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She set down her stirring rod with hands that trembled only slightly, wiped her fingers on her apron, and moved swiftly toward one of the entry hall’s spy holes. The passages were as familiar as her own breathing. She had explored them since childhood, mapping every hidden corridor, every concealed stair, every grate that looked out into the inhabited rooms of the hall.

Papa had encouraged it, in his way. “Know every secret,” he had told her. “The Fairfaxes are guardians of mysteries older than memory. We must be able to move unseen, to watch and protect, if the time comes to do so.”

At the time, Isolde had imagined herself as a brave sentinel, defending sacred trusts against shadowy enemies. Now she recognized it for what it had been. A father’s way of keeping his marked daughter hidden while giving her the illusion of purpose.

She reached the passage that ran along the morning room just as Mrs. Roskelly was ushering three men inside. Isolde pressed her eye to the grate, her breath catching in her throat.

Three men, all young, all clearly weary from travel.

The first was dark-haired and intense, clutching a leather satchel as though it contained the secrets of the universe. Mediterranean, based on his features and the cut of his clothes. He moved with the restless energy of someone perpetually in motion, even when standing still.

The second leaned on a walking stick, his fair features set in an expression of aristocratic disdain that Isolde recognized from the few visitors Papa had received over the years. English gentry, probably. He was clearly in pain, but too proud to show it beyond the tight set of his jaw.

And the third …

Isolde’s heart stuttered in her chest.

He was beautiful.

Not in the severe way of Lord Trenwith, whom Isolde had observed during his brief visits to the library. This young man’s beauty was warm, alive, infused with an energy that seemed to radiate from him like heat from a fire. He moved to the window, and the weak afternoon light caught his features in profile. Mid brown hair that curled despite obvious attempts to tame it, eyes that seemed to miss nothing, a smile that played at the corners of his mouth even when he was not speaking.

Italian heritage, perhaps, or partially so. That explained the warmth, the expressiveness that was so different from English reserve.

Isolde watched him stare out at the sea, noting how wonder softened his features as he took in the wild beauty of the coast. Most visitors to Grimsfell Hall looked at the cliffs and saw danger, isolation, bleakness. But his expression suggested he saw something else. Something that called to his very soul.

She should leave. She had seen the new arrivals, confirmed they posed no immediate threat to the hall’s secrets. That should have been enough.

But she did not move.

Instead, she followed them through the passages as they made their way to the library. It was easy to keep pace. She knew the halls so intimately she could navigate them in complete darkness. The passages had been designed specifically for this purpose by a great Italian artist, allowing the hall’s guardians to move unseen through the building, observing without being observed.

By the time they reached the library, Isolde now knew their names and had claimed her usual vantage point behind the grate set into the wall near the concealed entrance to the Hall of Reflections. She could see and hear everything from here, though the grate itself would appear as nothing more than decorative ironwork to anyone who noticed it.

She watched Lord Trenwith reveal the hidden mechanism, saw the way the intense one’s hands trembled with anticipation as the bookshelf swung open. She had seen this moment before, of course, when Lord and Lady Trenwith had first discovered the Hall of Reflections, a moment which had caused considerable anxiety as she tried to make out what these unexpected guests were doing in her home. But experiencing it through the new arrivals’ excitement lent it fresh wonder.

The Hall of Reflections had been her sanctuary for years. After Papa died, she had spent hours there, playing the organ until her fingers ached, losing herself in music because it was the only voice she could trust not to recoil from her appearance. The mirrors had become companions of sorts. Honest in their reflections, but dim and incapable of judgement.

Now strangers were invading her sanctuary, and she should have felt violated, angry.

But she felt … interest.

She followed them down the stone steps, moving through her own parallel passage that ran along the northern wall of the Hall of Reflections. There were multiple grates here, positioned at different heights and angles, offering views of the entire chamber.

She watched them enter, saw the awe on Angelo’s face as he took in the mirrors and the organ. His wonder was unfeigned, unsullied by the disappointment that was already settling over his friend like a shroud.

The poor man. She could read his deflation in every line of his body. It sounded like he had expected paintings, art, concrete proof of his ancestor’s genius. Instead, he had found engineering and music, disciplines he clearly did not value as highly.

But Angelo … Angelo moved through the chamber as though walking through a cathedral. He approached the organ with reverence, ran his fingers along the console with the careful touch of someone who appreciated craftsmanship. And when he positioned himself before the mirrors, staring into that infinite regression of reflected images, Isolde saw something on his face that she recognized from her own mirror-gazing sessions.

Contemplation. Wonder. A sense of the divine.

This was a man who could appreciate beauty for its own sake, who did not need art to conform to expected categories to find value in it.

Isolde leaned closer to the grate, forgetting caution in her desire to see him more clearly.

And that was when he turned.

His head swiveled toward her hiding place with the speed of a hunting bird spotting movement. For one heart-stopping moment, she was certain he could see her. That somehow, impossibly, his gaze had penetrated the darkness and found her pressed against the iron grate.