Percy didn’t share the same issue. His voice was a loaded pistol, ready to strike anyone in its path. “Well, now you know. My mother died months ago, and he’s been throwing these ridiculous parties ever since. They last for days, sometimes. Or hours if he gets into one of his moods and has everyone escorted out. I’d wonder why people keep bothering to show up, if not for the fact that these social-climbing deviants have nothing better to do with their time.”
Signa couldn’t tell if talking was helping him blow off steam or was building up even more of it. Either way, she didn’t think it fit to stop him. “I’m sorry—” she began, cut off as he held up a hand.
“It’s no matter, cousin.” Wiping the frosting from his chin, he pushed past her and up the stairs. “Think of it as your welcome to Thorn Grove.”
SEVEN
IT WAS A RELIEF THAT PERCY HADN’T LINGERED. CLUELESS AS TO how to console him, Signa had only watched as he climbed the stairs, muttering that he needed to clear his head. Having decided it best not to loiter—lest she be caught snooping by anyone else—Signa left her hiding place in the shadows. She had every intention of returning to her room to try to clear her own head of the bizarre situation she’d witnessed. Only, the moment she stepped upon the landing, a wash of glowing white flashed in the corners of her eyes.
It was with dread in her chest that she turned, blinking clarity into her vision. When she looked again, nothing was there.
Perhaps she was more exhausted than she’d realized. It had been a long journey after all.
At least, that’s what she told herself as she paced the halls, struggling to find her room in what seemed to be an endless maze of hallways. Thorn Grove was eerier than she’d anticipated. She rubbed her arms, forcing her feet ahead one step at a time.
Though the manor was bustling on the lower level, the deeper into the second story Signa ventured, the emptier and gloomier the estate became. There was no sight of gilded cakes, and nothing more than the faint hum of a distant violin. Gone were the white marble pillars that had ghosted her reflection as she passed. In their place were strange iron sconces that reminded Signa of bird’s nests. Like the branches along the banister, they were intricately designed, with several thick twig-like pieces of iron stretching from them and a dimly lit candle towering in the center of each.
She looked behind her, and again a wash of white flickered just out of her view. This time, Signa could have sworn she saw a face.
She turned away at once, holding her breath. If it was a spirit, hopefully it hadn’t realized she’d noticed it. Continuing forward, she was determined to ignore it and to find her room again. It was difficult, though, to ignore the cool buzz on her skin as she journeyed past endless walls of paintings that were twice her size, each of them adorned with a gilded frame and featuring a person who must have once lived at Thorn Grove. The sheer number of them was less than reassuring; this estate was surely crawling with spirits.
She came to a painting of a well-decorated man with hair nearly as orange as Percy’s. He had a rifle slung over one shoulder, while his other hand rested upon the back of a whippet. The painting hung next to a large room with two leather couches the color of burnt molasses and shelves stuffed with musty books that took up the entire left wall.
Signa crossed the thick red rug to the shelves and scooped up one of the volumes, disappointed to find it was nothing more than a book about finances. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been surrounded by books—when she lived with her last uncle, perhaps?—and grumpily shoved the book back onto the shelf.
Next, she examined a large rosewood desk scattered with jars of ink and sheets of parchment. There were newspaper clippings, too. Some about Grey’s Gentleman’s Club, and an obituary for Lillian Rose Hawthorne. She picked it up, though the moment she touched the parchment, moss sprouted from the paper and curled around her fingertips. She’d never dropped something so fast.
Clutching her hand to her chest, Signa silently cursed herself for being so foolish. If the spirit hadn’t already realized Signa could see it, it certainly knew now. She had to be more careful.
Deciding the room, with its desk and ledgers, must be where Elijah worked, Signa left the office without touching anything else. The moment she stepped into the hall, the buzzing, prickling sensation was back like a gnat on her skin, and as she passed the next portrait, she could have sworn its eyes trailed her every step. This feeling was one she was familiar with, and one she refused to have any part of, especially with the possibility of normalcy so close within her reach. Determined to grasp it, she hurried on. Yet no matter which way she turned, the halls stretched on. The farther into them she ventured, the more goose bumps flared across her skin. She spun around only to find that no one was behind her. No humans. No spirits. Not even the reaper himself.
It’s in your head, she told herself. You’re just not used to such a large manor.
Signa had seen many spirits in her lifetime—too many, in fact—and knew that being in their presence would make one tired, and cold in a way that not even fire could ease. It was the same cold that sank into her bones in that moment.
A cold that came from the next room, waiting for her.
The painting outside the door was of a woman with pale skin and hair like a sunburst. Her smile was warm and rich, though her eyes were what made it impossible for Signa to look away—one blue, one hazel. So similar to her own that Signa found herself sucking in a breath. She’d never seen someone with eyes like hers, had never even imagined such a thing.
Signa reached for the doorknob, but the moment her skin touched the brass, she heard the dreadful sound of wet coughing from a room behind her. She turned toward it, and at once the chill in her body shattered, the spell broken. Warmth seeped back into her skin, and yet she shivered. Who else, she wondered, would still be upstairs, like her, and not at the party below? Her curiosity stronger than the pull of the dead, Signa crossed to the door where the sound came from and pushed it open without a knock.
Aside from its coloring, the suite was a mirror image to her own—with a beautiful reading room in pale blues and silvers, cast in a golden glow from a fire that roared beneath the polished ivory mantle above the fireplace. The space was lovely, but perhaps a little cold. It hardly seemed lived in, either. There were no books at the reading table, nor any quills or parchment strewn across the desk. She crossed the floor slowly, careful with her steps as she approached the adjoining bedroom. The door hung open, and try as she might to be quiet, whoever was inside heard her.
“Who’s there?”
Signa hovered at the threshold between the rooms. There was a waifish girl in the bed, nearly a skeleton; her skin was so translucent, it seemed she’d never seen the sun in her life. The girl’s hair was the pale yellow of dried straw, the color leeched away. Her eyes looked as though someone had carved the life out of them, hollowing them into empty, fathomless things. When the girl furrowed her brows, the full outline of her skull was visible.
“Who are you?” The girl frowned, her lips the palest shade of pink, like a winter-faded rose.
“You must be Elijah’s daughter.” Signa stepped inside the room and shut the door, glad for an excuse to leave behind the eerie hallway and the spirit that waited for her. “I heard you are ill.” Though she hadn’t quite realized the severity of the situation.