Chapter 8
“Where did you say the potential living person is?” Penelope asked.
“West wing storage room,” the Guardian replied. “Drag marks. Blood.”
Penelope nodded once, as if she were being briefed on an event she had planned, not the aftermath of a slaughter.
“Very well,” she said. “Then we will go look.”
The Guardian hesitated. “Lady Penelope, I do not think—”
Penelope turned her head. The look she gave could have frozen fire.
“I did not ask for your opinion.”
The hallway stretched ahead of them, dim and silent except for the creak of old floorboards beneath their steps.
The air was heavy, too heavy, thick with magic that belonged to neither of them.
Penelope walked as if she had not spent the last hours surrounded by carnage.
Her chin was high, her back straight, her expression carved from cold marble.
Every inch of her demeanor marked her as the daughter of a Marquess.
The Guardian kept glancing at Penelope, expecting her to shatter.
She did not.
They reached the landing. Blood had dried in streaks along the wallpaper, gouged by fingers or claws. It was impossible to tell which. The drag marks veered toward the west wing corridor, dark and still tacky.
Penelope paused only long enough to assess the direction.
“Storage room?” she said.
“Yes, Lady Penelope.”
“Then lead on.”
The Guardian hesitated again and then obeyed.
Mingxi watched Penelope, trying not to be obvious. Her magic was quieter, locked down tight, but the stillness felt dangerous, like the air before a lightning strike. They passed two open bedrooms.
The third door on the right was half closed. Penelope did not slow. She was about to pass it entirely when the sound came.
A scrape. Soft. Wet. Wrong.
Penelope stopped mid-step.
The Guardian froze, hand sliding toward her sword.
Mingxi’s ears sharpened, catching the faint, arrhythmic dragging across the floorboards. Something moved inside that room with a gait that did not belong to the living.
“Stay behind me,” the Guardian whispered.
Penelope did not respond.
Mingxi stepped forward first. He pushed the door open with two fingers.
The room was dark, and it smelled of rot that had only just begun. A shape lay slumped on the floor. A man, one of the household guards. His uniform was torn, his throat slack, his skin waxen.
Penelope did not gasp. She did not cry out. She drew in a steady breath, filled with purpose.
Mingxi lifted a hand sharply. “Do not step inside.”
The air around the corpse was wrong. Too still. Too expectant. And then the corpse exhaled.
Penelope shifted slightly back. The Guardian choked on a curse, and Mingxi’s tails flared behind him, silent and sharp.
The body shuddered once, convulsively, like a puppet jerked by an impatient hand. Fingers curled against the floor. The neck twitched, the head dragging bonelessly toward them.
Penelope whispered, utterly flat, “What on earth?”
Mingxi’s voice dropped to a dangerous calm. “Avoid eye contact. Revenants can paralyze through their gaze.”
The corpse stilled. Completely. Then its eyes, clouded and wrong, rolled upward. They found Penelope first. Her spine locked. Magic snapped against her control, silver crackling at her fingertips.
The revenant’s mouth opened. A wet, tearing sound scraped out. “P… P… en… ne…”
Penelope staggered back a step. Not from fear. From recognition.
“Miller,” she breathed. “That is Miller. He was my father’s man, a loyal guard.”
He dragged himself one inch closer, fingers scraping the boards. Mingxi’s hand shot out, closing around Penelope’s arm before she could move forward.
“Do not approach,” he said, low and commanding. “It is not him anymore.”
The revenant twitched violently at the sound of Mingxi’s voice. Then it lunged. It did not stand. It did not rise like a man. It jerked forward, limbs bending at angles bones should not allow.
Penelope inhaled sharply.
Mingxi stepped in front of her. One tail snapped out, striking the revenant back into the room. Another tail slammed the door shut, rattling it on its hinges.
Something clawed at the wood from the other side.
Penelope’s voice came out thin as glass. “What did they do to him?”
The door shuddered again, wood splintering under the force.
Penelope stood very still. Her face was composed, but her fingers trembled at her sides, barely. Mingxi turned to her, keeping his amber eyes steady and unflinching.
“Lady Penelope,” he said quietly, “that thing is a revenant.”
Her gaze snapped to his. Sharp. Searching. “What did this?”
Mingxi glanced back at the shaking door, at the thing inside that had once been human.
His voice dropped, low and grim. “Someone used dark magic during the attack. Revenants do not rise on their own. Whoever slaughtered your family made this.”
Penelope drew in a sharp breath. Her composure cracked for a fraction of a heartbeat before she forced it back into place.
“So is the murderer still out there?” she asked flatly.
“Possibly,” Mingxi replied. “And they are far more dangerous than what awakened in you.”
The revenant slammed into the door again, harder.
Penelope did not flinch.
She lifted her chin.
“Then we keep going.”