XVIII
The drive south unfurled in long, winding stretches of silence. The world outside was all shale and pine, canyon walls rising steep and dark as the road cut through Spanish Fork. Every few miles, the radio lost its nerve—static swallowing the signal until I shut it off altogether.
I cracked the window. A thin blade of cold air slipped in, crisp enough to sting. Dawn lifted slowly—first violet, then bruised gold along the ridgelines.
Harvey’s notes rode shotgun, pages fluttering in the draft.
By the time I reached Scofield, the sun had worked its way into the frost. A thin, glassy chill glazed the lake below.
Past the water, my phone lost its signal for good.
The old mining road branched off, winding upward and narrowing with every turn. Snowmelt threaded through the ditches. Trees leaned close, their branches skimming the roof like fingernails on tin.
The road thinned to dirt, the ruts deep enough to wrench the wheel from my hands. When I finally reached the fork that marked the last stretch, sunlight spilled across the hood.
That was when it hit me.
How quiet it was.
No wind. No birdsong.
Just the soft mechanical groan of the engine and the dark press of trees closing in.
Ten minutes later, the car reached its limit.
I parked where the road surrendered to overgrowth and killed the engine.
The air cut the moment I stepped out. I pulled the map from my bag, matching the ridgeline to the crooked lines Harvey had sketched.
I was close.
The path curved upward, half-swallowed by weeds and fallen limbs. Sunlight bled through the canopy, only to be shattered by the canyon walls, fracturing into a million dancing shards.
And then, through the mist, I saw it.
Collapsed roofs.
Stone chimneys.
The skeletal rise of a steeple.
The air shifted as I stepped over the threshold—colder, thinner—as if the whole place had been holding its breath for a century.
From a distance, the town looked half-erased, like a photograph left too long in the sun. The outlines of streets and foundations bled into the earth, faint as pencil marks.
Winter Quarters.
For one heartbeat, the world shimmered.
The air thickened with coal dust, and the phantom ring of a church bell echoed off the ridge. Then the image flickered—gone as quickly as it came—like an old film reel burning through its frame.
All that remained was ruin.
The path leveled into the main road, the forest thinning as the light shifted—gray and diffused, as if the canyon had its own weather.
I stepped forward, boots cracking dead stems underfoot. Every noise carried: the snap of a twig, the quick knock of my pulse, too loud for a place that should have forgotten sound.
The farther I went, the clearer the shapes became.
The skeletons of houses.
The black mouths of mine shafts webbed with rusted wire.
My steps locked.
The road sloped upward toward a scatter of cabins—some leaning into one another for balance, others collapsed into themselves—but one still clung to life.
Its roof sagged.
Half of its porch had given way.
And from its chimney, smoke rose steadily against the pale sky.
It couldn’t be.
No one lived here.
The town had been abandoned for more than a century.
And yet the smoke climbed.
My fingers tightened around the strap of my pack until my knuckles burned.
Someone was here.
I moved closer.
Every instinct screamed to turn back—but curiosity held me, firm as a hand between my shoulders.
Behind me, the ridge lay empty. The woods stood silent.
One step.
Then another.
The air shifted as I neared the house.
A shadow crossed the window.
The porch creaked beneath an unseen weight.
Then the door opened.
Two men stepped out first. Broad-shouldered. Worn leather jackets. Black balaclavas hid their faces, white skulls sprayed over the fabric. A heavy hunting knife was strapped to the thigh of the one on the right, its worn handle slick and well-used.
They scanned the clearing with slow precision.
And between them, stepping into the light—
Julian.
My stomach dropped.
His mouth smiled, but his eyes remained flat.
“Madeline,” he said gently, his voice carrying through the mist.
Behind him, the men on the porch stood like statues, their skull masks staring at me with painted, wicked grins.
“Julian?” I finally found my voice. “What are you doing out here?”
He glanced at the ruins, then back at me, eyes sharp.
“Sightseeing. When the great Harvey October’s daughter goes off-syllabus to chase ghosts, I figured I should see the attraction for myself.”
The way he said my dad’s name—half admiration, half bait—itched under my skin.
His gaze drifted past me, down the dirt road I had climbed.
“You came out here alone?”
“I’m meeting someone,” I said, forcing the words past my dry throat. “He’s running late.”
“Heaton Dashwood.” He stepped off the porch, boots heavy on rotted wood. “I’d heard you two were getting . . . close.”
“Close?” I forced a hollow laugh. “He’s like a shadow I can’t shake. If that’s your definition of close, Julian, your social standards are even lower than your choice in friends.”
One of the masked men flicked his gaze toward me.
Just once.
Enough to send a cold skip through my chest.
Julian didn’t look away.
“Every serious order has a uniform, Madeline. We wear the skull to honor the silence we’re sworn to keep.”
His smile sharpened.
“You know, you could be really helpful to us.”
I blinked.
“Us?”
“The Lantern Society.”
He jerked his chin toward the statues on the porch.
“We go where history forgets. We claim what the world has abandoned before time swallows it whole.”
Heaton’s warning echoed through my head.
It’s the mask they wear so people like you don’t look too closely at the darkness underneath.
“You should join us, Madeline,” Julian urged, stepping close enough that I could smell the stale ash on his coat. “You have no idea how useful a girl with your blood could be.”
A chill slid down my spine.
“That’s . . . nice of you to offer,” I said carefully. “But I work better alone.”
Julian clicked his tongue, soft and amused.
“Do you?” he asked quietly. “Because from where I’m standing, you look like someone running out of places to hide.”
His expression softened into something almost kind, which was infinitely more terrifying than his sneer.
“Everything all right, by the way?” His tone slipped into the casual cadence of a concerned neighbor. “A buddy of mine in dispatch said the cops were called to your place last week.”
His head tilted, studying the way I flinched.
“A break-in, wasn’t it?”
My chest tightened.
“The break-in?” I tried to shrug, but my shoulders felt like iron. “Just kids. It was nothing.”
I tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear, but my fingers betrayed me, trembling just enough for him to see.
“Hmm.”
Julian’s grin returned.
He didn’t look like he believed me. He looked like he was enjoying the performance.
“Good. I’d hate to think you were in trouble. And Harvey? Still holding down the fort?”
“He’s away,” I answered. The lie slipped out before I could stop it.
“A work trip. I’m not sure when he’ll be back.”
Julian’s posture eased, but his eyes stayed fixed on mine. He stepped closer, invading the small pocket of warmth I had left.
“A work trip,” he repeated softly.
Behind him, the two masked men stepped off the porch in perfect, haunting unison, boots thudding against frozen earth.
“At least let me walk with you,” he said, voice dropping to something low and coercive. “Can’t have you wandering out here alone.”
“No, thanks.” My voice held steadier than I felt. “Heaton should be here any minute.”
Julian’s eyes flashed.
A spark of genuine malice behind the oily charm.
“Dangerous choice. There are a lot of mine shafts in these hills, Madeline. A lot of places for a girl to disappear.”
“I’ll be careful.”
For a long, suffocating moment, the only sound was the soft crackle of the fire inside the ruined house.
The two masked men tilted their heads, painted sockets tracking me with a precision that didn’t feel human. I could feel the invisible thread of command passing between them and Julian.
“Give Heaton my best,” Julian said, voice dropping to a dangerous hush. “If he ever shows up.”
He didn’t move to stop me when I turned.
He just stood there, hands in his pockets, draped in the cabin’s shadow.
I forced my legs to walk.
One leaden step after another.
I had almost reached the treeline when his voice drifted through the mist one last time—thin, cold, and mocking.
“Don’t wander too far, Madeline. Wouldn’t want you falling into something you can’t climb out of.”
I didn’t look back.
I listened.
Boots.
Two sets.
Not running. Pacing me.
The treeline was a promise of safety.
I hit it and broke into a dead run, all pretenses gone.
The forest swallowed me whole.
Branches whipped my face; thorns snagged my sleeves like claws. My boots skidded over frost-slicked roots, the ground a blur of gray and black.
Behind me, the rhythm changed.
The heavy thud of their boots sped up, the gap closing with terrifying certainty.
My lungs burned. My pulse thundered in my ears, drowning out the sounds of the woods.
Then the hillside split open.
Dark mine shafts yawned in the rock, hungry mouths in the stone.
I veered left, shoulder slamming into a wide trunk as I scrambled for footing on loose shale.
They were faster.
Right on top of me.
My next step never landed.
A hand hooked through my open jacket, a brutal jerk that swung me off my feet—and the world dissolved into darkness.