The entrance to the servant tunnels was hidden beneath a heavy, rusted iron plate in the pantry of the North Wing, buried under decades of forgotten linens and silver polish. When Silas pried it open with the head of his cane, the air that rushed out wasn't just cold; it smelled of the very earth itself—damp, mineral-heavy, and ancient.
"Stay behind me," Silas commanded, his voice a low, jagged rasp. He was breathing heavily now, the effort of the night's physical exertion finally carving deep lines of agony around his mouth. He looked at the narrow, crumbling stone stairs that spiraled down into the dark, and for a split second, Evelyn saw the flickering shadow of doubt in his eyes.
A man with a broken spine descending into a lightless hole. It was a suicide mission.
"No," Evelyn said, her voice firm, the 'V' taking control once again. She stepped in front of him, the oversized cashmere sweater hanging off one shoulder, her bare feet already touching the first damp step. "I'm the one with the flashlight. And I'm the only one who can hear the rhythm of the pipes. You're the muscle, Silas. I'm the eyes."
She didn't wait for his protest. She clicked on the high-intensity LED light on the back of the ancient laptop she had salvaged from the nursery, the beam cutting through the darkness like a scalpel.
Silas let out a dark, frustrated growl, but he followed. The sound of his cane hitting the stone—thud, drag, thud—echoed through the narrow shaft like a countdown.
The tunnels were a labyrinthine network of brick and mortar, built during the Victorian era to allow servants to move through the house unseen. They were the secret veins of the Nightwood beast, and they were dying. Moss grew in thick, neon-green clumps along the walls, and the sound of dripping water was constant, a rhythmic plink... plink that sounded like the ticking of a prehistoric clock.
"This isn't on the blueprints," Evelyn whispered, the beam of her light dancing over a series of strange markings etched into the brickwork at waist height. They looked like tally marks, or perhaps a child's drawing of a forest. "Silas, someone has been maintaining this section. The moss has been cleared away from the floor."
Silas leaned heavily against the wall, his face a mask of pale, sweating marble. The tunnel was so narrow they were forced to stand inches apart. Evelyn could feel the heat radiating from him, the scent of his skin—now sharp with the metallic tang of adrenaline—filling her senses.
"My father... he used to disappear for hours," Silas panted, his hand reaching out to steady himself against the wall just above Evelyn's head. "He told me he was in the library. But the library never smelled of damp earth."
He looked down at her, his eyes dark and dilated in the narrow beam of light. The tension between them, which had been a fire in the bedroom and a war in the nursery, had turned into something else here—a raw, visceral dependency.
"Evelyn," he whispered, his voice cracking. "If there's someone down here... someone who lived through that crash... it means my entire life for the last ten years has been a theater of the absurd. It means the grave I visit every year is empty."
"We don't know that yet," she said, her hand reaching up to rest on his chest, feeling the frantic, powerful beat of his heart. "Clockwork. Remember the signal. It means someone is listening. But it also means they're waiting."
They continued deeper, the tunnel sloping downward toward the foundations of the East Wing. The air grew thinner, smelling of old paper and copper. Suddenly, the tunnel opened into a small, circular chamber.
It was a room that shouldn't have existed.
It was a perfectly preserved study, buried fifty feet underground. A mahogany desk, identical to the one in Silas's Sanctum, sat in the center. But instead of monitors, the walls were lined with physical maps—hand-drawn charts of the New York harbor, marked with red ink.
And in the center of the desk sat a single, half-eaten apple, the flesh still white, the skin a brilliant, mocking red.
Evelyn's heart stopped. "They were just here."
She moved toward the desk, her light sweeping over the surface. There was a fountain pen, uncapped. A stack of old ledger books. And a small, silver-framed photograph.
Evelyn picked it up, her fingers trembling so violently she almost dropped it.
It was a picture of a little girl. Maybe six years old. She was sitting on a swing, her dark hair a mess, a wide, gap-toothed grin on her face.
It was Evelyn.
But it wasn't a photo her father had ever shown her. It was taken from the perspective of someone standing in the shadows of the trees.
"Silas," she gasped, her voice a fragile thread.
Silas moved toward her, his cane forgotten as he grabbed the edge of the desk for support. He looked at the photo, then at the maps on the wall. His gaze sharpened, the tactical genius returning through the fog of his pain.
"These aren't just maps of the harbor," Silas hissed, pointing to a series of coordinates marked in blue. "These are the shipping lanes for the Nightwood-Vance merger. The ones we just disrupted. Someone has been tracking the physical movement of the assets while we were tracking the digital ones."
He reached out and picked up the half-eaten apple. He turned it over in his hand, his eyes reflecting a dark, cold realization.
"The scratch we heard in the nursery... it wasn't a warning. it was a lure. They wanted us to find this room."
"Why?"
"Because they want us to know that the war isn't out there," Silas said, gesturing to the ceiling, to the world of billionaires and police. "It's in here. In the roots."
Suddenly, the heavy iron door they had just passed through slammed shut.
The sound echoed through the chamber like a thunderclap.
Evelyn spun around, her flashlight beam hitting the door. It was solid oak, reinforced with steel. There was no handle on the inside.
"Silas!"
A low, mechanical hum began to fill the room. The monitors on the desk—ancient, CRT screens that Evelyn hadn't noticed in the dark—suddenly flickered to life.
There was no code. No text.
Only a video feed.
It was a live shot of the bedroom they had just left. The silk duvet was still rumpled, the amber oil still sitting on the nightstand. But there was someone in the room.
A figure dressed in a gray servant's uniform, their face obscured by a surgical mask and a low-brimmed cap. They were holding a small, silver lighter.
They walked over to the curtains—the heavy, expensive velvet that Evelyn had touched only hours ago—and flicked the flame.
The velvet caught instantly.
"No!" Evelyn screamed, throwing herself at the door, her hands clawing at the wood.
Silas was beside her in a second, his weight pinning her against the door, his arms wrapping around her in a desperate, bruising embrace. He wasn't protecting her from the fire; he was protecting her from her own panic.
"Evelyn, look at the screen!" Silas commanded, his voice a roar that cut through her hysteria.
The figure in the bedroom stopped. They turned toward the hidden camera, their eyes—pale, cold, and eerily familiar—staring directly into the lens.
They raised a hand. In their palm was a small, brass gear.
Clockwork.
Then, they spoke. The voice was distorted, amplified through the room's speakers, but it had a cadence that made the blood in Evelyn's veins turn to ice.
"The daughter is found," the voice whispered. "But the debt is still unpaid. To save the house, the Master must learn to crawl."
The screen went black.
The smell of smoke began to filter through the acoustic tubes in the ceiling. The estate was burning above them, and they were trapped in the heart of the beast.
Silas looked at Evelyn, his eyes burning with a dark, resolved fire. He let go of the door and reached for his cane, but then he stopped. He looked at his legs, then at the stone walls around them.
"Chapter sixteen, section two," Silas whispered, his lips brushing her temple, his voice a gravelly vow. "In the dark, we don't need a throne. We only need a way out."
He grabbed her hand, his grip like an iron shackle.
"The tunnels don't just lead to the nursery, Evelyn. They lead to the river. But we have to go through the boiler room. And it's going to be hell."
Evelyn looked at the photograph of her six-year-old self on the desk, then at the man holding her hand. The 'Golden Cage' was on fire. The ghosts were out.
"Then let's go to hell, Silas," she said, her voice turning into a sharp, cold blade. "I've always wanted to see if the devil could keep up with a ghost."
They turned toward the back of the chamber, where a small, low tunnel disappeared into the pitch-black earth.
The war had just become a survival game. And the third shadow was already winning.