Chapter Three – Jessa
Chapter Three
Jessa
The castle comes into view as I round the final bend in the coastal road.
Hollowmere looms against the gray sky like something out of a nightmare, all crumbling stone, broken towers, and ivy crawling up walls that look ready to collapse. The cliffs drop away behind it, and I can hear the Atlantic crashing against the rocks even from here.
I drove five hours to get away from this place, spent a night in London in a hotel I couldn’t afford, sat in that conference room with Yasmin Bayard, and told myself I was in control of the situation.
Now I’m back.
The trip to London helped. It gave me a few hours to disconnect, to exist somewhere that wasn’t haunted by centuries of Holloway failure. I recharged. I needed that, because there’s no recharging once I’m in those tunnels.
I pull the rental car up in front of the gatehouse and park.
The gatehouse is the only part of the estate that’s actually livable.
It’s a small stone building that Garrick Tremaine has maintained for decades.
His family has kept this castle since 1889, when my ancestors abandoned it and fled to America.
He’s the fifth generation to do it, and he’s done it alone since his father died.
I know he has family somewhere in the UK.
A son and two daughters, if I remember well.
I don’t think any of his children will want to continue the family tradition of keeping Hollowmere.
If I get into that vault, we can finally let the Tremaine family go.
I sneeze violently. I fumble for a tissue in the center console and blow my nose, which is red and raw, and has been for days. My eyes are watering. I hate this cold. I caught it the first time I went into the tunnels, and it hasn’t let up.
I get out of the car and see Castien standing near the gatehouse door.
Of course he got here first. He can bloody fly.
Garrick is here too, standing a few feet away from Castien and staring up at him with an expression I’ve never seen on the old man’s face before. Awe. Like he’s witnessing something holy. Garrick isn’t religious as far as I know, but right now he looks like he’s seen an angel of God.
I walk over, wiping my nose one more time before I shove the tissue into my pocket.
“Mr. Tremaine,” I say.
He tears his gaze away from Castien and looks at me.
“Miss Holloway. How was the drive?”
“Fine. Long, but fine.”
“And your business in London?”
“Successful.” I glance at Castien, who is standing perfectly still and hasn’t said a word. “I found what I needed.”
Garrick nods slowly. His eyes drift back to Castien for a moment, then return to me.
“Are you hungry? I made chicken soup. Thought it might help with that cold of yours.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tremaine. I’m starving.”
“I’ll have it ready in half an hour.”
He nods once more, gives Castien a final look that borders on reverence, and disappears into the gatehouse.
That leaves me alone with the steel seraph.
Well, isn’t this awkward? He’s standing too far away, his posture rigid, his wings folded tight against his back. He looks like he’s trying to occupy as little space as possible. I can feel the discomfort radiating off him, and I know he can feel mine.
I’m starting to get a headache from craning my neck to look up at his face, and we’ve been in each other’s presence for less than five minutes.
“So,” I say. “How was your flight?”
“Adequate.”
“Just adequate?”
I think of how amazing it must be to be able to fly.
“The weather deteriorated once I reached the coast,” he says. “Rain and wind made the final approach challenging.”
I look up at the sky. It’s the same dull gray it always is here, heavy with the promise of more rain. Right now, it’s drizzling, fine, cold droplets that stick to my hair and face.
“It rains a lot here,” I say. “I’m so tired of it. I just want to go home.”
He doesn’t respond to that.
I pull my jacket tighter around me and nod toward the castle.
“Come on. Let me show you around. You probably want to see what we’re dealing with.”
He follows me without a word.
The grounds are a disaster. The gardens that were once beautiful are now overgrown with weeds and tangled shrubs.
The outer wall has gaps where stones have fallen and never been replaced.
We pass a small graveyard with weathered headstones, most of them so old the names have worn away.
Beyond that, the cliffs drop two hundred feet straight down to the Atlantic.
The sound of waves crashing against the rocks is constant and violent, a roar that never stops.
“The castle was built in 1347,” I say as we walk.
“By Lord Edmund Holloway. He expanded it over the next century. The family made their fortune from tin mining and shipping. By the 1800s, it was already falling apart. When the last of the Holloways emigrated to America, they left the castle behind but kept the deed. It’s been in decline ever since. ”
Castien says nothing. He just walks beside me, his eyes scanning the ruins.
We reach the main entrance. The door is heavy wood, partially rotted at the bottom, but it still swings open when I push it.
The entry hall is grim. High vaulted ceiling, stone floor cracked and uneven, narrow arrow slits for windows that let in almost no light.
The space is cold, damp, and smells like decay.
“Whole sections have collapsed,” I say. “The east wing is completely gone. Just empty archways and rubble.”
“Is the structure safe?” Castien asks.
“Safe enough if you stick to the ground floor and basement. Mr. Tremaine knows which areas to avoid.”
We walk through to the great hall. It’s massive, the kind of space designed to hold feasts and impress guests, but now the roof has partially caved in.
Sections are open to the sky. When it rains, water pools on the stone floor.
Ivy grows through gaps in the walls, and the old timber beams overhead sag dangerously.
“This is where the Holloways entertained,” I say. “Back when they had money and power.”
We move on to the dining room. It’s in slightly better shape.
The long table is still intact, though covered in dust and debris.
High-backed chairs are scattered around it, most of them broken or toppled.
There’s a massive fireplace at one end, and the walls are lined with tapestries so faded and rotted they’re barely recognizable as anything.
“I’m not going to show you the entire castle,” I say. “Most of it is irrelevant anyway. What we’re interested in is under it.”
Castien’s glowing eyes turn to me.
“There’s a vault down there,” I continue.
“Deep in the cave system. It contains the Holloway fortune. That’s what we’re here for.
That’s the mission. Every Holloway heir before me has tried to reach it and failed.
Some died trying, others came back broken.
But I’m going to succeed where they didn’t. ”
“How many heirs have attempted the vault?” Castien asks.
“At least a dozen that I know of from family records,” I say. “Possibly more. Not all of them made it back to tell the story.”
His glowing silver eyes stay on me for a moment, then he looks away.
We leave the dining room and go down a corridor to the library.
The doorway has a partially collapsed frame that I have to duck under.
Inside, the walls are lined with built-in shelves.
The books are still here, almost completely rotten.
Pages have disintegrated into pulp, leather bindings are crumbling, and the smell of mold is overwhelming. I sneeze twice and wipe my nose.
“There might have been useful information here once,” I say. “But it’s all gone now. I had to rely on family documents that were kept in America and passed down through generations.”
Castien looks at the shelves, at the ruined books, and says nothing.
We leave the library and find the stairs leading down to the basement.
The stone steps are worn smooth in the center from centuries of use.
The air grows colder as we descend, and there’s no natural light down here.
I flip the switch at the bottom of the stairs, and the lightbulbs Garrick strung along the corridor flicker on.
The basement level is the old dungeons. Stone cells with iron bars line both sides of the corridor. They’re empty and echoing. Water drips from the ceiling and pools on the uneven floor. The atmosphere is oppressive and claustrophobic, and I feel it pressing down on me every time I come here.
“This is where it starts,” I say as we walk.
“The mission is simple. Get to the vault, unlock it, and get the treasure out. The vault is deep beneath the castle, somewhere in the cave system under the cliffs. My ancestor designed traps and challenges to protect it. Some are puzzles, most of them deadly. The idea was to keep robbers out, but also to make sure only a worthy heir could reach it.”
“How many traps are there?” Castien asks.
“I don’t know. I’ve only made it through two of them.”
We reach the end of the corridor. There’s a heavy iron door here, rusted but still functional. It’s the entrance to the tunnel system. I’ve been through this door twice, and both times I came back empty-handed.
“The first bodyguard was a minotaur,” I say.
“Massive, strong, brave. You know, as minotaurs are. He failed at the very first challenge. We call it the Drowning Room. It’s a chamber that floods rapidly with seawater, and the only way out is through a trap door at the bottom that’s secured with multiple locks.
You have to unlock it while the water rises.
When the water reached the ceiling, the minotaur had to make a choice: persist in trying to open the trap door or break back through the entrance door to save me.
He chose to save me, smashed through the door, and hauled me back up here. Mission failed.”
“I don’t understand. Why can’t you use diving equipment?”