I felt him cross the threshold like a ripple in still water.
Even before the rusted gate creaked open, I sensed the pull of his breath. The friction in his blood. The thrum of life entering a place that hadn't tasted it in far too long.
It was... jarring.
And tempting.
I stood in the shadows of the west wing, where the garden had long devoured the stonework and ivy crawled like veins up the broken pillars. Night pressed heavy against the glassless windows. Fog licked at the cracked marble floor, dragging cold tendrils across my bare feet.
He was at the edge of the courtyard now.
Slow footsteps. Boot soles brushing against gravel and moss. Hesitant, but not afraid. Not yet.
Curious, this one.
The last man who crossed the threshold came with fire in his hands and prayers in his throat. I tore those from him before the sun rose.
But this boy...
No fire. No faith.
Just desperation.
And that intrigued me.
I closed my eyes and listened.
The house stirred with me.
The dust curled. The floorboards sighed. Glassless windows blinked open to the cold.
And through the hush, I heard him.
Cassian.
The name hung around his thoughts like smoke. Whispered by someone smaller than him. Softer. A girl's voice. The memory warm with garlic, sleep, and something close to grief.
His sister. She loved him like people love stars—something far away, beautiful, and burning.
He was not beautiful, not in the way humans describe themselves.
He was dangerous-looking.
Tall, with sharp bones and golden hair that curled just slightly at the edges from sweat and sleeplessness. His jaw was bruised. His knuckles scarred. There was a narrowness to his frame, like he'd grown too quickly and never had time to fill out. Still young. Still unfinished.
But his eyes...
They were ice under bruises. Quick. Constant. Calculating.
I had seen those eyes on thieves, on warriors, on kings before their fall.
This one would not go down easily.
I drifted along the crumbling balcony overhead, hidden in shadow, watching as he stepped fully into the courtyard. The stones here were broken, covered in moss. The fountain at the center had long since dried, but vines coiled in and out of it like serpents sleeping in stone.
Cassian circled the space slowly. His breath came out visible in the cold.
His fingers touched the side of the broken marble rim like he expected it to bite him.
He didn't see me.
He couldn't.
No heartbeat. No reflection. No warmth.
I was shadow and silence, written in the dark like a secret the world had tried to forget.
I reached into his mind, careful not to tear too deep.
He flinched.
His spine went rigid. He looked up, toward the balcony.
Ah. Instinct.
Some animals still remembered how to feel danger.
I tasted the edge of his thoughts:
Maps. Blueprints. A duffel bag hidden under a couch.
A promise: "I'll be back before you know it."
A lie told to someone he couldn't afford to lose.
Good.
Desperation made humans bold. Bold enough to walk into monsters' mouths thinking they'd make it out whole.
He stepped toward the manor's main doors.
I moved with him, my bare feet never touching stone. The air shifted around me. Cold. Carried the scent of blood from miles away. London still clung to his coat. Steel. Sweat. Something bitter underneath.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
He stopped before the door, eyes scanning the façade.
He didn't see the runes etched into the arch above him. Not yet.
Didn't feel the house leaning toward him, curious and hungry.
I smiled and whispered to the shadows.
"Let him in."
The doors creaked. One inch.
He stepped back, startled. His hand moved toward something inside his coat—a knife, perhaps.
Cute.
I drifted into the hall above him, watching.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I didn't touch the door.
It moved on its own.
Just a crack. Just enough to whisper.
The creak sounded wrong — not mechanical, not stiff — more like breath through old lungs. The kind of sound that makes the skin behind your ears go tight.
I stepped back, heart doing that quiet stutter it hadn't done since the night Tiffany called me from a phone box with blood on her shirt and no shoes on.
Something in me — the primitive part, the part that survived before reason — wanted to run.
But I didn't come all this way to run.
I slid the knife from my jacket pocket and held it low, just in case, and stepped inside.
The air hit me like a wall.
Cold. Dry. Still, but not empty.
It smelled like forgotten velvet, dust, and the kind of old wood that remembers too much. Underneath it all was something subtler, stranger — a sweetness like dried roses left in a tomb. Something sharp beneath it. Like iron.
Like blood.
I clicked my torch on.
The beam stuttered once before holding.
The entry hall swallowed the light.
High ceilings. Faded burgundy wallpaper clinging in torn strips. A twin staircase curled up the sides like frozen ribbons. And the chandelier — or what was left of it — hung like a fractured ribcage.
Everything about this place felt like it used to be something holy, and then someone buried it alive.
I took a slow breath and walked forward.
My footsteps echoed — too loud, too clear, like I wasn't supposed to be here.
Like the house wanted me to know I'd broken something just by stepping inside.
Furniture stood draped in white sheets, shaped like ghosts mid-exhale. Picture frames lined the walls, but the faces inside them were either smeared by time or turned away, as if ashamed.
I passed a tall mirror, cracked straight down the center.
I don't know what made me glance at it.
But when I did...
Only half my reflection looked back.
The left side. My left eye. My arm holding the torch.
The rest of me? Gone.
Like something had erased me mid-thought.
I blinked.
It came back.
Just me. Pale. Hollow-eyed. Blood crusted at the edge of my jaw from earlier. A black hoodie that smelled like soy sauce and Tiff's shampoo.
I laughed under my breath, but it sounded flat in the stillness.
"You're losing it, mate," I whispered. "Just nerves. Just a job. Just grab something valuable and get the hell out."
But the house didn't feel like it wanted to let go of anything. Not even air.
I moved deeper.
The flashlight cut across long corridors, dust-draped statues, curled books left open like they'd been abandoned mid-sentence. I stepped into what had once been a music room—sheets of music yellowing on a broken piano, its keys cracked like crooked teeth.
The torch flickered again.
I smacked it lightly. The beam steadied.
And that's when I heard it.
Footsteps.
Soft. Behind me. Deliberate.
I turned fast, knife raised, beam sweeping through the dark—
Nothing.
But I knew what I heard. I knew what footsteps sounded like. You don't spend your life dodging debt collectors and crawling through basements without knowing the difference between floor groans and a body moving.
Someone was here.
Or something.
I moved slower now.
Less like a thief.
More like a guest who didn't remember the invitation.
Every doorway I passed felt like an eye opening. Every stair, a breath held. I didn't know why I kept going. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was Tiffany.
Maybe it was that I'd already crossed the point of no return and couldn't admit it.
At the far end of the hallway, a door stood slightly ajar.
Light flickered beneath it — candlelight, soft and golden, dancing across the floor.
I didn't remember seeing any light when I passed earlier.
I didn't light anything.
I approached, slow. Careful.
The door creaked wider on its own.
And behind it, a room bloomed into view — massive and rich in the way old money used to be, with oil paintings covering the walls, and books lining shelves so tall they kissed the ceiling.
And there, by the fireplace, stood a single chair.
Empty.
But warm.
Like someone had just left.
Or was never really there.
I didn't step in.
I couldn't.
Because every instinct I had — thief's instinct, big brother instinct, human instinct — screamed that if I crossed that line, I wouldn't come back the same.
Or maybe I wouldn't come back at all.
So I backed away.
One step.
Two.
Then turned.