4. Rookgate Manor
Rookgate Manor
Miles
R ookgate Manor drank the last of the dusk, looming in three stories of sharp angles and shuttered windows.
Columns flanked the entrance, their capitals carved with rooks that seemed to watch the street. Ivy had overtaken the eastern wall. The yard was overgrown with weeds gone to seed.
He’d only been inside once before, and they’d used the servant’s entrance. Hadn’t exactly stormed the front door. But the place had obviously been untended since that night.
His gaze slid to Gabriel.
Who stood motionless three steps from the street, staring at the manor with an expression Miles struggled to parse.
Miles worried the strap of his satchel, thumb tracing the worn leather.
He wanted to reach out, to touch Gabriel’s shoulder, to ask if he needed a moment or a different day entirely.
But the line between supportive and smothering was treacherous territory, and he’d already been accused of being “a lot” more than once in his life.
Never by Gabriel. Never him.
But even Gabriel needed space to process this his own way.
Still. Miles looked to see if he was ok.
Gabriel had changed clothes before they’d left the Mourning Lark after checking in this morning.
He had traded the comfortable linen tunic and soft trousers he’d worn on the road for something more suitable for navigating Averdon’s bureaucracy.
Now he wore slim charcoal trousers tucked into polished boots, a pale blue silk blouse whose color flattered his ash-blonde hair with an elaborate frilly collar that draped just so, and a fitted black waistcoat embroidered with tiny silver thorns.
A long coat in dove gray completed the ensemble, its hem swirling around his calves.
He looked beautiful. Untouchable. Like he’d armored himself in elegance and dared the world to try hurting him through the silk and embroidery.
The world, as usual, had dared.
And Gabriel was, of course, not ok.
Gabriel’s fingers had gone white-knuckled around the satchel’s strap. His breathing was too controlled, the kind of measured rhythm that spoke of deliberate effort rather than calm.
“We don’t have to do this today.” Miles kept his voice quiet. “We could go to Genna’s, have dinner, sleep, come back tomorrow—”
“No.” A muscle jumped in Gabriel’s cheek. “Get the first visit over with. I won’t sleep until I know how bad it is. And we already sent Genna our regrets.”
Miles waited. Gabriel still didn’t move.
“It’s just a building,” Miles tried, though the words felt flimsy and foolish in his mouth even as he said them. “Stone and wood and—”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
He didn’t.
Gabriel finally moved, climbing the steps with a stiff-legged gait rather than his usual prowling sashay. Miles followed, trying not to think about the last time he’d been here. The whole thing had been a barely controlled chaos of violence that ended with Madaze’s death and Gabriel’s freedom.
Had the city cleaned up afterward? Or would they walk in to find the evidence of that night still scattered across the floors? If Palthor’s people hadn’t been able to enter for the ledgers, he supposed neither had any cleaners.
This would likely be grim.
Gabriel stopped at the door. Pulled out the keyring.
It took him three tries to find the right key—his hands weren’t quite steady—and when he finally jammed it into the lock, it refused to turn.
“Come on,” Gabriel muttered, wrestling with it.
The key scraped against metal. Stuck fast.
Miles frowned. The lock looked functional, if tarnished. No obvious reason for it to jam like that unless—
Gabriel twisted hard, and the key finally rotated. The lock disengaged with a heavy clunk.
Gabriel grabbed the handle and pushed.
Nothing happened.
“You’ve got to be—” He pushed harder. The door didn’t budge.
Miles stepped closer, studying the frame. No visible warping. The hinges looked intact. A familiar warning, like a tuning fork, struck against his bones, the same instinct that had saved his life more than once during his time in the war.
“I could use a kinetic burst,” he offered, already sorting through his pack for the right component. “Small one. Just enough to jar it loose—”
“No.” The word came out sharp. Gabriel’s hand dropped from the handle. “No magic.”
Miles blinked. “Gabriel—”
“He used magic here. Illegally, of course, as a noble, but constantly.” Gabriel’s voice had gone flat.
“The whole place—it responded to him. Doors opened when he wanted, closed when he didn’t.
Lights flared when he was angry. The walls practically breathed with it.
” His throat worked. “I’m not doing that.
Not adding your magic to whatever’s already soaked into this place. ”
“Alright. We do it the old-fashioned way.”
They positioned themselves against the door. Miles caught Gabriel’s eye, counted silently to three, and they both shoved.
For a long moment, nothing.
Then the door gave all at once, swinging inward so fast they both stumbled. Miles caught himself on the doorframe; Gabriel’s hand slammed against the opposite side to keep from falling.
A wave of air rushed out to meet them.
Stale. Cold. Over it, something stranger, a musty, rancid, sour smell of advanced organic decay overlaid with an ammonia tang that coated the back of his throat.
He straightened, blinking into the darkness beyond the threshold.
“Apparently,” Gabriel said, his voice very carefully neutral, “the city doesn’t clean up crime scenes.”
“Or perhaps they weren’t permitted to,” Miles said.
The foyer stretched before them, barely visible in the lamplight from the street. The windows were shuttered on the outside and heavily draped on the inside. Shapes suggested furniture. A grand staircase curved upward into deeper shadow. And everywhere, that smell.
Miles reached into his pack, fingers closing around a cold-light charm. He hesitated, glancing at Gabriel for permission. He was staring into the dark like a man watching his own grave open.
“Gabriel?” Miles touched his shoulder.
No response. Gabriel’s expression had shuttered, and Miles recognized the signs of him retreating somewhere Miles couldn’t follow, a defense mechanism he’d witnessed more than once in their time together, typically when memories of Madaze surfaced unbidden.
“It’s just a house,” Miles said, keeping his voice steady and matter-of-fact. “An empty house with... admittedly questionable odors and aesthetics. But nothing we can’t handle.”
Still nothing.
“Look at me.” Miles stepped into Gabriel’s line of sight. “We’ll just do a quick sweep, focus on the areas forbidden to you for any hint of where Madaze might have hidden his stash, and then we can leave. I’ll be with you the entire time.”
A flicker of something returned to Gabriel’s pale eyes.
“We face this together,” Miles added, quieter now. “Remember?”
Somewhere deep within the manor, a door slammed with enough force to send vibrations through the stone beneath their feet. They both flinched.
“That was just the wind,” Miles lied smoothly. Whatever had caused it, they’d deal with the matter when they encountered it. “Come. The sooner we begin, the sooner we finish.”
Miles shifted his weight, cataloging Gabriel’s face. He stood staring into the darkness as though expecting Madaze himself to materialize from the shadows. This was deteriorating faster than Miles had anticipated.
“Perhaps,” Miles suggested, “we should reconsider returning tomorrow. Give ourselves proper time to prepare mentally and gather appropriate supplies. We could bring some cleansing herbs to combat the smell, maybe recruit Genna. Or hire cleaners.”
The suggestion of retreat, counterintuitively, seemed to break the spell. Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, and his frown pulled deep lines into his face .
“No.” The word came too fast, too sharp. “I won’t spend another night dreading this place. Besides, the smell won’t improve by tomorrow. Let’s just...let’s get this over with.”
Miles hesitated. That flavor of determination usually meant Gabriel was about to do something reckless while his fear chased him forward.
“Alright,” Miles said. “But we establish ground rules first. If at any point you need to leave—for any reason—we leave. No arguments, no explanations required. Agreed?”
Gabriel’s throat bobbed. “I’m not going to—”
“Agreed?” Miles pressed.
A beat of silence. Then: “Agreed.”
Miles raised the cold-light charm and raised an eyebrow in question. Gabriel shrugged and then nodded. The small crystal sphere warmed in his palm. He spoke the activation phrase, and pale blue light bloomed outward into the foyer.
Dust coated every surface in a thick, undisturbed layer.
The wallpaper had begun peeling at the seams from damp.
A massive chandelier hung overhead, its crystals dim with grime.
The furniture shapes resolved into a receiving bench, a coat stand, a small table that had been overturned and never righted.
And on the parquet floor, near the base of the grand staircase, dark stains.
Blood. Six months old, but still visible as rusty shadows against the wood.
Gabriel’s breathing changed, not faster, but shallower.
Miles stepped across the threshold first, holding the light high. “Just a quick search. We don’t have to see everything tonight.”
Gabriel followed him inside.
The door swung shut behind them without either of them touching it. Miles wondered if perhaps they should have returned to the inn and changed into full battle gear instead of coming straight here. He missed his caster’s coat. It was slower to fish components out of his satchel.
But the momentum of the moment was forward, not back.
Miles swept the cold light across the foyer, illuminating the grand staircase. His gaze snagged on shapes slumped against the wall near the ballroom entrance.
Bodies.