Whoever they were, there was no doubt that all had suffered the same fate as Seraphina.
I stepped away from the mirror, afraid to continue looking in case I saw my own face transform. Not that I was surprised. I’d become accustomed to witnessing what I once considered unbelievable or impossible. Yet I couldn't quite stem my curiosity and found myself inspecting each portrait as if seeking answers from the canvas.
The candle flames flickered though no wind touched the room.
“Help us,” came a fleeting whisper so faint I thought I’d imagined it.
My flesh began to crawl as I looked anxiously around the empty room.
“Help you from what?” I whispered.
As I blinked, the room around me seemed to shift, as if the air had thickened with a presence unseen to me. The faces in the portraits, those older, sorrowful eyes, stared back at me, their expressions frozen in time yet carrying a sense of urgency that made my skin prickle. My breath hitched as I felt a chill, the kind that doesn’t belong indoors, creeping across the back of my neck.
What the hell was that?
A low sigh whispered through the air and then the sound of breathing. It was slow and it was behind me. I turned sharply, expecting to see Cillian or Torin watching, but the room was empty. At least, it seemed to be.
I forced myself to exhale, dismissing the sensation as a trick of the mind, an echo of this strange Manor. But then, from the corner of my eye, I saw movement in one of the portraits. A figure that had been still, a woman in a dark gown, her face obscured by a veil, shifted as if she had taken a breath.
Her fingers were long and pale, emerging from the frame and reaching out with a peculiar movement, as though the painting had turned to mist beneath her touch. My heart fluttered. What the hell was this? I was frozen, caught between the instinct to flee and the dark pull that kept me rooted to the spot, eager to find out more.
“Come see,” she whispered. Her hand extended further, fingers curling in invitation, as if she were real and the space between us was merely a veil of fog. She wanted me to follow her. I tried to blink it away, but she was still there when I opened my eyes.
“You must see.” Her voice was enchanting. Fear twisted in my gut, but curiosity tugged at me even more. I needed to understand what was happening.
I took a cautious step forward, and before I knew it, her hand grasped mine. Her touch was cold, like I imagined a dead body would be. Before I could comprehend it, my feet moved of their own accord, stepping closer until the surface of the painting or whatever this was opened like a doorway, revealing a shadowy passage behind it.
With a mix of fear and curiosity, I took a shaky step forward. The world blurred around me and shifted like a kaleidoscope, caught between reality and some nightmarish realm. The air changed, and I couldn't tell if I was walking down a real hallway or if my mind was playing tricks on me. Dark shadows drifted along the walls, and I heard a faint, rhythmic sound.
Drip…drip… drip… as if some unseen liquid seeped through the cracks in the stone. What was this place, and why was I seeing it?
Then I caught a smell. Smoke. I could smell burning that made my stomach turn. What was it? The corridor stretched ahead, narrowing into darkness. I looked back over my shoulder, half-expecting the doorway to be gone, leaving me trapped in this eerie place. But the entrance was still there, and I could still see the room with the painting I had left behind.
“Come see,” the woman whispered again, pulling me forward. Her face was still obscured, her movements smooth and graceful, but there was tension in the air, a sense that she, too, feared what lay ahead.
As we continued along, shadows shifted along the walls. I took in every detail, the walls were changing, displaying symbols carved into them. They looked like constellations spiralling across the stone, star maps etched with cosmic lines, faces and eyes carved into the damp surface.
“What the hell...” I whispered, for this was beyond anything my mind could rationalise.
“Who are they?” I asked, my voice sounding more fragile than I intended.
“They are like you and me,” she replied, her tone low and sorrowful. “Touched by the curse, caught between worlds. They are what you will become if you do not break free.”
“This isn't real, no way is this real. It can't be. My stepdad was right. I'm going mad like my real dad,” I murmured, more to myself than to her. My heart pounded in my chest, a frantic rhythm echoing off the stone walls.
“What if it is real?”
The woman said nothing, but a faint laugh drifted through the air, as if the shadows themselves found humour in my thoughts of insanity. I pressed on, feeling the darkness close in around me, each step a struggle against the rising fear in my throat.
Then the screams began in the distance, they sounded human, and they were terrified.
“Stop, please, stop!
“Help me! “The voice tore through the corridor, so real it made my blood run cold. Smoke thickened, curling around my throat, choking me. “Oh God—shit—” I coughed, trying to stop it.
At the end of the corridor, a massive door loomed, its surface carved with symbols that glowed faintly with a silvery light. At its centre was a huge celestial star wheel carved from what looked like ancient gold. It looked familiar to what Cillian showed me in the Orb.The woman’s grip tightened on my hand, and she stepped closer.
“You must see what is behind the door,”
