The Ravenwood Palace

The Arrival.

Lucas carried his suitcase up the narrow staircase, the wood creaking under his boots as though protesting every step. The corridor above smelled faintly of damp stone and old wood polish, the lanterns along the walls sputtering as if the flame itself feared to linger here.

Room three was small, the kind of place where shadows outnumbered the furniture. A narrow bed sat pressed against the wall, its quilt hand-stitched but worn thin. A desk faced the single window, where rivulets of rain streaked the glass and distorted the silhouette of Ravenwood Palace on the hill.

Lucas set his case on the bed and placed the file on the desk, his movements slow, deliberate. He pulled out a flask from his coat, unscrewing it with one hand. The whiskey burned its way down, warm against the cold that seemed to cling to this place.

He sat by the window, staring at the palace. Lightning cut across the clouds, illuminating the jagged towers for a brief instant. For that moment, it seemed less like a building and more like the bones of something enormous buried in the earth, its ribs piercing the sky.

A knock broke the silence. Three sharp raps on the door.

Lucas rose, sliding his hand inside his coat where his revolver rested. He opened the door a fraction.

A boy stood there—the same one from the station. His clothes were too thin for the storm outside, his hair plastered to his forehead with rain. His eyes, wide and restless, darted up and down the hall before fixing on Lucas.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the boy whispered, voice trembling.

Lucas opened the door wider. “Yet here I am.”

The boy swallowed hard, glancing again over his shoulder. “They won’t tell you what really happened. None of them will. But I saw her. The woman you’re looking for. Miss Fletcher.”

Lucas’s expression didn’t change, but his grip on the door tightened. “Go on.”

“She went into the palace. But she wasn’t alone. Something was with her.” His voice cracked. “Tall. Cloaked. Its face—” The boy’s words faltered. His lips trembled as though the memory itself hurt to speak. “It wasn’t a face. Not really. Just… shadows where a face should be.”

A silence stretched between them, broken only by the hiss of rain against the glass.

Before Lucas could press him further, Eleanor’s voice rang up the stairs. “Thomas!”

The boy flinched, his fear flashing to the surface like a wound. He looked back at Lucas, eyes pleading. “Don’t go to the palace, sir. If you do… you’ll never leave.”

Then he bolted down the hall, his footsteps echoing like a retreat.

Lucas closed the door slowly, considering. He poured himself another measure of whiskey, the burn stronger this time, then returned to the desk. He opened Anna Fletcher’s file once more, scanning the details with the boy’s words gnawing at the edges of his thoughts.

Outside, thunder rolled.

He looked up at the palace.

And for the first time that night, Lucas Blackwood allowed himself to wonder if the boy was right.