Chapter 1

I knelt, pressing my fingers against the warped oak. The board gave way with a groan, revealing a dark void beneath. My heart hammered against my ribs, but my hand moved of its own accord, pulling the lantern closer. The light spilled down into a narrow staircase, the steps slick with moisture. I should have called for someone. I should have walked away. But I was a cartographer—I needed to see the shape of the thing, to understand its boundaries.

I descended. The steps ended in a low-ceilinged cellar, and the lantern revealed a sight that stopped my breath. Bodies. Dozens of them, stacked like cordwood against the stone walls. Their faces were pale, waxen masks, frozen in expressions of surprise or agony. The stench was a physical weight, pressing against my lungs. I stumbled back, my mind refusing to process what my eyes saw. I counted—thirteen, fourteen, fifteen—and then I stopped. There were too many. Too many faces I didn't recognize, too many questions that I didn't want to ask.

I ran. I bolted up the stairs, slammed the board back into place, and leaned against the wall, gasping. My hands shook as I brushed the dust from my trousers. I told myself I would report it. I told myself I would call the authorities. But the words caught in my throat. The estate had been in my family for generations. My grandfather, my father, and now me—we were the keepers of its secrets. If anyone knew what lay beneath, it would ruin us. It would ruin me.

So I kept quiet. I sealed the basement in my mind, the same way I sealed the floorboard with a fresh coat of varnish. But the smell lingered, a phantom in the corridors, and so did the guilt.

Three days passed. I buried myself in my work, tracing lines on parchment, trying to lose myself in the precision of contours and elevations. But my friends noticed. Seraphina, sharp-eyed as always, caught me staring blankly at a map of the southern marshes. ‘You’ve been distracted,’ she said, setting a cup of tea on my desk. ‘More than usual. What’s happened?’

I forced a smile. ‘Nothing. Just tired.’

She didn’t believe me. I could see it in the way her eyes narrowed, the way she tilted her head like a bird of prey. Seraphina was a journalist—she had a nose for lies. ‘You’re hiding something, Elias. I know you too well.’

‘It’s the estate records,’ I lied. ‘I’ve been trying to reconcile the old maps with the new surveys. It’s tedious.’

She let it drop, but I felt her gaze follow me as I left the room.

The next day, Arthur Pendelton came by. He was always too charming, too polished, with a smile that never quite reached his eyes. ‘Jisoo,’ he said, leaning against the doorframe of my study. ‘I hear you’ve been holed up in here for days. People are starting to talk.’

‘Let them talk.’ I didn’t look up from my work.

‘They say you’ve found something interesting in the old wing. A secret passage, perhaps?’

My hand stilled. ‘There are no secret passages.’

‘Of course not.’ He laughed, but it was hollow. ‘I’m just curious. A cartographer’s curiosity, you understand.’

I understood too well. Arthur had always resented my reputation. He wanted my position, my legacy, and he would use any excuse to tear me down. If he discovered what I had seen, he would not hesitate to destroy me.

I waited until he left, then I locked the door and pressed my forehead against the cool oak. The image of those bodies burned behind my eyelids. Who were they? How had they died? And why were they in my basement?

The questions gnawed at me, but fear kept my mouth shut.

On the fifth day, Detective Harding arrived. He was a stoic man with weary eyes and a methodical manner. He introduced himself as the lead investigator on a missing persons case. Three locals had disappeared over the past month, and the trail had led to my estate. ‘We have reason to believe they may have been in this area,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘I’d like to search the grounds.’

My stomach dropped. ‘Of course,’ I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands. ‘I’ll show you around myself.’

I led him through the gardens, the stables, the empty cottages. I kept him far from the old wing. But Seraphina appeared, as if summoned by my anxiety. ‘Detective,’ she said, falling into step beside him. ‘I’ve been looking into the disappearances. There’s a pattern—they all vanished near the estate’s northern boundary.’

Harding frowned. ‘You’re a journalist, aren’t you?’

‘I’m a friend of the family. I want to help.’

I watched them talk, a cold knot forming in my chest. Seraphina was too good at her job. She would find the truth, whether I wanted her to or not.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I paced my room, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet. The smell had returned, stronger than ever, seeping through the cracks. I pressed a handkerchief to my nose and tried to think. I could confess. I could tell Harding everything. But what would happen then? I would be a suspect. My reputation would be destroyed. The estate would be seized.

Or I could keep hiding. I could seal the basement forever, pretend I never saw it. But the bodies were real. The missing people were real. And my silence made me complicit.

A knock at my door made me jump. ‘Jisoo?’ Seraphina’s voice, soft and insistent. ‘I know you’re awake. Open up.’

I hesitated, then unlatched the door. She stood in the hallway, wrapped in a shawl, her face pale in the lamplight. ‘I found something,’ she said. ‘In the old wing. A loose floorboard, freshly varnished.’

My blood ran cold.

‘What’s under it, Jisoo?’

I opened my mouth to lie, but the words wouldn’t come. The smell seemed to rise around us, thick and accusing. And in that moment, I knew that my secret was no longer mine alone.