17. Sanctuary
Sanctuary
Gabriel
G abriel wanted a drink. He wanted a bath. He wanted to be back in Briarleigh, listening to Miles arguing with the baker about the correct ratio of poppy seeds in a lemon loaf, rather than standing in a cold attic with a Veilmancy workshop down the hall.
Gabriel leaned against a support beam, trying to keep his skin from crawling off his bones.
He could feel the house watching him. It felt like a stray dog that had followed him home and had already decided it belonged to him: desperate, insistent, refusing to be shaken off.
He wondered, given what they’d learned, if that was part of the magic binding them or an impulse in Rookgate’s nature itself.
Either way, he struggled to keep his feelings off his face.
Velma settled herself at the table. He had to admit that Velma’s demeanor created a radius of dull normalcy that was almost cozy. There was something about her that was comforting, regardless of her obsession with paperwork.
Miles stood near the stairs, his hands tucked into the pockets of his coat.
He looked composed, but Gabriel knew the tension held in the line of his shoulders.
Miles was waiting for the verdict that would tell them if they could sell this horror show and leave, or if they were stuck with the world’s largest piece of emotional baggage.
Velma shuffled her deck. The cards whispered against each other, and Gabriel caught glimpses of shifting images on their faces: scales tipping, moons waxing, something that looked disturbingly like a noose .
Velma laid the first card. The painted figure on its surface writhed, chains dissolving into smoke. “The Inheritance. A bond of servitude, yes, but not immutable. The contract between lord and manor can be broken.”
The gaslights in the attic flickered, a quick, hopeful pulse.
“However.” Velma placed three more cards in rapid succession. Gabriel watched a tower crumble, a wheel spin, and something dark slither across a moonlit sea. “The severing requires specific conditions that do not currently exist. The timeline is... extensive.”
“How extensive?” Miles asked.
Velma’s gray eyes flicked to the cards. “The spread does not deal in calendar dates, Mr. Beauchamp. It deals in necessities. And the necessities here are considerable and indicate a passage of time that is uncertain.”
She laid another card. Gabriel saw a heart—literal, anatomical, and glowing faintly—surrounded by thorns.
“The manor possesses a heart. A core of sentience that could theoretically be destroyed, which would dissolve the binding and render the structure merely... a structure.”
The temperature in the attic plummeted. Frost crept across the floorboards in jagged patterns, and somewhere in the depths of the house, something groaned, a sound like old timbers protesting a terrible weight.
Then Gabriel heard it: a heavy, grinding noise from the hallway they hadn’t explored.
He turned in time to see the walls ripple like water.
The passage they’d neglected to explore earlier simply ceased to exist. Plaster flowed over the opening like skin healing over a wound, leaving nothing but smooth wall.
“Well,” Genna said flatly. “I think we’ve located the heart.”
The gaslights blazed with defiant brightness.
“Oh, don’t be dramatic. We’re obviously not going to kill you,” Gabriel said. “Surely there’s another option. Velma?”
Velma continued as if this sort of thing were simply part of her everyday life. Perhaps they were for the strange little woman. She placed three more cards. “The cards advise against destruction. The heart must be protected. This house will be necessary, an ally in a larger conflict.”
“Conflict?” Miles stepped forward. “What kind of conflict?”
“A conspiracy.” Velma’s voice remained level, but her fingers lingered on a card showing hooded figures gathered around a dark altar.
“The same forces that created this binding possess the knowledge to modify it. But extracting that knowledge will carry costs. Potentially catastrophic ones. And success is far from certain.”
The closeness of the Veilmancy workshop down the hall pressed against the back of his neck.
“The cards suggest a middle path for the immediate future,” Velma continued.
“Partial emancipation. Lord Fairfield retains his title and his bond to the manor but does not reside within it. A resident guardian is appointed who cannot compel it as its master may, even unintentionally. The house is given purpose—transformed.”
The gaslights dimmed to a sullen amber.
Gabriel understood that shade of wounded. He’d worn it himself often enough. You’re leaving me, the house seemed to say. You’re going to abandon me here with a stranger.
“I’m not—” He stopped. Swallowed. “That’s not what this is.”
The lights didn’t brighten.
Velma scooped the cards into a neat pile, the sharp snap of the deck sounding like a judge’s gavel closing a case.
“The structure will undergo multiple metamorphoses,” she said, tucking the deck into its wooden sarcophagus. “Should the requisite conditions be met, the final function will be of a great purpose.”
Gabriel stared at her. “That’s it? It’s going to have a makeover for a ‘great purpose’?” He gestured at the gloom of the attic.
Velma’s nostrils flared. “The initial forecast was accurate. This consultation merely extended the predictive horizon. I warned you that redundant queries regarding established facts are inefficient, and the further we reach forward, the greater the probability variance.”
Gabriel glared at her.
Velma, astonishingly, rolled her eyes. “The cards show what they show.”
“We learned nothing.” Gabriel pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “It’s just ‘wait and see’ with better props. What exactly are we supposed to do?”
“The grimoires,” Miles said, his voice carrying that edge Gabriel recognized as academic fixation incoming . “The ones in the workshop. Velma said the conspiracy has the answer, and this conspiracy used them. Surely we could study them, find the counter-spell ourselves—”
“No.” Velma’s flat refusal landed like a slammed door. “The cards are explicit. That knowledge is not yet safe to pursue. It is the conspiracy you must pursue.”
“Not yet. But eventually—”
“The timeline is not yours to determine, Mr. Beauchamp.”
Miles’s expression shifted. Frustration gave way to calculation, followed by a glimmer of I’ll just take a quick peek when no one’s looking .
Those books were going to be trouble. Gabriel knew it in his bones, knew it the way he’d known which of Madaze’s guests were dangerous before they’d even touched him.
He said nothing. Perhaps he would ask the house to eat them.
“So let me get this clear,” Genna said. “We can’t destroy the binding without killing Rookgate.
We can’t leave because the house will have a breakdown.
So, our only option is to install a live-in nanny, keep the title, and hunt down a murderous Veilmancy conspiracy to politely ask for the magical unlock code? ”
Velma snapped the lid of her deck box shut. “The cards deal in probabilities, Mrs. Paystone, not convenient exits. A guardian is essential for stabilization. The conspiracy holds the cipher to the binding. Those are the terms.”
Gabriel repressed a sigh. “Well, that confirms it. I can’t sell it. Not like this. And that means I’m Lord Fairfield until this mysterious series of events plays out. Curses. And I mean that. I must be cursed.”
The gaslights flared a honey gold. The floorboards beneath Gabriel’s boots ceased their subtle trembling. The manor was ecstatic. Of course it was. It had a Lord. It was safe.
It was Gabriel who was going to have to learn to swim with the sharks until they solved this mess.
Miles stood frozen, his eyes fixed on the happy, glowing lights. He was doing a valiant job of looking supportive, nodding slowly as if considering the logistics of a caretaker. But Gabriel saw the minute fracture in his posture, the way the warmth vanished from his brown eyes.
The quiet life in Briarleigh, their ability to marry...it was all impossible now.
“Miles,” Gabriel said softly.
Miles blinked and forced half a smile. “It’s the right choice, love. We won’t abandon a sapient, sentient creature to abuse. We won’t kill it. We... we adapt. To the options left to us. We’re good at that.”
The lie was kind, but it hung heavy between them .
“Right,” Genna said, rubbing her temples as if warding off a migraine. “We hunt this conspiracy. We find the other Veilmancers, we get the cure, and we free the house. Then you two can retire.”
“A simple task,” Gabriel said, leaning back against the purring wall. “Just dismantling a secret society of vampire-wannabes while renovating a historic landmark. Should be done by teatime.”
“It’s the way forward, if we are to believe Ms. Doomweaver. And I do,” Miles said, his voice hardening. “We find them. We finish this.”
Miles turned his gaze to Genna. “Genna, you have a life. A wife. You’ve done enough just getting us this far. We can handle the investigation from here.”
Genna bristled, looking about as ready to retire as a cornered badger.
“Plus,” Gabriel said, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle on his sleeve to hide his own concern, “there’s the Bria factor. If she murders me for dragging you into the line of fire again, the line of succession for the manor becomes dreadfully murky. Who knows whom the house will end up with then?”
“Oh, shut up,” Genna snapped. “You two can barely wipe your own asses without a diagram, let alone dismantle a Veilmancy conspiracy. You think you can navigate Isles politics or necromancy on your own? You’re toddlers wandering into a torture chamber.
I’m the only one who speaks the language. Literally and metaphorically.”
“And Bria?” Miles asked.
“She won’t kill you,” Genna said, though her tone lacked total conviction. “Probably. Unless I die. Then? All bets are off.”