The Ravenwood Palace

The Bells at Midnight.

Night pressed hard upon Elmridge, thicker than the storm clouds that smothered the stars. The inn lay hushed, its wooden beams groaning with the weight of the wind outside. A fire smoldered in the hearth, but its glow seemed feeble, swallowed by the shadows clinging to the corners of the common room.

Lucas sat alone at a table near the window, Anna Fletcher’s notebook open before him. He traced the sketches with a gloved finger—the floor plan of Ravenwood, the circled east wing, the frantic warnings scrawled at the end. Each page whispered urgency, obsession, terror.

The inn’s silence was broken only by the occasional creak of stairs above, where the other guests lay restless in their beds. Eleanor had retired hours ago, after warning him again—this time with a hand that lingered heavy on his arm: Don’t go back into that book, Detective. Don’t let it look back at you.

Lucas poured a measure of whiskey into his glass. The liquid trembled faintly as the wind howled against the shutters. He lifted the glass halfway, then froze.

The bells began to toll.

Slow. Heavy. The deep iron sound rolled across the village like thunder, shaking the panes of glass, crawling down the walls like fingers.

It was midnight. The church tower stood empty.

Lucas set down the glass. He closed the notebook and rose, moving toward the door. But before his hand touched the latch, a whisper stopped him.

“Detective…”

His name, breathed from nowhere. The voice was neither male nor female, but stretched and hollow, as if spoken through the stone walls themselves.

Lucas turned sharply, revolver already in hand. The room was empty. Only the fire glowed faintly, its embers paling as though suffocated.

The whisper came again. “You shouldn’t have read her words.”

The candle on the counter snuffed out.

A floorboard groaned above. Then another. Slow, deliberate, pacing footsteps crossing the hall upstairs—where every guest slept. Lucas aimed his revolver at the ceiling, listening. The steps stopped abruptly. Silence fell like a blade.

And then—three heavy knocks rattled the inn’s front door.

Lucas moved to it, revolver steady. “Who’s there?”

No answer. Only the wind.

He pulled the door open. The street beyond was empty, rain falling in silver threads through the mist. But at his feet lay something small and sodden.

A bundle of white lilies, wilted and dripping with rainwater. Around their stems was tied a strip of scorched velvet.

Lucas crouched, touching the fabric. It reeked faintly of smoke. Burnt, long ago. The color—once crimson—was nearly black.

From the shadows across the street, a boy’s voice cut through the rain. “Detective…”

Thomas, the station boy, stood half-hidden near a lamppost, his eyes wide, face pale as chalk. “She knows you have it. Eveline.”

Lightning cracked across the sky, and in its brief flash Lucas saw it—high in the distance, Ravenwood Palace silhouetted against the storm, its windows lit with a faint red glow as though fire still licked its halls.

The glow vanished with the thunder, leaving only darkness.

Lucas closed the door and bolted it. He pocketed the charred velvet, the revolver still in his other hand.

The bells tolled one last time.

Then silence claimed the village again.

Sleep did not come easily to Lucas Blackwood. When it did, it came only as a punishment.

That night, after the bells, after the lilies on the doorstep, he lay in the narrow bed of the inn, revolver at arm’s reach on the nightstand. Rain rattled the shutters. The fire had burned down to its last embers.

And then, as it always did, the dream came.

He stood in a corridor of endless shadow. The walls bled with water, streaked with soot. His boots echoed hollowly with each step, though no floor seemed to exist beneath them. And always—always—he heard her.

“Lucas…”

His sister’s voice. Evelyn Blackwood. Twelve years old the night she vanished.

She would appear at the far end of the hall, hair loose about her face, white nightdress scorched at the hem. Her eyes were wide, pleading. He would run toward her—he always ran—but the distance never closed. She lifted a hand, reaching. Flames burst from the walls, swallowing her in a roar of fire.

Every time, Lucas shouted her name. Every time, the smoke choked it from his throat.

And every time, she was gone.

He woke with his heart hammering, the sheets damp with sweat, the taste of ash bitter on his tongue. The room was silent but for the slow tick of rain on the window. He sat up, dragging a hand over his face, the scar on his jaw burning with phantom heat.

It had been fifteen years since Evelyn disappeared. Fifteen years since the fire that devoured their family home outside of Holloway. The officials had called it an accident. Neighbors whispered it was something darker. Lucas never stopped searching for the truth. But all he ever found were locked doors, burnt ruins, and the same dream waiting for him each night.

And now—Anna Fletcher. A woman swallowed by a palace, by whispers of a mistress burned alive. A name almost identical to the one that haunted him: Eveline Ravenwood.

Coincidence? Lucas Blackwood didn’t believe in coincidence.

He poured whiskey into a glass with unsteady hands, staring at Anna’s notebook on the desk. The words blurred as his sister’s voice echoed again in his memory: “Find me, Lucas…”

That was why he had taken this case. Not for the coin. Not for reputation. But because somewhere, in the twisted halls of Ravenwood, in the legend of a woman consumed by fire, he felt the echo of his sister’s fate.

He would find Anna Fletcher. But deep down, he knew he was chasing Evelyn too.

The rain outside eased. For a moment, silence pressed heavy against the inn. Then, faint and distant, the bells tolled once more.

Lucas closed his eyes. This time, he didn’t hear church bells. He heard his sister screaming.