CHAPTER FOUR
The manor house was a three-floor Tudor-ish abode with tall, narrow paned windows. It had been built from stone and heavy timbers, no doubt provided by the local scenery, and age and weather had dulled the colors. Vines crept up its walls and covered more than half the home in a twisted mess of dead and living plants. A solitary light shone through one of those windows on the bottom floor and to the left.
Nobody was about and the area was as quiet as a grave, and yet the gates swung inward. They groaned on their rusted hinges and even Ferox hesitated to enter. A light crack of the reins urged him forward and he trotted through the gates. His hoofs were the only sound as we approached the imperious home.
The short driveway wound its way to a circular clearing where I n
