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But locks and merciless fists might.

Emrys was treating me well so far, even if he saw through my lies.

That was better than I’d hoped.

Still—trusting a man, after everything I’d been through, would be naïve. I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was a bigger game at play. I wouldn’t be a pawn this time.

He was in the greenhouse, Liang said.

Excellent.

This was my chance to explore the place alone—and perhaps even find the study he mentioned yesterday.

I took a small notebook and a pencil from the bedside table before I left.

“Useful,” I murmured, leafing through the pages.

The first ones were covered in hasty notes. The words swirled and danced before my eyes, like always when I read. My finger traced the writing, my lips moving soundlessly with each word. Some were scribbled in a shaky, frantic handwriting:

I can’t do this anymore

He will bring doom to us all

The woman in the lake took Jenny

I blinked a few times to make sure the letters weren’t deceiving me.

This manor had a mind of its own. And plenty of mysteries.

I ignored the chills running down my back and focused on my task.

Straightening the soft fabric of my dress, I headed to the door.

Time to find this greenhouse.

Daphne

The Unbidden

Just like Liang warned me, the manor had rearranged itself. My room opened onto a corridor I had never seen before. I tried to find the entrance hall from the night before, determined to search the lower floor for Emrys’s study. I needed more than postcards and drawings to bargain for my freedom.

But like in an enchanted maze, the corridors made unexpected turns, leading to bedrooms and halls I could swear had appeared from thin air. I thought my room was on the second floor, but the narrow oak walls and red-carpeted floors led me to another spiraling staircase different from the one at the entrance.

The portraits on the teal-painted walls watched me with disturbingly vivid eyes, unknown lords and ladies smirking at my confusion.

One, two, three floors down. Still no sign of sunlight.

I retraced my steps and noticed droplets of blood on the parquet floor. My blood. So if I followed it, it must lead me back to the main door.

Instead, it led me to a solid wall.

I knocked on the indigo wallpaper, pressing my face against it, trying to catch any noise from beyond. There was only the faint howling of wind through unseen corridors and, somewhere, a lonely piano melody.

“It takes you where it needs you, not where you want to be,” Liang said. Well, that wouldn’t make my task any easier.

I shrugged and followed the stairs deeper. Sunlight filtered from the bottom of the stairwell, and I rushed that way.

It took me to a sun-drenched vestibule, its glass-paned walls flooding the space with bright morning light. A solarium. The scent of warm stone, beeswax polish, and the faintest trace of citrus lingered in the air.