Chapter 1: The Weight of an Afternoon
The afternoon sunlight slanted long and amber through the tall arched windows of the grand palace drawing room, painting long golden bars across the polished marble floor. Dust motes drifted lazily in the warm air, catching the heavy scent of wax and old stone. I sat in the low-slung velvet armchair, the leather groaning slightly beneath my weight, my fingers curled around the stems of the white daisies Jura had just placed in my palm. Their yellow centers caught the light, bright and innocent against the muted gray of my button-down shirt.
Jura stood far too close, her small hand warm and firm against my cheek. Her dark curls brushed my collar, and the pink ruffled dress she wore seemed far too festive for an ordinary Tuesday. When she looked into my eyes, there was no childish wandering in her gaze, only a terrible, unblinking clarity.
"You're not dying. You're just scared," she had said.
Her words hung in the quiet room long after her hand dropped away. Clara, the maid, remained frozen by the heavy mahogany doorway, her black dress and white lace apron stark against the dark wood, her fingers knotted tightly together. She had heard every syllable, yet she did not move, her breath shallow.
When Jura spoke of the man in shiny shoes coming into our rooms at night, the air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. I had dismissed my own nocturnal waking spells—the sudden chills, the faint creak of floorboards outside my threshold—as the phantom exhaustion of managing an estate far too large for any single man. But Jura did not invent terrors out of shadow; she observed them with the terrifying precision of a child who had learned early how to watch the adults around her.
"What shoes, Jura?" I asked, my voice tight, the words tasting like dry ash.
Before she could answer, the heavy footsteps in the hall announced the older man in the sharp black suit. Victor. He cast a long, lean silhouette against the bright light of the corridor, his posture immaculate, his expression an unreadable mask of polite concern.
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"Is everything quite all right in here?" Victor asked, his voice smooth as oiled brass.
I looked down at the daisies in my hand, then back to the empty doorway where Victor now stood. The golden afternoon suddenly felt very cold.
