Sleep, when it finally came, was a bottomless, black ocean.
Julia sank into it, pulled down by the weight of her own exhaustion, the safety of Silas's arms the only anchor in the void. There were no dreams, no night terrors that plagued the edges of her consciousness. There was only a profound, silent, and dreamless peace. A quiet so complete it felt like a kind of death.
She had no memory of leaving the warmth of his bed. No memory of her feet, bare and silent, carrying her from the safety of his room. She did not remember the chill of the stone floors, the ghostly moonlight that guided her through the sleeping labyrinth of the house. She did not remember opening her own wardrobe and taking out the fine, silk nightgown embroidered with faded blue flowers. Marian's.
She did not remember descending the winding stone steps, down, down, into the cold, still heart of Blackwood Hall.
She remembered only the waking.
It was the cold that registered first. A deep, seeping cold that seemed to emanate from the very stone beneath her, traveling up through the soles of her bare feet and into her bones. It was a dead cold, ancient and absolute.
Her eyes snapped open with a ragged gasp.
It was dark. A profound, suffocating blackness broken only by a single, high sliver of moonlight filtering through a grimy grate far above. The air was stale, thick with the scent of damp earth, stone dust, and the faint, sweet, cloying odor of long-dead flowers.
Panic, stark and absolute, seized her. This was not Silas's room. This was not her room.
She looked down at herself. She was wearing a nightgown of fine, shimmering silk, a garment so delicate and unfamiliar that for a moment, she thought she was still dreaming. But the fabric was real, cool and smooth against her skin. It was Marian's.
Her gaze lifted, slowly adjusting to the gloom. She was surrounded by stone. Great, carved slabs of marble and granite rose up around her like silent, waiting sentinels. Names were carved into their surfaces, worn smooth by time. Blackwood. Blackwood. Blackwood.
She was in the crypt.
A scream built in her throat, but it died before it could escape, choked off by pure terror. How did she get here? She was standing barefoot on the tomb of a man who had died two centuries ago, wearing her dead cousin's nightgown.
She was going mad. It was happening. Howard's wish was coming true.
Then, she heard it. Footsteps, hurried and uneven, echoing from the stone passage that led back up into the house. A light appeared, a single, swinging lantern that cast long, dancing shadows that writhed and twisted like tormented souls.
Two figures emerged from the passage. The first was Silas, his face a mask of frantic, desperate worry, his coat thrown hastily over his shoulders. The second, following behind him with an unnerving, gliding calm, was Mr. Finch.
"Julia!" Silas breathed her name, a sound of profound relief and horror. He rushed to her side, immediately shrugging off his heavy wool coat and wrapping it around her shivering form. His arms came around her, pulling her against his chest. "My God, are you alright? How did you get down here?"
She could only shake her head, her teeth chattering, her mind a blank, terrifying void. "I… I don't know," she whispered. "I was asleep. With you. I don't remember…"
Silas held her tighter, his own body trembling with a mixture of fear and fury. As he held her, trying to chafe some warmth back into her arms, Mr. Finch stepped forward. The butler's face was eerily serene in the flickering lantern light, his expression not one of alarm, but of a quiet, almost reverent satisfaction. He looked at Julia, but his words were for Silas.
A low, chilling whisper that cut through the dead air of the crypt.
"She's nearly ready."
Silas went rigid. He turned his head slowly, his eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "Ready for what, Finch?" he snarled, his voice a low growl of menace. "What have you done to her?"
Mr. Finch simply gave a small, sad smile. His gaze drifted over Julia, a look of profound, sorrowful duty. He did not answer. He merely turned, his task apparently complete, and glided back into the darkness, his lantern light disappearing with him.
***
Silas did not let her go until they were back in her own room, the door locked and bolted behind them. He built a fire in the hearth with frantic, angry movements, the flames a welcome, living presence in the cold, dead space. He settled her into a chair, wrapping her in every blanket he could find, his hands chafing her frozen feet.
He was a whirlwind of protective fury. "The perfume," he said, pacing before the fire. "The visions. Now this. It's not a ghost, Julia. It's him. It's Finch."
"But how?" she whispered, her voice still trembling. "Sleepwalking… I've never…"
"You're being drugged," Silas stated, the words falling like stones in the quiet room. "Something is being administered to you. Something to make you susceptible, suggestible. To blur the lines between sleep and waking." His mind was working furiously, piecing together the fragments of the puzzle. "The water you drink at night. The tea the maids bring. It has to be. Marian suffered the same spells near the end. Headaches, confusion, seeing things that weren't there. Alistair called it her 'fever.' It wasn't a fever. It was poison."
The realization was a fresh wave of horror. She was not just being haunted; she was being systematically, deliberately dismantled, her mind a fortress under siege from within.
They did not have to wait long for confirmation.
Just after dawn, a commotion erupted from the direction of the kitchens. A maid shrieked, followed by the sound of shouting, of something heavy crashing to the floor. Julia and Silas exchanged a look and rushed from the room.
They found a small group of terrified servants huddled by the door to the boiler room, their faces pale. Pushing through them, they saw the source of the chaos.
Mr. Finch stood before the roaring furnace, its open maw casting a hellish red light on his frantic, desperate face. His usual cold composure was gone, replaced by a wild, fanatical grief. He was stuffing papers into the flames, handfuls of them, his movements jerky and panicked.
"Finch, stop!" Silas shouted, lunging forward. He grabbed the butler's arm just as he was about to thrust a final, thick bundle of letters into the fire. The papers scattered across the floor. Silas managed to snatch one from the air before it could be consumed.
It was a letter, half-burned but still legible. The handwriting was Marian's.
Finch let out a sound that was not human, a raw, guttural scream of pure agony and rage. "No!" he shrieked, his eyes wild with a madness that terrified Julia more than any ghost. "You don't understand! They must be destroyed!"
He lunged for the scattered letters, but Silas held him back, his grip like iron.
"She was meant to stay!" Finch screamed, struggling against Silas's hold, tears streaming down his face. "She was the heart of this house! It needs a heart! She belonged here! She was meant to stay!"
His words were a confession. He was not just loyal; he was a fanatic. He believed Marian was the soul of Blackwood Hall, and in his grief, he was trying to resurrect her, using Julia as the vessel. He was burning the last traces of the real Marian, perhaps, to make way for the new one he was creating.
The cold, clear rage that had been building in Julia finally ignited, burning away the last of her fear. This was not a haunting. This was a conspiracy.
She left Silas to deal with the raving butler and the terrified staff. She knew who she needed to see.
She found Alistair in his study, standing by the window, looking out over his kingdom as if the chaos in the kitchens was nothing more than a minor disturbance. He turned as she entered, his expression calm, unreadable.
She didn't waste time with pleasantries. The words poured out of her, hot and furious.
"Finch is trying to turn me into Marian," she stated, her voice shaking but strong. "He is drugging me. He put me in her nightgown and left me in the crypt. He is burning her letters." She took a step closer, her eyes boring into his. "Did you know? Is this your plan, too? Is this your way of having me declared insane so your family can have my fortune?"
He listened, his head tilted slightly, his piercing blue eyes never leaving her face. He showed no surprise, no anger, no denial. He simply absorbed her accusations, his stillness a terrifying counterpoint to her righteous fury.
When she was finished, her chest heaving, the silence in the room was absolute.
He moved then, pushing away from the window and walking slowly toward her. He was the predator she had always known him to be, calm, confident, and in complete control. He stopped just before her, so close she could feel the cold radiating from him. His gaze was intense, analytical, as if he were observing a fascinating, but predictable, chemical reaction.
He did not answer her question. He simply looked down at her, a faint, chillingly sad smile touching the corners of his mouth.
"You're becoming what this house remembers."