Page 15

I turn back toward the doors and wrap my fingers around the iron handle. The metal is ice-cold.

I push.

The door opens.

Warm air spills through the opening and brushes against my face, carrying the scent of burning wood, jasmine, and dried herbs.

I step across the threshold.

“Dad?”

My voice echoes into the silence.

The entrance hall is so enormous that I stop almost immediately. Massive stone columns rise toward a ceiling high enough to disappear into shadow. Portraits in elaborate frames line the walls under iron sconces that cast pools of golden light across the worn stone floors. A sweeping staircase curves toward the second floor before splitting in opposite directions, both sides leading into shadowed corridors that seem to stretch endlessly through the castle.

I turn slowly, trying to absorb the sheer scale of the place.

Nothing about it feels abandoned.

Nothing about it feels welcoming either.

Somewhere deeper inside the castle, a fire crackles.

Someone is here.

They have to be.

“Dad?”

The question catches in my throat this time.

The heavy door closes behind me with a deliberate thud. The sound rolls through the entrance hall before fading into a silence so complete that I suddenly become aware of my own breathing.

Still, no one answers.

I tighten my grip around my father’s glove and stare deeper into the castle. Unease gathers in the pit of my stomach as I begin to wonder whether finding my father will only be the beginning of my problems.

I climb the enormous staircase slowly, one hand trailing along the smooth wooden banister while my eyes search every shadow stretching beyond the reach of the candles mounted to the walls. The steps curve upward in a wide spiral, dividing the entrance hall in half before reaching a landing overlooking the floor below. Every footstep echoes through the castle, following me upward and bouncing from one stone wall to another until it becomes impossible to tell whether I’m hearing my own movement or someone else’s.

The farther I climb, the harder it becomes to take everything in at once.

Candelabras rest on carved tables positioned along the walls, their flames dancing against rough stone and throwing shifting shadows across the corridor whenever I pass. Massive pendulum clocks stand in recessed alcoves, their wooden cases stretching nearly to the ceiling. Brass pendulums swing back and forth with slow, hypnotic precision.

The castle seems to pull me farther into another century with every floor I climb. Clocks are everywhere, tucked into corners between towering windows or positioned beside doorways like silent sentries keeping watch over the corridors. Their endless ticking grates on my already fragile nerves, following me from one floor to the next until it blends with the distant crackling of unseen fireplaces and the occasional groan of ancient stone settling around me.

The castle feels ancient.

Generations of people have lived here. I can see it in the worn edges of the stone steps and the smooth banisters made that way by countless hands. Furniture scattered throughout the corridors is so dark and intricately carved that most of it looks like it belongs in a museum rather than someone’s home. Everything surrounding me speaks of history, wealth, and a kind of permanence I’ve never known.

“Dad?”

My voice disappears into the silence.

I continue climbing.

The second floor opens into a long corridor lined with closed doors and bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. Another staircase waits at the opposite end, narrower than the first and far less inviting. I follow it upward, my heart pounding harder with every step.

“Dad!”