The door creaked open without ceremony.
Mr. Crowhurst did not speak again. He merely tilted his head and turned, expecting Elowen to follow without question. His black-gloved hands were folded neatly behind his back, his posture so rigid he seemed carved from the same stone as the manor.
They entered a side corridor lined with oil lamps and an unkind chill. The walls were bare, the air smelling faintly of wax and damp wool. Elowen's boots left small prints on the recently scrubbed floors as she trailed behind him.
At the first stairwell, Mr. Crowhurst paused. Without looking at her, he lifted a gloved hand and snapped his fingers once.
A servant girl appeared from a side passage—no older than sixteen, with mousy hair pulled into a tight braid and a pale face that never quite met Elowen's eyes.
"Ruth," Mr. Crowhurst said. "Show Miss Marwood to her quarters and give her the uniform. She begins at first bell."
Ruth nodded, wordless, and gestured for Elowen to follow.
As quickly as he appeared, Mr. Crowhurst vanished down the corridor, his footsteps muffled by the manor's thick silence.
Ruth led her through a maze of halls, each colder than the last. Occasionally, they passed another servant, but no one stopped to greet her. Most didn't even look up.
At last, Ruth opened a narrow wooden door near the servants' wing and stepped aside.
"This is yours."
Elowen stepped inside.
The room was small but pristine—far beyond anything she expected. A narrow bed with clean linens, a soft woolen blanket folded at its foot. A wooden chest stood near the wall, a porcelain basin rested on a small table beside an oil lamp already lit.
It was plain. But to Elowen, it might as well have been a royal suite.
Her throat tightened.
She ran a hand along the smooth edge of the blanket. No holes. No smell of mildew. The pillow looked…soft.
Ruth placed a folded gray dress and apron on the chest, then handed her a pair of thin shoes. "You'll wear this. Breakfast is at six sharp in the kitchen hall. If you're late, they won't feed you."
Elowen turned. "Thank you."
Ruth blinked, as if unsure what to do with kindness. "Don't go past the west wing," she said flatly. "Ever. And don't speak unless spoken to."
She lingered for only a second longer before closing the door behind her.
Alone, Elowen sat carefully on the edge of the bed, letting her fingers sink into the softness. A single tear escaped without permission. Not from fear. Not from grief. But from the strange comfort that this room, this bed, was kinder than anything she'd known in years.
She wiped it away quickly and stood.
There was no time to dwell. Tomorrow, the real work would begin.
She was awake before the bell tolled.
The uniform was stiff but clean. She braided her hair in silence and stepped into the corridor where other girls passed, heads bowed, hands full of linens, buckets, or trays.
No one spoke.
The kitchen was already alive with heat and shouting. Cook barked orders from near the hearth while a team of kitchen girls scrambled to prepare breakfast for both staff and residents. Elowen was handed a heel of bread, a cup of tea, and then ushered into line.
Mr. Crowhurst stood at the center of the hall, assigning duties with mechanical efficiency.
"Elowen Marwood," he called.
She stepped forward.
"You'll assist the second maid with floors and hallway upkeep. You begin outside the music room. You will not enter it."
"Yes, sir," she replied.
A nod. That was all.
The music room lay at the end of a long hall with frosted glass windows and veined marble beneath her knees. Elowen dipped her rag into the bucket and began to scrub, the cold seeping into her bones.
Time passed strangely in Blackthorne Manor.
She could feel eyes sometimes. Not always. Just now and then—a prickling sensation along her spine as though someone were watching from just out of view.
At one point, she heard the faintest sound: a piano key, struck once.
She glanced toward the tall double doors at the end of the hall. They remained shut.
A chill swept through the corridor.
She returned to her work.
Then—footsteps.
Soft, deliberate, and distant. She looked up and saw him.
A man stood on the mezzanine above, half cloaked in shadow, staring directly down at her.
Tall. Dressed in black. Eyes like polished coal and hair the color of ravens' wings.
Lord Aramis Blackthorne.
He made no move to speak. No gesture to indicate his presence was even meant to be acknowledged. He simply watched, his face unreadable.
Then, as silently as he had come, he disappeared beyond the archway.
That evening, Elowen sat at the small desk in her room, pen hovering over parchment. She wanted to write to Margaret. But what could she say?
I was watched by a ghost in the shape of a man?
The floor is cleaner than my own heart?
I slept in warmth for the first time in years?
Nothing seemed right. So she left the page blank.
Instead, she knelt beside her bed and prayed. For Mama. For Silas. For strength.
As she whispered her amen, the candle on her table flickered, though no window was open. She stared at it, uneasy.
Elsewhere, That Same Night..
In the manor's upper chamber, behind velvet curtains and locked doors, Lord Aramis Blackthorne sat alone in his study.
He held a letter not addressed to him—a goodbye note from a girl to her family, found by a servant who had seen her slip it into her satchel.
His thumb ran over the edges slowly.
He did not smile.
But the candle beside him flickered too.
And he whispered, to no one at all, "She's stronger than she looks."