Page 182

Once we reached the top, all the candles – and this time the flames of a large fireplace – lit up, illuminating a huge room with their pleasant warm glow.

The room consisted of two open floors, forming a kind of Victorian-style loft library.

“Your uncle seems to love secrets,” Julie murmured in awe next to Emely, whose mouth had opened slightly.

“Oh my... How old is this place?” Larissa exclaimed, then immediately began running around, touching everything she could.

I let my gaze wander around the room and tried to memorize every detail.

In addition to the two floors, which could be partially seen from down here, two black steel spiral staircases decorated with ornate Victorian floral elements led up the sides of the room to the second level, which was framed by an elegant railing.

On both levels, aisles containing rows of antique dark wood shelves – filled with elegant old books in gold-embossed leather bindings – led even further into the two separated sections of the room. Probably to more bookshelves than I could see from where I stood.

I had landed in paradise.

Upstairs, just like downstairs, the bookshelves stood side by side without a gap, reaching up to the ceiling, and even in the open front salon area of the room, you couldn't see any of the wall because – except for the window side and decorated wall recesses – it consisted entirely of bookshelves.

Massive dark pine-green curtains covered what was probably a very tall window, which I couldn't remember ever seeing from the outside of the main tower of Vanderwood.

Alarik's office was in the middle tower, where the large main entrance to Vanderwood was located, and his windows alone were huge. Above them was only... a clock.

Stunned, I stared at the curtains.

What if we were right behind the four clocks?

I stepped toward one of the two curtains, passing a grand piano made of black wood adorned with floral carvings, which unfortunately brought back memories of Julian.

In this beautiful, mysterious place, he would have had eyes only for this old, polished instrument. And he would have played. For sure...

Emely had also stopped in front of the piano, and our eyes met.

Two fools, one thought.

I walked on, toward the velvet curtains gleaming in the candlelight, pushed one of them back a little and stared up in fascination at the huge clock face – at least at the part I could see without having to pull the entire curtain away – studied the elegant ornamented steel hands and finally discovered, further behind the curtains, narrow passages with gear mechanisms that probably led around the tower to the other dials and housed the clockwork.

We were indeed inside the clock tower.

“Leave the curtains closed.”

I quickly let go of the curtain and turned to Miles, who was standing in the middle of the open area of the room, directly under a huge chandelier laden with candles.

I nodded quickly and stepped over to him to inspect the rest of the room.

Dark brown leather seating furniture stood in front of the fireplace, arranged in a square on a pretty classic Wilton carpet covering the dark brown wooden floorboards.

In the middle of the seating furniture was a knee-high wooden table with a metal relief map of Blairville inlaid into its surface, over which Julie traced her fingers.

A large, carved dining table with antique slag glass lamps and matching upholstered wooden chairs stood just before the area where the rows of books – beneath the second level supported by decorated stone columns – led deeper into the back of the room.

And then there was the fireplace with the old whiskey set. Larissa stood directly in front of it, inspecting the oil painting that hung above it.

Carefully arranged decorative elements and artefacts sat on the few elegant, lacquered dressers or between the books on the shelves: dark ceramic pieces, including a neoclassical amphora vase depicting a scene from Greek mythology, as well as several empty black basalt vases. Elaborately carved wooden caskets. A skull with carvings and a black, half-melted candle on top of it. A strange bronze contraption made of gears under a bell jar. An insect display case. And much more...

This place immediately felt pleasantly familiar, as if I had been here before, which obviously wasn't the case.

Maybe it was the combination of all the peculiar artifacts, old books, antique furniture, and dark decorative elements. A collection of my weaknesses that had almost led me to study fine arts and history, had I not been so addicted to old literature and poetry.

“1801,” Julie whispered, staring down at the map.