Twenty-four hours pass in a blur of heavy silence. One whole day is gone.
During this entire time, I do not set a single foot outside my bedroom. I order my breakfast, my lunch, and my dinner to be brought directly up to my room. When Lily carries the heavy silver trays inside, I eat in the quiet safety of my locked sanctuary.
It is a cowardly move, and I know it, but it is a necessary one. I am terrified of facing the Duchess alone while the Duke is away. Her cold glares—those sharp, analytical eyes that look right through me—are something I am completely unequipped to handle right now. I don't know what she is thinking. I don't know her past, her motives, or what kind of trap she is laying for me. In this political chessboard, I am an entirely unable person.
So, I hide. I avoid her completely. I use my bedroom as a fortress, pacing the floor, thinking hard about the family condition, and trying to piece together the rules of this frozen kingdom from the small scraps of information I have.
One day down. One more day until the Duke and Orlando return. I just have to survive the darkness of one more night behind this locked door .
The second day arrives with the exact same suffocating predictability as the first.
When the morning light creeps through the heavy velvet curtains, I don't jump out of bed with a new plan. I stay right where I am. Just like the day before, I order my breakfast, my lunch, and my dinner to be brought directly up to my room. I refuse to give the Duchess a single opportunity to catch me alone in those grand, drafty hallways.
But I am not just resting. I am desperately recycling my strategy.
Between the hours Lily drops off the silver trays and the hours the sun takes to cross the unknown sky, I search. I go through the room for a second time, then a third. I check the back of every oil painting hanging on the walls. I empty the drawers again, feeling for false bottoms with my fingertips until my skin is raw. I look through the vanity, under the rugs, and deep into the dark corners of the walk-in closet, praying that my "Office Brain" missed a hidden compartment during my first frantic search.
Nothing. The results are stubbornly, brutally the same as before.
The silence of the room seems to mock me. There are no secret records of the eight-year-old evaluation left in Elanore's bedroom. She really was a prisoner here, completely stripped of her history. I sit on the floor by the desk, my hands empty, staring at the locked door.
By the time night falls and dinner is served, the isolation begins to feel like a weight crushing my chest. I sit cross-legged on my bed, staring at the empty plate, my brain completely fried from thinking too hard. My head throbs with unanswered questions. What happened when Elanore was eight? How do I use the logic of this world to find a doorway back to my parents?
I lie down and try to close my eyes, but sleep refuses to come. I spend hours rolling back and forth in my bed, the heavy silk sheets tangling around my legs. Every time I close my eyes, I see the cold, unreadable face of the Duke and the sharp glare of the Duchess. The anxiety is a physical ache.
I roll over yet again, my eyes catching the heavy grandfather clock in the corner of the room. The hands are moving past midnight, creeping closer to the morning.
The time is running out. The Duke and Orlando are scheduled to return tomorrow, and I am standing at the exact same starting line. I have successfully avoided the Duchess's cold stares, but I haven't solved a single piece of the mystery.
As the faint light of dawn finally begins to bleed through the curtains, I pull the covers over my face, exhausted but hyper-aware. The hiding game is over. Tomorrow, the carriage wheels will roll up the driveway, and I will have to step out of this room—whether I am ready or not.
When I finally look up at the heavy grandfather clock in the corner, my eyes widen. The hands have already swept past midnight.
It is the middle of the night, and the entire mansion is dead silent. Suddenly, my stomach lets out a sharp, angry growl. Rolling around for hours has completely burned off my dinner, and now I am absolutely starving.
I creep over to my bedroom door, pressing my ear against the cold wood. Nothing. I crack it open a sliver and peek out into the hallway. The torches have been dimmed, and there isn't a single guard or maid in sight.
Everyone must be sleeping, I think, pulling my shawl tighter around my shoulders. I shouldn't wake Lily or disturb the servants just because I can't sleep. It's bad enough they have to deal with the Duchess; they don't need a midnight whim from a useless noble breaking their rest.
Deciding to handle it myself, I grab a single brass candlestick, light it from the fading embers of my fireplace, and slip out into the dark hallway.
The mansion at night feels like a cavern of shadows. My slippers make no sound against the stone floor as I navigate the winding corridors down to the grand kitchen. When I finally push the heavy wooden door open, the room is cold and empty, smelling faintly of herbs and roasted flour. I scan the counters with my candlelight until I find a plate of leftover bread, cheese, and cold sliced meat covered by a cloth.
My mouth waters. I pull up a stool and take a few quick, desperate bites right there, but the eerie silence of the dark kitchen makes the hairs on my arms stand up. It's freezing down here, I think, shivering. I should take this back to my room and eat where it's safe.
Wrapping a handful of food into a cloth napkin, I take my candle and begin the long, quiet walk back upstairs.
But as I step into the main second-floor hallway, a sound catches my ear. I freeze, holding my breath.
It's a voice. No, two voices. Low, hushed whispers vibrating through the quiet architecture of the house.
I frown and start to think, Who on earth would be having a secret discussion in the absolute middle of the night while the Duke is away? The servants have strict curfews, and the guards are stationed at the perimeter.
Curiosity overrides my fear. Gripping my candle tightly, I blow out the flame to hide my presence, letting the faint moonlight guide my steps. I follow the low, rhythmic murmur down the corridor, stepping closer and closer to the shadows. Someone is plotting something in the dark, and I am going to find out exactly who it is.
The sound is coming from the upstairs.
I press myself against the cold stone wall of the hallway to follow the voices. But the wood is too thick, and the hallway is too wide. No matter how hard I listen, the words bleed together into unrecognizable shapes. I can tell they are discussing something intense, something hidden, but I can't catch a single solid detail.
I stand there in the pitch black, my heart hammering against my ribs, desperate to know their discussion. I ask myself, should I go to the upstairs? What if it's a trap? What if I cause another problem because of my curiosity. No, Sara don't be so pessimistic. Let's find it out what's going on. I take the stairs and start to follow the voice meticulously.
A midnight snack has turned into a midnight investigation, but the truth remains just out of reach. Who are the mysterious persons talking in that locked room, and what are they hiding in the dead of night? Will this secret discussion make Sara's position in the house even more dangerous, or will they plan something that traps her completely?
What else is lingering in the darkness of this mansion? What new trouble is waiting patiently in the shadows for Sara to take one wrong step?
Let's reveal it all in the next chapter. Stay with us to find out the answers!