//CLARA//
The attic of the Vanderbilt's manor was a personal insult to my skincare routine.
"A weekend in Mykonos, Clara! White sand, cerulean water, and the content for our collab would have been literal perfection!" Lola's voice vibrated through my AirPods, sounding like she was broadcasting from a much happier planet. "It's a tax write-off with a tan, babe. That's what you're trading for... what did you call it? A graveyard for moths?"
I wiped a streak of soot off my cheek with the back of a lavender latex glove, staring at the suffocating piles of sheet-draped furniture.
"I know, Lola. Don't rub it in. I lost a bet to the one woman on earth I can't bribe or block. You know, my mother? She had a contract with notary seal. I oversee the archival clearing of this dump, or she freezes my trust fund until I'm thirty. That's Old Money bitch. It's clearly a hostage situation."
"So you're really choosing dust mites over Dionysus?"
"I only trust money in this world, Lola. You know that."
I kicked a stack of moth-eaten Persian rugs, my limited-edition Golden Goose sneakers leaving a footprint in a century's worth of grime.
"I'm not risking my stake in the beauty empire for a weekend of Greek yogurt and yacht parties. I'll call you when I've survived the first layer of soot."
I disconnected the call, the silence of the attic rushing back in. It was a cavernous, eerie space, the air thick with the smell of stagnant time and decaying fabric. Shafts of gray light cut through the gloom, illuminating mountains of furniture that looked like a silent council of judgmental ghosts.
I moved toward the back of the attic, where the shadows seemed to pool like spilled ink. I was supposed to be cataloging historically significant items, but all I'd found so far were broken rocking chairs and portraits of men who looked like they'd died of indigestion.
Then, my shoe caught on a loose floorboard.
Crrr-ack.
"My God, no!" I gasped, a theatrical wail tearing from my throat. "I swear, if there is a single scuff on my shoes, I am suing this entire county!"
I dropped to my knees, frantic to inspect the damage to the leather. But as I leaned in, my flashlight beam caught a glint of something tucked beneath the splintered wood. My brain battled over whether to ignore it, but curiosity was always my most expensive trait.
I pried it up.
It was a leather-bound diary. The edges were charred, as if someone had tried to commit it to a fire that refused to consume it. When I picked it up, a scent exploded into the air, not the smell of rot, but a cloying, haunting aroma of crushed gardenias and dried ink.
Property of Eleanor Thorne. 1879.
The date sent a chill through me. I flipped a page, my eyes landing on handwriting that was elegant but frantic, the ink bleeding into the paper.
'Dearest Secret, It is a sin to write this. It is an even greater sin to feel it. But I cannot hold it within myself any longer. His name is Casimir. He is my step-uncle. My ruin.'
My eyebrows shot up. "Her what? Oh, Great-Grandma, you were messy."
I sank onto the top step of the attic stairs, the world narrowing to the beam of my flashlight and the frantic words in my hand. The entries were a fever dream of 1879. The sudden orphanhood after a shipwreck in the Atlantic, the gilded cage of a Fifth Avenue mansion, and the crushing pressure to be a demure lady.
And then, the final entry. The ink was blurred, perhaps by water. Or tears.
'Forgive me, dear Lord, for I cannot bear the winter he condemned me to. And forgive me, my Casimir, for loving you only in whispers, when I should have loved you in thunder.'
"No," I whispered, my throat tight. "You beautiful, brilliant idiot. You ended everything for a man? Where's the feminism?"
But the ache in the words hollowed me out. My thumb unconsciously brushed over that final sentence.
Suddenly, a high-pitched ring pierced my ears. The world around me warped, the gray light of the attic turning into a blinding, iridescent mist. My phone slipped from my hand, the screen shattering against the wood. A final, digital death rattle.
The world tilted, and I was sucked into a vacuum of cold, dark silk.
*****
My consciousness returned like a sledgehammer to the skull.
My head was pounding with a brutal ache. And my body... what was wrong with my body? It felt vacuum-sealed. My ribs were being squeezed by something rigid and unforgiving. I tried to gasp, but the air was still and heavy, smelling of beeswax and old roses.
Panic sliced through the fog. I forced my eyes open, bracing for the attic rafters. Instead, my vision filled with opulence. Dark, carved wood. A ceiling lost in shadow. The light was all wrong. A soft, flickering amber glow coming from... gas lamps.
I looked down. No leggings. No lavender gloves. I was trussed up in a fabric so heavy and itchy it could probably stop a bullet. My hair felt like a five-pound weight on my head, piled in an intricate, braided mess.
"—fainted dead away after the solicitor left, poor lamb," a woman's voice whispered nearby. "The shock must have been too much."
"Leave us."
That voice. It was low, gravelly, and carried a weight of authority that didn't invite argument. It was a voice that belonged to a man who owned empires.
I turned my head, every muscle protesting, as a man moved into my line of sight.
He was impossibly tall, dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit that seemed to absorb the weak light. His hair was swept back from a high forehead, his jawline sharp enough to cut glass. But it was his eyes that stopped my heart. They were the color of a winter sea, stormy, gray, and utterly merciless.
He studied me for a long, silent moment, his expression a mask of cold indifference.
"Eleanor."
My brain stalled. Eleanor?
That was my great-grandmother's name. Why was this Victorian model calling me that?
A jolt of pure electricity shot through my system as the pieces clicked together. The diary. The scent. The man. I craned my neck, looking up at him as the sheer gravity of his presence sucked the oxygen from the room.
"Don't tell me," I croaked, startled by my own suddenly melodic and high-pitched voice. "You're Casimir?"
The man's eyes narrowed, a flash of genuine, unfiltered shock crossing his stony features. He stepped closer, leaning over me until I was completely trapped in his shadow.
"Did you hit your head too hard, Eleanor?" he rasped. "Or did it finally scrambled what little sense you had left?"
What the hell? Am I inside the diary?
And the man looking down at me was supposed to be the hero.
No. He was the villain.