Chapter 1: The Journeys Dawn
The carriage jolted, slamming Eleanor’s shoulder against the frame. A fine spray of cold mud speckled the window.
“I swear, if this driver hits one more pothole, I’m going to walk.” Clarissa held onto the ceiling strap, her knuckles white. “And I will make him carry me.”
“You’d complain about the service.” Eleanor peered through the grimy glass. The world outside was a watercolor of grey: grey sky, grey road, grey stone walls hemming in fields of dead, grey grass. It smelled of damp wool, old leather, and the faint, sharp ozone that always clung to Clarissa after spellwork.
“I’m entitled to complain. We’re paying him enough.” Clarissa released the strap and fidgeted with the silver bangle on her wrist, a nervous habit. “How much farther?”
“The mile marker said two. So, close.” Eleanor kept her voice steady. She pulled the heavy folder from her satchel, the one they’d compiled over three frantic weeks. Newspaper clippings, obituaries, the original academic circular from the University of Harlan announcing the “Walluchian Crypt” discovery. And the personnel log. Julia Belmont. Tera Renard. Alia Vance. Sofia Prentiss. Four names, four experienced archivists and field agents from the Order of the Dawn Sisterhood. Dispatched to catalog and secure the site.
Four women who walked into that crypt a month ago.
None had walked out.
No bodies. No signs of struggle. Just silence, then the sealed report from the University, calling it a “tragic collapse” and a “closed matter.” The Order’s internal investigation had been hushed, then halted. That was the smell that had led Eleanor and Clarissa here, more than the mystery. The reek of a cover-up.
“Read it to me again,” Clarissa said, staring out at the passing gloom. “The last communique.”
Eleanor didn’t need the paper. She’d memorized it. The telegram, paid for from Julia’s own pocket, sent to a non-Order friend who had the sense to bring it to them. She recited the words flatly. “Site is mis-categorized. It is not a crypt. It is a residence. She is awake. Tell the Sisters not to send—” The message cut off mid-sentence. The telegraph office in the nearby village confirmed the line had gone dead for twelve minutes after sending.
“A residence,” Clarissa repeated, her voice hollow. “Not a tomb. She is awake.”
The word she hung in the air, thicker than the carriage dust. The circular had described Baron Viktor Walluch, a fourteenth-century noble with a penchant for occult experimentation. There was no “she” in any official record.
The carriage slowed, then lurched to a stop. The driver’s heavy bootsteps crunched on the wet gravel, and his face, red and whiskered, appeared at the window. “Road’s blocked ahead, miss. Fallen tree. This is far as I go.”
Eleanor shared a look with Clarissa. Convenient. “How far to the crypt site?”
The driver jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Through that copse, maybe a ten-minute walk. You sure you want to go up there? Place has a bad feel. Locals won’t touch it.”
“We’re sure,” Clarissa said, flashing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She handed him the fare plus a significant extra coin. “Wait for us. We may be a few hours.”
His expression said he thought they were mad, but the money was good. “I’ll be here ’til dusk. Not a minute later.”
They gathered their kits: leather bags stocked with salt, iron, blessed chalk, vials of holy water, a compact spirit-box, and Clarissa’s prized possession—a pre-Schism revolver with silver-etched chambers loaded with rock salt and hawthorn. Modern problems sometimes required arcane solutions.
The air outside was biting, tasting of leaf rot and deep, cold earth. The copse was a skeletal handful of oak trees, their branches clawing at the low cloud cover. There was no path, just a muddy incline littered with broken shale. Their boots sank with every step.
“So,” Clarissa puffed, hauling herself over a moss-slick boulder.“Plan. We document everything. Photographs, sketches. We look for their equipment, any traces. We do not, under any circumstances, go inside unless we have a very, very good reason.”
“Like a cry for help?”
“That would qualify. A whisper would not.”
They crested the rise and the land fell away into a shallow, bowl-shaped valley. And there it was.
The Walluchian Crypt wasn’t imposing. That was the first wrong thing. It was a low, domed structure of fitted black stone, half-sunken into the hillside like a rotten tooth. The entrance was a simple archway, the door long gone, leaving a mouth of absolute darkness. No grand columns, no carvings. Just a quiet, hungry void. A makeshift barrier of fresh, yellow police tape stretched across the entrance, fluttering limply in the breeze. It looked absurd, like trying to hold back the tide with a piece of string.
Scattered around the entrance were the echoes of the Sisterhood’s work: a tipped-over tripod, its brass legs caked in mud. A shattered dark lantern. A heavy canvas tent, collapsed and torn. An open steamer trunk spilled its contents—neatly labeled specimen jars, a geologist’s hammer, bundled parchment.
“They left in a hurry,” Eleanor whispered.
“Or something made them leave.” Clarissa moved forward, her revolver held low at her side. Her usual levity was gone, replaced by a predatory stillness.
They approached the campsite. Eleanor knelt by the trunk. The jars were empty, their lids carefully unscrewed and set aside. Not smashed. Emptied. The parchment was blank, every page devoid of the meticulous notes Julia Belmont was famous for. She picked up a leather-bound journal. The pages were fused together, warped as if by tremendous damp, but the air was dry. She prised a page apart. The ink had bled into a uniform, inky blackness.
“It’s all gone,” Eleanor said. “Every record.”
Clarissa was by the tent. She used the barrel of her gun to lift the canvas flap. “Eleanor.”
Inside, laid out with a chilling neatness on top of four bedrolls, were the personal effects of the missing sisters. Julia’s distinctive horn-rimmed glasses. Tera’s silver locket with the portrait of her daughter. Alia’s carved pipe. Sofia’s brass knitting needles. Each item was pristine, placed with care.
“It’s a display,” Clarissa breathed. “They’re trophies.”
A cold deeper than the winter air seeped into Eleanor’s bones. This was not the scene of an accident. This was a statement.
A soft sound broke the silence. A hum. It was low, melodic, coming from the crypt entrance. It sounded like a woman, absentmindedly humming an old tune. The melody was unfamiliar, mournful and sweet.
Clarissa raised her revolver, aiming at the darkness. Eleanor stood, her hand going to the vial of holy water at her belt.
From the blackness within the archway, a shape resolved. Not a monster. A woman.
She stood just inside the threshold, where the shadows began. She looked to be in her late twenties, with pale skin and dark hair flowing over the shoulders of a simple, wine-red dress that was distinctly not fourteenth-century. Her features were sharp, intelligent. She regarded them with a curious tilt of her head.
“More visitors?” Her voice was clear, pleasant. “How lovely. I am Camilla.”
Eleanor’s breath caught. The resident. Awake.
Clarissa didn’t lower her gun. “Where are the women who came before us?”
Camilla’s smile was gentle, almost pitying. “They became… distracted. The past can be so absorbing, don’t you find? It has a way of insisting you stay.” She took a single step forward, her foot crossing from shadow into the weak grey light. “You’ve come such a long way. You must be tired. Would you like to see? It’s really quite fascinating inside.”
Her eyes held Eleanor’s. They were a deep, liquid brown. For a moment, the cold, the fear, the mud, all of it seemed to fade. There was only that calming voice, that welcoming smile. A part of Eleanor wanted nothing more than to set down her heavy bag, to step forward, to finally understand what had happened here.
Clarissa’s sharp intake of breath was like a pinprick. “El. Her shadow.”
Eleanor blinked, forcing her gaze downward. The low winter sun cast a long, stark shadow from the archway. But Camilla, standing in the light, cast none. The ground at her feet was bare.
The humming began again, this time from behind them. Eleanor turned.
At the edge of the copse, between the trees, stood four figures in the simple grey field-dresses of the Order. Julia, Tera, Alia, Sofia. Their faces were serene, blank. They stood perfectly still, watching. Their mouths were slightly open, and from them, in unison, spilled that same, sweet, mournful hum.
Camilla’s smile widened, revealing nothing sharp, nothing monstrous. It made it worse. “Don’t worry,” she said softly, taking another step towards them. “There’s plenty of room.”