” she said.
The words echoed inside me. Would I learn to accept the torture, like he had?
“What does this mean to you?” she asked gently, and I shifted on the wooden chair.
“That I’m miserable?” I asked with a shrug.
Anhe Fei shook her head. “It means you have a choice. Stay,” she lifted her right hand, “in a life you do not enjoy. Or leave,” her left hand rose, “and discover something else.” Her palms floated for a moment, like scales too delicate to settle. “Neither path will be easy. But clarity never is.”
I squinted at her, chewing the inside of my cheek. This was why I hated tarot—it never gave straight answers. Only more riddles to drown in.
“So you think I should go?” I asked, hoping she would tell me what to do, even though I was sure she wouldn’t.
She tilted her head, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “Do you think you should go?”
I sighed, leaning back in the chair.
Anhe Fei vanished for a moment, then returned with a chipped mug.
A blue pig with a golden handle grinned up at me.
I wrapped my hands around the porcelain, the steam brushing warmth across my cheeks.
Valerian root and lavender. Calming and ancient.
I didn’t even notice her pull her chair behind me until she started brushing my hair.
The gentle touch of the comb as it slid through my curls made my eyelids grow heavy.
When I did it myself, I lost half of my hair and just as much of my sanity.
“Dark as night and just as strong,” she said, her voice soft. “Your hair is a mirror to your soul, just as your eyes. Don’t forget that.”
I nodded. “Does that mean my soul is dark as night?”
Her answer was a barely audible disapproving hum.
I let myself settle back into the silence. Into the comfort of the flat.
This is your choice to make, bug. My mum’s voice flickered through my mind like candlelight. Faint, fleeting, gone. I took a sip of the tea, letting the warmth bloom through the hollow of my chest. The cards lay in front of me like three crimson doors leading into labyrinths of possibilities.
And still, I didn’t know which I should choose.
Half an hour later, I was sitting on my lonely mattress resting my back against my pillow. The sun had begun to slip over the edge of the horizon, streaking through the single round window of the flat and turning everything green.
I should’ve been asleep by now.
Instead, the small screen of my phone glowed against the dim light, my fingers hesitating over the keyboard as I read the title of the article: The Darkest Years of the Thornbury Dynasty.
The title alone made my gut twist. Still, I opened it, only to be met with a blinking message.
We’re sorry, but this site has been removed.
A jolt of annoyance prickled across my skin. I flipped the phone closed and tossed it aside.
So the family was real. That didn’t mean the offer was. But…if it was. In a day, everything might change.
The thought landed like a stone in my stomach. I looked around the room. The walls, once decorated with various nightmare catchers and colourful paintings my mum had made, now stood bare and grey. Only a few lonely nails, hammered deep into the plaster, remained as evidence they’d ever been there.
I curled into the pillow, fear clawing up my throat with every passing breath. I had no chance of knowing if this was the beginning of something extraordinary—or a very well-dressed trap.
It wouldn’t have taken much to make me disappear. I knew that. Girls like me went missing all the time. Poor. Alone. Unremarkable in the eyes of the world. I wrapped the blanket tighter around my shoulders.
Stay, in a life you do not enjoy. Or leave, and discover something else. Anhe Fei’s voice threaded through the dark, laced with something I found hard to name. Hope? Warning? Both?
It was a vulnerable feeling. The not knowing. Like standing on the edge of something vast and shadowed, unable to tell if it was a cliff or a doorway.
But I was greedy.
Greedy for a future that didn’t feel like surviving on scraps. Greedy for a chance. Even if it wasn’t real. Even if it might hurt.
Because girls like me didn’t get gifts from the universe. We didn’t have estranged grandmothers with fortunes and estates, clawing us back into stories we were never meant to belong to.
And yet… if it was true—if any of it was real—I couldn’t miss it.
But there was one question I couldn’t shake. Not even as the sun spilled deeper into the room. Not even as sleep finally pulled at the edges of my thoughts.
Why did my mum leave in the first place?