The Mourning Manor did not welcome them; it endured their arrival with a cold, hollow indifference that seemed to seep through the stone walls. Ghea followed Gillian into the bowels of the manor, stepping away from the grand foyer and into a corridor that twisted downward like the throat of a serpent. The air down here was heavy, thick with the scent of stagnant water and something metallic, like ancient copper left to rust in the dark. Gillian moved ahead, his stride purposeful and devoid of hesitation. He was the undisputed master of this subterranean architecture, a man whose life was built upon the foundations of secrets buried beneath the earth.
He stopped before a door made of reinforced iron, its surface etched with swirling, jagged carvings that seemed to shift in the flicker of
