“Intriguing,” Preston echoed, his tone flat, but something in his eyes gleamed with a sharp, unreadable emotion. “And why here?” He took a step closer, his shadow swallowing me. His eyes flicked at the vines behind me.
I wet my lips. I was sent here by the ghost of my mum. The truth twisted on my tongue like a splinter.
“My mum told me about it... when she was alive,” I lied, the words sticky like honey.
Something flickered in his moss-colored eyes. Not disbelief, but not quite belief either. Like he was calculating.
Then, as if my answer had satisfied him enough, he gripped my arm and twisted me around. My jaw clenched. He wasn’t someone I would voluntarily turn my back on.
“See?” he whispered against my ear, sending an involuntary shiver down my spine. “Wasn’t so difficult, was it?” Even through all the layers I had on, I could feel the warmth radiating from his body. With a swift motion, he severed the vines binding my wrists.
The release was immediate and blinding.
I gasped as blood rushed back into my hands, thorns tearing loose like fishhooks from my skin. The pain bloomed, burning, and I nearly staggered.
His fingers lingered just a second too long.
I shoved him away.
Then yanked the knife from his hand and slid it back into my pocket. My fingers shook.
He chuckled, low and melodic, infuriating.
I rubbed my wrists. The skin was torn in a dozen places, and a deep cut sliced across my right palm. The blood was a good reminder of my mistake. I wasn't cautious enough.
Preston turned, ripping off the last few entwined vines that had been blocking the entrance. The plants dropped in coils at his feet, most of them inked crimson by my blood. The mausoleum’s grey limestone walls slowly unravelled.
“Tu vivis, nos viximus, mox nobis iungeris,” he read the Latin inscription etched above the entrance. “You live, we lived, you’ll join us soon,” he translated. The words sent a chill down my spine.
I stepped past him, the fallen vines crunching beneath my boots as I stopped in front of the rust-eaten gate. Without thinking, I curled my fingers around the cold iron handle. Sharp pain bit into my fresh wound, the torn skin on my palm screaming. I winced, but didn’t let go.
With a hard yank, I dragged the gate open, and the hinges groaned like a yawn from something ancient that should have been left undisturbed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ELODIE
Stale, breathless rot slammed into my face as we crossed the mausoleum’s threshold. The air tasted old, like it had been locked between the stones for years.
I wiped my palm on my trousers, smearing the blood into the fabric, as Preston struck a match beside me. The flame hissed alive, casting a flickering veil over the moss-covered walls. He swept the light in a slow arc, making the shadows dance across the stone. Neither of us spoke of the cursed vines he had just slaughtered outside, and I was glad for that. Part of me wanted to believe it was a trick of my mind. That I fell into the thorns myself and the blood loss made me see things that weren’t really there. Magic like that wasn’t supposed to exist. Not outside of books…
The thick, stagnant air coiled in my lungs, heavy as smoke. There was only one chamber inside the mausoleum—just as I’d seen in my nightmare—and it was lined with crypts like teeth, enhanced with frescoes of skulls and skeletons, reminding me of my own fragile mortality. My boots echoed softly on the stone as I edged closer, the reverberations pressing back at me from the tomb-dark corners.
The first name carved into the wall wasEuriel Thornbury.
Lived 1723–1747
Beside it, restedMuriel Thornbury.
Lived 1723–1834
They must have been twins like Myra and Cecily.
“Ne in morte quidem requiem invenis,” Preston murmured, the Latin curling from his lips like smoke.
I couldn’t understand what he said, but I had no doubt it was something cryptic like usual. I kept moving, reading the names of my ancestors.
“Did a ghost finally steal your tongue, poison?” he breathed into my ear, and a shiver crawled along my spine in response.
