4. Rookgate Manor #4
Gabriel held out his hands. Miles applied the serum with fingers that shook, and then he twisted to do Gabriel’s boots as well.
“Keys?” Miles suggested, voice rough with exertion.
Gabriel snorted. “You think the Crown acquired the key to Madaze’s secret attic lair?”
“Fair point.”
Gabriel slipped his lockpicks out of his boot. The leather case unrolled with familiar satisfaction .
“Exactly how many—” Miles started, then exhaled a short breath. “Never mind. I don’t want to know what else you smuggled into Crown offices.”
“Wise.” Gabriel selected two picks and pulled himself to his knees. His fingers remembered this work, the feel of metal on metal, the tiny resistance of each tumbler. Not complicated. Almost insultingly simple for such a supposedly secret entrance.
The last pin clicked.
The wailing stopped.
The chains stopped.
Silence dropped over them.
Gabriel looked at Miles.
“Not ominous at all,” Miles said.
They stood and gathered themselves. Gabriel returned his lockpicks to their hiding spot. Miles straightened his coat, checked the cold-light at his chest, and retrieved his casting stone.
Gabriel twisted the handle.
The door opened.
Moonlight spilled through dormers in the slanted ceiling, painting silver squares across a vast, cluttered space.
Trunks and furniture loomed in shadows. Passages led forward and back between stacked crates and draped shapes.
The air tasted of dust and old wood and something else, something acrid that caught in Gabriel’s throat.
No pile of gold, conveniently heaped on the floor.
Dammit.
“Seems clear,” Miles murmured.
They stepped inside.
Gabriel scanned the space, cataloging exits, cover, potential threats. Old habit. The moonlight helped, enough to see by, not enough to reveal everything lurking in the—
There.
In a shaft of moonlight near the far wall.
A figure. Tall. Gaunt. Blonde hair swept back from a high forehead. Black eyes void of humanity.
Madaze .
The name rose unbidden, unwanted. Gabriel shoved it down, drowned it in the roar that filled his ears. Rage flashed through him, hot as oil taking flame.
His blades were in his hands.
“Gabriel, wait —”
But he was already moving. Running. The distance between them collapsed, and he slashed , putting every ounce of fury into the strike.
The blade passed through empty air.
The figure dissolved. Mist. Nothing.
“Where are you!” Gabriel whirled, searching the shadows.
“Could be an illusion,” Miles said from behind him, voice careful. Measured. “Or a ghost—Gabriel, maybe we should—”
“It’s him.” Gabriel turned in place, blades up. “It’s him , Miles. Fucking with me. Because that’s what he does, he gets in your head and he stays there and—”
He stepped toward the center of the room where moonlight pooled brightest. Better vantage. Better angles. Let the ghost come to him.
“Gabriel, please.” Miles moved closer, hands out. “Let’s come back in the morning. With better light. Better preparation—”
Seven figures materialized around Gabriel in a perfect circle.
All Madaze. All identical. All advancing with synchronized steps, black eyes fixed on Gabriel.
“ Get out. ”
The voices layered over each other, discordant and terrible.
“ GET OUT. ”
Closer.
“GET OUT!”
The walls of the bedroom pressed close. The master’s voice outside, telling his guests what Gabriel could do for them.
How compliant. How skilled. The door would open soon, and Gabriel had learned, learned so well, that fighting only made it worse, that stillness was survival, that his body wasn’t his and never had been—
His hands flew to his ears, but it didn’t help, couldn’t help, the voices were inside him now.
“You’re not wanted here!”
He wasn’t wanted anywhere. Property didn’t have wants. Objects didn’t choose. The master decided everything and Gabriel was just—
“GET OUT! ”
Almost on him now. Seven Madazes, seven versions of the nightmare that had worn his father’s face without him knowing, and Miles was running toward him but too far, too slow, and Gabriel couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe —
They vanished.
All seven. Gone between one heartbeat and the next.
Gabriel stood alone in the moonlight, hands still clamped over his ears, blades discarded on the floor. His breath came in shallow gasps that hurt. The cold-light at Miles’s chest swung wildly as Miles skidded to a stop beside him.
“Gabriel. Hey. Look at me.”
He couldn’t. The room spun.
“Look at me, love. Please.”
Gabriel forced his eyes to focus. Miles’s face swam into view, brown eyes dark with worry, hands hovering like he wanted to touch but didn’t dare.
“They’re gone,” Miles said. Voice soft. Steady. “Whatever they were. Gone.”
Gabriel’s hands dropped from his ears. He flexed his fingers, searching for sensation beyond the tingling numbness. His palms were slick with sweat inside the leather gloves.
“He’s dead.” The words scraped out of him. “I killed him. Why—”
“I don’t know.” Miles bent to retrieve Gabriel’s blades, offering them handles-first. “But we’re going to find out.”
Gabriel took the daggers. The weight of them helped. Real. Solid. His.
He looked around the attic with fresh eyes. Now that his heart wasn’t trying to hammer its way out of his chest, he could see more clearly. There were hallways in multiple directions. Shapes that might be furniture, or trunks, or something else entirely. Shadows that could hide anything.
Gabriel bolted for the door.
His boots pounded down the spiral stairs, no thought given to traps or slides or anything but getting out , getting to—
Had to know. Had to be sure.
“Gabriel!” Miles’s voice echoed behind him, farther back. “Wait!”
Couldn’t wait. His lungs burned. The stairs spat him out into the office, and he crashed through the doorway, skidding on the parquet floor.
There.
Still in a heap on the floor where they’d fallen six months ago. Ribs. Femur. The fanged skull with its empty eye sockets .
Dead. Madaze was dead. Dead, dead, dead —
But Gabriel had seen him. Those black eyes. That face.
He crossed the room and stood over the skeleton. His breath came too fast, too shallow. Spots danced at the edges of his vision.
What if it wasn’t? What if he somehow wasn’t fully dead, what if Madaze had been playing them, what if—
Gabriel slammed his boot down on the ribcage.
Bones scattered. Clattered across the floor like dice.
“No.” He kicked again. The skull rolled. “No, no, no —”
He stomped down. The sternum split.
“You don’t get to—” Stomp. The femur cracked. “—you bastard —” Kick. Vertebrae flying. “—you’re DEAD—”
His face was wet. When had that happened?
Arms wrapped around him from behind, pinning his elbows to his sides. Miles.
“Stop. Gabriel, love, please stop.”
But he couldn’t, bones scattering under his boots as he flailed, sobs tearing out of his chest in ugly, hiccupping sounds that hurt. Six months. Six months away from this place and five minutes back and he was kicking apart a corpse like a feral thing, like an animal, like—
“I’m sorry.” The words tumbled out between sobs. Gabriel twisted in Miles’s grip, burying his face against his neck. He fit there perfectly, nose pressed to warm skin, tears soaking into Miles’s collar. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I can’t—I thought I could handle this, but I can’t —“
“Shh.” Miles’s hand cupped the back of his head. “You’re doing brilliantly.”
“I’m not .” Gabriel’s fingers twisted in Miles’s shirt. “I’m falling apart.”
“Then fall apart. I’ve got you.”
Gabriel shook. His whole body trembled, muscles gone liquid. Only Miles’s arms kept him upright.
“We’ll burn them.” Miles’s voice rumbled against Gabriel’s ear, low and certain. A promise. “If it’s his ghost, destroying the bones might do the trick. We’ll burn them. Right now.”
The panic receded. Not gone—still there, lurking—but Miles’s certainty pushed it back enough that Gabriel could breathe. Gabriel drew in another shaking breath. Sandalwood clung to Miles’s skin beneath the sharp salt of sweat. The arms around him were furnace-warm, solid, here .
He nodded against Miles’s neck.
Miles pressed a kiss to his temple, then released him. “Right. Let’s gather everything.”
Miles shifted his casting stone and counteract serum from coat pockets to trouser pockets and then shrugged out of his coat.
He spread it on the floor. Gabriel crouched beside it, vision still blurred with tears and started collecting bones.
Ribs. Vertebrae. The long bones of the arms and legs.
Miles worked beside him, making sure they got every fragment.
The skull last. Gabriel picked it up in both hands and looked into those empty sockets.
“Fuck you,” he whispered, and dropped it onto the pile.
Miles bundled the coat, gathering the corners and twisting them together. The bones clinked inside.
They went to the kitchens.
The door stood open when they arrived, which...no. Gabriel was certain it had been closed. But he was too wrung out to care, too hollow to feel anything but a distant flicker of unease.
The hearth dominated one wall. Large enough to roast an entire pig. Cold now, grate empty, chimney dark.
Miles deposited the bundle inside and crouched to open his pack.
“I have a fire starter in here somewhere. Should be enough to—”
The bundle erupted.
White-hot flames shot up, so bright Gabriel threw an arm over his eyes. Heat blasted across his face. He stumbled back, Miles grabbing his elbow, both of them scrambling until their backs hit the far wall.
The fire roared. No smoke. Just pure, searing white light that hurt to look at directly.
In minutes— minutes —the flames died, leaving nothing behind but fine gray ash.
They stared. Miles held up his hands, empty. No match, no fire starter. He hadn’t even finished searching his pack.
“Did you—” Gabriel started.
“No.” Miles’s voice came out strangled. “I didn’t cast anything.”
Gabriel shot a glare at him.
“I didn’t! ”
Silence.
Then Gabriel started laughing.
It bubbled up from somewhere deep, hysterical, and sharp-edged and entirely beyond his control. He slid down the wall until he sat on the filthy kitchen floor, laughing so hard his ribs ached.
He gasped for air. None of it made sense.
Miles stood frozen for another beat. Then his mouth twitched. A huff of breath that might have been a laugh. Another. And then he was sliding down beside Gabriel, shoulders shaking, laughing just as helplessly.
“I want to go home.” Gabriel wiped his eyes, fresh tears from laughing now. “Fuck, I want to go home.”
“The inn will do,” Miles said.
They hauled themselves upright. Gabriel’s legs felt like water. His whole body ached. Bruises from the stairs, muscles from the panic, exhaustion settling into his bones.
They made their way back through the manor.
Doors opened in front of them. Each one swinging wide as they approached, smooth and silent.
Gabriel watched the third door open before they reached it.
He looked at Miles.
Miles looked back.
Gabriel started giggling again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He gestured at the door. “I take it we are not wanted?”
Another door down the corridor swung open in response.
“Apparently.” Miles’s voice climbed an octave. “We are being given the old heave-ho.”
They walked faster. Each door they approached opened. Each one they passed closed behind them with a decisive click .
Gabriel’s giggles turned into wheezing laughter. Miles caught it like a disease, snorting every time another door swung wide. By the time they reached the grand foyer, they were leaning on each other, breathless and giddy and unhinged.
The front door stood open. Waiting.
They stumbled through.
The door slammed behind them.
The crack of it echoed across the empty street. Final. Absolute .
Gabriel and Miles stood on the front steps in the moonlight, staring at the closed door.
“Well,” Gabriel said.
“Yes,” Miles agreed.
They looked at each other and started laughing again.
It took three tries to make it down the steps.