Page 38 of Monsters' Manor

I don’t know what my future looks like, if it will be here or back in the mundane world. I can’t make any promises or commitments right now, and it would be unfair of me to expect Silas would want to, either, when he’s well aware there are no guarantees with me.

With all that in mind, maybe I can just let it go for now. Enjoy this. Do exactly what he says and take all the time I need to decide.

“Alright,” I say softly, laying back down and deciding to set it all aside for now.

Silas curls around me, folding me into him once more. There are no more words between us, nothing but the soft rasp of our shared breath and the weight of all those questions, the faint silver light of the moon and the gentle dark of his shadows.

12

I wake alone the next morning, with only the ghost of Silas’s magick on my skin to remind me he was here at all.

I don’t know when he slipped out, and as I get up, shower, and dress for the day, it’s with a strange heaviness in the bottom of my stomach over how we ended our conversation last night.

I’m not really sure how to feel about any of it.

The dark, stirring intimacy Silas and I shared, and how he pulled away after.

The fact that I’m not his anchor, and likely won’t ever be.

Everything I learned about him and Renwick, and their falling out when the demon wasn’t his anchor, either.

And that’s not even the end of my worries.

Because as I step outside, lock the door behind me, and make my way down the forest path toward the Acres, I know there’s another tough conversation waiting for me.

It’s a conversation that involves a demon and an apology and a whole lot of eating crow for how badly I overreacted yesterday.

Approaching the front gates, I spot Howard speaking with another of the gargoyles. I catch his eye, and he greets me with a wide, stony smile.

“Hey Howard,” I say, returning his smile. “Have you seen Renwick?”

Howard nods toward the manor. “Saw him heading inside earlier. He’s probably in the Parlor.”

Lucifer’s Parlor, Renwick’s signature set.

After thanking him, I walk up to the manor with my heart lodged in my throat. My father brought me here once when I was little—not when the nightly haunting was in full swing, but just to walk through and see the place—and I haven’t stepped foot inside since.

A wave of prickling magick breaks across my skin as I step up the wide front stairs onto the sweeping wrap-around porch.

It’s familiar magick. Bramwell magick. Odelia and my father’s magick.

My magick.

Generations of it hum from the grounds of Edgar’s Acres, all coalescing here at the manor and in the labyrinth below. Wards and enchantments and layers of spellwork that reach out like they’re beckoning me inside.

It’s not exactly a comfortable feeling, but as I grasp the door’s handle it’s not repulsive, either. It’s tentative, searching, like the house and I are sizing each other up, deciding if this relationship is going to be cordial or adversarial.

Probably a bit insane, actually, to be thinking that way about an inanimate structure, but nothing about the manorfeelsinanimate as I let myself inside.

No, from where I stand the manor is living, breathing, watching. An entity unto itself.

The worn black floorboards creak lightly underfoot as I cross the threshold. Above, an ornate, unlit chandelier hangs artfully draped in cobwebs, and when I take a few more slow steps into the room, I swear the antique Bramwell family portraits on the wall are watching me. Maybe they’re judging, too, deciding whether I’m worthy of this place.

“What are you doing in here?”

Margot’s voice cuts through the entryway. Startled, I turn to face her. I expect disapproval, irritation at me for being somewhere I’m not supposed to be, but instead find her watching me curiously, head tilted to one side.

“Looking for Renwick,” I say. “I’m supposed to be training with him, and Howard let me know he was in the Parlor.”

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