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They both stared at the wreckage of what had once been the north wing. The seam where this section of the building had been joined with the main house was clearly visible from the jagged stone that crawled up the wall.

“The slate roof stopped the fire from spreading to the main house,” Gareth said quietly. “The servants formed a bucket brigade to put it out, but this wing was a total loss.”

“I see that.” Evaine stared at the three floors that had collapsed. Even now, a dull, faded scent of old fire caught her nostrils. She wrinkled her nose. “Well, looks fine to me. Shall we call it done and move on?”

Gareth cast her a narrow glance and stepped over what had once been a threshold. “Come on, you scaredy cat. What if I turn my ankle on a piece of debris? Or find a pot of money hidden somewhere?”

Right. She was entitled to a percentage of anything she found—which meant she had better get searching. Evaine hurried after him. Unease pinched her. What if Gareth had killed Marina and his father? What was he planning to do to her in this desolate place?

Surely he wouldn’t kill her grandmother.

Evaine voiced a different question since she could not ask the one plaguing her.

“What if the upper floors fall on us? What’s left of them.” Sections of floorboards leaned haphazardly against the solid beams that lay at steep angles to their anchor points in the house’s exterior. Interior. Whatever one called it when a house had been opened up to create an addition and then closed again to keep out the elements when that wing burned down. She could see the boarded-up sections blocking entrance into the house.

In retrospect, it wasn’t difficult to see how the fox had gotten into the parlor. It was a miracle that there weren’t more animals using Wolfhaven for a glorified den. The Cogswells had largely been effective in chasing them off.

Which suddenly struck her as strange. Why put that kind of effort into protecting a house when its owner expressed no interest in returning to live in it?

Evaine put the thought out of her head. The floorboards seemed sturdy enough. As haphazardly as they laid against the fallen beams and the ground, they didn’t tremble or move when the wind kicked up. Gareth had poked his way through a gap between what had once been the second floor and the third floor. With a deep breath, Evaine followed him.

Deep inside the wreckage there wasn’t as much light filtering in. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom. Broken furniture lay twisted. Dumped on its side as if a giant had picked up a doll’s house and tossed it. A bed, wardrobe, and broken mirror frame lay in a heap. The mattress had long since been picked clean of horsehair and wool leaving rusted springs sticking out of the decayed cover. Gareth prodded it with his cane.

“I cannot imagine that we’ll find anything interesting in this pile,” he said.

“What are we looking for?”

“I don’t know. You have her diary⁠—”

“I gave it to you.”

“Right. I couldn’t read much of the wet sections. The unsmudged parts were rather embarrassing.”

“Don’t say that,” Evaine said crossly. She stepped over what had once been a table. Passed a picture frame that held a tattered flap of canvas. Unrecognizable now. She hoped it hadn’t been valuable. “You were the best thing in Marina’s life, Gareth. She loved you.”

“It’s still a bit awkward to read a fifteen-year-old girl’s romantic thoughts about you, years after she died.”

“I think she wanted you to know. Otherwise she wouldn’t have left the diary for me to find.”

“Why didn’t she leave it for me? Besides, I thought you didn’t believe in ghosts,” he huffed.

“I don’t know her thinking. I don’t believe in ghosts. Or didn’t before I arrived here. I am keeping an open mind. Following the evidence wherever it leads.”

Where it was leading her was nowhere she wanted to go.

Her boot caught on something protruding from the ground. Evaine hopped, found her balance, and looked down. A rectangle a little larger than a shoebox, like something a child might keep their precious treasures in, lay half-buried in the ground. There had been a lock and hinges on it at one point but they had rusted off. She had knocked the lid askew when she clipped it with her toe. Crouching, Evaine peered closer.

“There’s something here. A…bone?”

At first she’d thought it was a doll. Now she saw that it wasn’t a porcelain arm, but a tiny ivory humerus bone. A chill swept down her spine. She nudged it open more and gasped.

“Gareth, you need to see this.”

Uneven footsteps approached her from behind. He hobbled around obstacles with his cane and injured foot. “What is it? A dead animal.”

“I think it’s…just look.” Evaine stood abruptly, her heart pounding. She squeezed her eyes closed as Gareth bent. If the collection of bones was what she thought it might be, she didn’t know how he would react. She couldn’t bear to watch.

Long seconds ticked by in silence.