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A shape at the end of the corridor sends my heart lurching, my knees threatening to give way. I force myself forward until I reach her.

“Ophelia?” My voice fractures the silence.

She does not move.

Her skin is cold beneath my fingers, her lips tinged blue. Unblinking eyes stare past me.

“No…” My whisper breaks. “Not you.”

The storm shrieks above us, rattling every window in the manor, but inside, there is only silence, and rather than be caught at the scene of yet another crime, I flee, my body revolting against me as I go.

And as I find my way to my bed chambers, back scraping against the door as I sag into it, I can’t help but think of the man whose footpath would have had to mirror mine, and wonder when such a tragedy would have befallen my friend.

Journal Entry

In past years, I’ve dwelled on my loneliness, but Calista makes me feel…whole.

I no longer find myself suffocating beneath the grief of so much loss, but rather, looking forward to the days spent with her. Only her.

She has become my whole world. My entire universe and every star that hangs in the sky above us, and I desire nothing more than her happiness. I’ve survived nearly thirty-six years without her, but the last four have been the best, and it’s all thanks to her.

Someday, I hope she’ll see my love for what it is, and allow me to gift it to her. Until then, I’ll continue to protect her and love her in any way she’ll allow.

Until tomorrow,

Alastair

Chapter 6

Three Days Until Christmas

Calista

The storm does not relent. It batters the university without pause, as if the world itself is determined to grind us into dust. Snow piles high against the windows, wind shrieking like a thing alive. Each gust rattles the panes so violently I fear they’ll shatter.

By morning, word arrives: the roads are impassable. No one can reach us. No one can leave. Even if help had been sent for, there would be no way through. We are stranded.

And so, Ophelia lies in the cellar beside Adrian, and her absence echoes down every corridor like a curse. Their bodies wait for answers in the cold beneath us, but the answers refuse to come. The physician’s notes cannot leave the estate. The coroner cannot reach us. And the letters—those desperate, pleading letters to the outside world—vanish into snowdrifts before they ever find a post.

Suspicion coils tighter with every passing hour. I see it in the students’ eyes when they gather for meals, the way their conversations falter, then splinter into whispers. Professors keep to themselves, some pacing the halls until dawn, others drinking too heavily in the shadows of their rooms. Even Alastair, steady as stone, has grown watchful—too watchful, as if he fears even me.

Perhaps he should.

I tell myself it is the storm that presses against my lungs, that makes my thoughts sluggish and my head pound. Grief does strange things to the body. Fear, stranger still. Yet, every time I blink, I see blood on the stairs, blood in the baths, blood blooming across white sheets. It follows me into sleep, into waking, into the quiet moments where I am meant to feel safe.

How much longer until it is mine?

The wind howls, and the candles sputter in their holders, threatening to vanish at the slightest provocation. I press a hand to the cold glass of my window, staring into the darkness beyond. For a moment, I am certain I see a figure moving through the snow.

When I look again, there is nothing.

Still, my pulse does not slow.

We are trapped here. Together.

And at least one of us is a killer.

Journal Entry