Chapter Four
ELODIE
Agrating sound cut through the room and I yanked the pillow over my ears, trying to block it out. This was the third time someone had leaned on the doorbell in the past couple of minutes, but there was only a ghost of a chance I was dragging myself out of bed before my alarm went off.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to slip back into the dream I was already forgetting, when the bell shrieked again. I hurled the pillow across the room, toward the crooked front door.
Cursing under my breath, I pushed myself upright, my limbs still heavy with sleep. I staggered to the door and peeled the cover off the peephole, tiptoeing to look through.
A boy stood on the other side. He couldn’t have been much older than I was.
His black suit was loose, like it belonged to someone twice his size, and the thin moustache on his upper lip seemed as nervous as he did.
He had a strange hat on, along with white gloves.
Two possibilities crossed my mind: he was either a magician or a very poorly disguised serial killer.
My next thought jolted me awake. He must be the chauffeur Cornelius Sterling mentioned.
“Just a moment,” I called, grabbing a pair of trousers from the back of a chair and yanking them on before unlocking the door.
“I—” He cleared his throat when I opened it. “Sorry, Miss,” he stuttered. “I’m looking for Miss Elodie Thornbury.” He looked me up and down, glaring into the flat. “Are—are you her?”
The name twitched on his tongue like stray hair. It made my skin crawl. But if all I had to do was be called by a name that didn’t belong to me for a different life, I could do that.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m her.”
He nodded, awkward and mechanical. “I’m your chauffeur, Miss. I was told you’d be expecting me.” His accent was thick. Welsh, maybe, with edges smoothed by nerves.
I was expecting him. Just not so early on the first day of the weekend, when I could finally sleep in.
As if sensing my thoughts, he added, “It’s a long drive to Thornhill, Miss. I was instructed to get you there before sunset. Wouldn’t want you missing dinner.”
I blinked at him, then at the sour hallway. Right. We wouldn’t.
“I need ten minutes,” I said, then shut the door in his face.
For once I was glad I didn’t have much to pack. I changed into clean clothes, shoved everything I owned into a torn backpack, and gathered my books. Tattered library copies with bent spines and yellowing pages I couldn’t bear to leave behind. Most were due months ago. I would return them...someday.
In minutes, the flat looked as if no one had lived in it for months. It had that empty, breathless feel of a room abandoned mid-thought. Which was somewhat true. Torn between two jobs, most days I barely came home for more than a shower and a few hours of sleep.
The wallpaper peeled like sunburnt skin, exposing old plaster beneath. A leak in the ceiling had left a stain shaped like a heart that had bled too long. The heater hadn’t worked properly in years, unless you kicked it just right. Even then, sometimes it only groaned.
The kitchen was barely a strip of counter wedged beside the bathroom.
One cupboard sagged on its hinges, held together with duct tape, and sat just under the only source of light.
A small, round window. A starling flew through it once and couldn’t get back out.
Its small body thudded again and again against the glass until my mum caught it in a tea towel and released it back to the sky.
I could see her now. Standing there, humming for the bird. To calm it.
I stood at the centre of the room, my eyes tracing the outline of things I wouldn’t miss and the one thing I would.
The old chessboard table sat in the corner; its edges worn smooth from years of our nightly matches.
I ran my fingertips over the grooves, tracing the carved squares my mum once etched with my penknife.
I remembered her smile when she beat me in five moves.
I remembered the soft melody of her voice when she told me to think like the queen, not the pawn.
I should’ve given the table to Anhe Fei.
Should’ve told her goodbye. Should’ve said something more meaningful to the place where I grew up.
But the flat didn’t ask for sentiment. It never gave any, so I offered none in return.
But Anhe Fei did. I reopened my backpack and pulled out a notebook and a pen and started writing.
Nothing too soppy. It wasn’t goodbye, it was see you soon.
When I was done, I ripped the paper out of the notebook and folded it in half before swinging my backpack over my shoulder. I stepped toward the door, but froze, my eyes landing on the table once more. I sighed and walked back, taking hold of it. Except, it was a lot heavier than it seemed.
I groaned. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the lower back. Not that I knew what that felt like, but I imagined the pain was somewhat similar. I made my way back to the entrance and stepped out, the door slamming behind me. The driver startled upright, straightening away from the wall.
His gaze flicked between me and the table I was clinging to before he moved.
“Let me take that.”
For a moment, I contemplated saying no, then realized I couldn’t possibly carry it downstairs. Not alone at least.
“Thank you,” I said, following him in the dimly lit hallway without glancing back.
Anhe Fei’s flat was just under ours.
“Here’s fine.”
The chauffeur boy put down the table in front of the door, and it landed with a loud echoing thump. I tensed in fear of Anhe Fei coming to investigate the sound, and quickly squatted down, sliding the paper I wrote under the door. I couldn’t do goodbyes. Not even if they weren’t meant for forever.
“We can go now,” I said shortly, brushing past him and hurrying down the stairs into the cold bite of morning.
Outside, a black Rolls-Royce gleamed like an oil slick against the cracked pavement. It looked as misplaced as a chandelier would in a prison cell.
The chauffeur opened the back door for me, and I slid inside, gazing at the small, circular window of our flat one last time. Was I certain? The question rippled in my head as the car door closed on me. Did it matter? The green glass stared back.
I hadn’t grown up with choices laid at my feet like petals. If I wanted a road, I’d have to carve it with my bare hands for it to be walkable. And this—this strange offer wrapped in secrecy—might be the only shortcut I’d ever get.
My gaze flicked to the window under ours. Anhe Fei watched me from behind the clear glass, like an old tree watching the storm gather. Still and knowing.
I, on the other hand, felt blind, alone in the dark. I hated this uncertainty. This unknowing.
What’s the worst that could happen? The thought tasted metallic.
Murder. Sacrifice. People with too much money and too little soul. I’d heard stories. The ones people only whispered when the lights were off.
Anhe Fei gave me the smallest of smiles, then disappeared behind the light blue curtains. The car engine rumbled to life beneath me. I closed my eyes and told myself it would be alright.
One year. I could do one year. For that amount, I would even do two. Just so I could sleep in a warm bed instead of a lonely mattress, and live a life that didn’t require knives and late-night shifts. And maybe it won’t be bad at all. Maybe my mum had it wrong.
Something shifted at the edge of my vision. A familiar flicker just beyond the car window. Dark and slow, like oil spreading in water. Shadows gathered by the brick wall of the building. Curling, watching, as the car pulled away.
My eyes popped open as the car lurched. The road beneath us narrowed into a winding path flanked by bald trees.
Their twisted limbs clawed at the slate sky, dark fingers reaching as if to tear open the clouds.
I shifted upright, rubbing the side of my neck, before glancing down at the old watch on my wrist. Just past four.
But in late November, nightfall came early, creeping in like rot through the cracks.
The car slowed. We turned another bend, and—
Thornhill.
A shadow sewn from stone. A relic of a century long gone.
Dark ivy snaked across its facade, clinging like veins to flesh.
Dozens of tall windows reflected the cloud-heavy sky, unlit and watchful.
Gargoyles hunched on the corners of the roof, their open mouths frozen mid-snarl, and I could’ve sworn their empty eyes followed us as we passed through the wrought-iron gate.
The air thickened, and even the engine seemed to quiet in reverence. The small hairs stood on my arms.
So this was where my mum grew up? It felt wrong trying to picture her here.
Like I was trying to force a puzzle piece into the wrong hole.
She was so colourful, so simple in taste, and full of life.
Thornhill was everything but that. Tall, proud, and brooding, yet magnificent. It held my gaze with force.
The car pulled to a stop beside a grand circular drive.
A dried-up fountain sat in the centre like a hollowed-out heart, its stone basin veined with cracks.
My eyes lingered on the manor. Not imagined.
Not a hoax. It was real. Coldly, achingly real.
From the sharp steeples of its roof to the towering chimney stacks, it loomed like a castle from some cursed storybook.
The chauffeur stepped out and opened my door with a small, formal bow.
I scrambled from the leather seat, my fingers tightening around the strap of my backpack, which looked as out of place as I did.
I murmured a thank you, but when I turned to look at him, he was gone, swallowed by the cold and the creeping mist curling around the trees.
I might’ve moved to look for him if not for the woman at the top of the steps.
She stood beneath the towering arch of the entrance, still as a statue carved from dusk.
A dark purple skirt suit hugged her frame, her night-like hair gathered high atop her head like a crown streaked with silver.
She descended slowly, her steps smooth, almost gliding.
I knew who she was before she spoke.
Lilian Thornbury.
There was something in the way she held herself that stirred a half-buried memory. A gesture. A look. Something that reminded me of my mum and made my stomach twist. It was undeniable now that they were related.
“My granddaughter,” she said, her voice a low clang of iron and silk. Sharp, yet warm.
She smiled, a thin, graceful curve playing on her lips as she stepped forward, her arms outstretched.
Before I could react, she embraced me. Her bones pressed against mine, brittle as winter branches. Her perfume was faint and strange, like fading roses laced with dust. I stiffened beneath the weight of her arms, my own glued to my sides as I clenched the handle of my backpack.
“I was waiting for you. We all were.” She let go of me, and I took a step backwards.
We? The word danced around in my mind. Sterling hadn’t mentioned anyone else, not that I could remember. I glanced over her shoulder, toward the gaping dark behind the doors, but no one else appeared.
Lilian’s eyes glinted like obsidian. “Come,” she said, slipping her arm through mine. “Let me introduce you.”
I looked over my shoulder, but the car was gone, the driveway empty. There was no turning back. She guided me up the long stairs, where seven figures waited in a perfectly aligned line and similar black uniforms.
“The servants,” Lilian said, and I winced, the word biting into my skin. It didn’t quite belong to this century. It shouldn’t have belonged anywhere at all. “They’re here to assist you, whenever you need.”
I nodded to them in greeting, but they stood motionless.
Their expressions were neutral, stone-like.
Except for one. An older man with a grey handlebar moustache, he had a softer look about him.
His shoulders were stooped, but there was a quiet dignity in his posture.
He met my gaze and offered a small, patient smile, the kind that felt like it belonged in a warmer world.
I smiled back, not quite ready to open my mouth yet.
The entrance door groaned, the sound low and deep, as if something old was awakening, and it robbed my attention away from the old man.
Shadows spilled across the threshold, curling along the stone floor just beyond.
I swallowed the tightness rising in my throat as Lilian gently pulled me into the manor.