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Previously

…But I would. Tomorrow, I decided. When the light was better and I had gathered my courage. That night, I lay in a bed that was not mine, in a room that smelled of lavender and old wood, and I listened to the house settle around me. The floorboards creaked. The wind whispered against the windows. Somewhere in the walls, a clock ticked steadily, marking time that had passed long before I arrived. I thought of Alexander Blackwood's cold eyes and his warning. I thought of my grandmother's note. And I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my bones, that I would not leave until I had found whatever it was she wanted me to see.