Chapter 1
Ivy
The Atlantic intended to swallow me.
I stood waist-deep in water black as obsidian, the hem of my nightgown plastered to my thighs like a second, colder skin. Pre-dawn light had yet to break the horizon. Instead, the sky hung thick and suffocating, a heavy grey hand pressed over the mouth of the world. Each wave struck my ribs with the force of a blow, the salt-spray numbing my skin until I was nothing but a hollow ache.
I took another step.
The rocks beneath my bare feet were treacherous, slick with dark algae and sharp barnacles. My toes had long since gone silent, the nerves deadened by the brine. The numbness climbed my calves, a beautiful, terrifying frost that promised to turn my blood to ice.
Another step.
The nightgown billowed around my hips, a heavy shroud of wet cotton. It tangled between my legs, dragging me down toward the silt. The thought of surrender tasted like copper in my mouth. It would be effortless to stop. No more fighting the current, no more forcing air into lungs that felt like they were filled with crushed glass.
I didn’t want to die. I simply needed to know if I still had the spark required to survive. I wanted to see if my body would betray the slow rot of my soul and fight to stay above the surface.
The next wave rose like a wall.
It slammed into my chest, knocking the world sideways. My footing vanished. For one weightless moment, the ocean claimed me. Saltwater flooded my nose and throat, a roar of silence filling my ears. The cold was a physical weight, pinning me to the floor of the sea.
Brutal fingers clamped around my arm.
I surfaced gasping, a broken sound tearing from my throat as I choked on the brine. The grip on my elbow was iron, bruising the skin as I was jerked backward through the surf. I thrashed against the intrusion, my heels scraping over the jagged stones.
“Let go!” I found my voice, though it was thin and brittle.
“Stop fighting me,” a voice rasped. It was low, rough, and familiar.
“I said let go.”
“Not until you’re on the sand.”
I planted my feet, trying to wrench free, but the hands moved with predatory speed. He caught me around the waist, hoisting me clear of the water. I was carried like driftwood through the shallows, the ocean receding in a hiss of foam.
My feet hit the sand. He released me instantly.
I stumbled, catching my breath as I spun around to face him.
Raith stood three feet away, his silhouette a dark tear in the morning mist. Water streamed from his work jacket, the fabric soaked to a heavy black. His hair was plastered to his forehead, drips of seawater trailing down his jaw. He watched me with a gaze that held no pity, only a hard, grey stillness that made my pulse jump.
“What were you doing?” he asked. His voice was flat, stripped of everything but the demand for truth.
I wrapped my arms around myself, but the tremors were already taking hold. My teeth chattered, a rhythmic clicking I couldn’t stop.
“Testing something.”
“Testing what?”
I looked away, unable to meet that ocean-grey stare. The cold had its teeth in me now, biting deep into my marrow. I glanced toward the treeline. The spruce and pine stood like sentinels, dark and impenetrable. He had been there. Watching.
“How long were you there?” I managed to whisper.
“Long enough.”
He didn’t move to help me. He didn’t offer a coat. He simply stood there, an anchor in the shifting fog.
“I’m going back,” I said.
I started toward the house, my numb feet stumbling over the pebbles. He fell into step beside me, a silent, heavy presence. I wanted to scream at him to leave, to go back to his tools and his solitude, but my lungs wouldn’t cooperate. The shaking had spread to my core, leaving me feeling unmoored inside my own skin.
We crossed the dead grass of the lawn. The estate rose ahead of us, a three-story monument to decay. The weathered clapboards and rotting Victorian trim sagged under the weight of a century. The house didn’t look like a home; it looked like a cage, a place where the air was too thin to breathe.
Halfway across the grass, Raith stopped.
I followed his line of sight.
Up on the third floor, a single window glowed. Graham sat there in his wheelchair, his figure a motionless shadow against the light. He was looking down at us. At the groundskeeper who had just pulled his wife from the sea.
He was watching. He was calculating.
My stomach turned.
Raith took a deliberate step back, the distance between us opening like a canyon. The heat of his body vanished, replaced by the biting wind.
“Your husband is awake,” he said.
I couldn’t look away from the window. Even from this distance, I could feel the cold precision of Graham’s gaze. He wouldn’t yell. He wouldn’t demand answers. He would simply file the image away, another piece of data to be used when the time was right.
“Mrs. Ashford.” Raith’s voice was formal now, the rough edges smoothed into a servant’s mask. “Go inside. Get warm.”
I nodded, though my legs felt like lead.
The shadow in the window moved, retreating into the darkness of the study. The light remained, a lone eye watching the world.
“Go,” Raith repeated. “I’ll finish the dock.”
He turned toward the water without looking back. I watched the trail of wet grass he left behind, his shoulders set in a line of rigid defiance.
The house loomed. I forced my feet to climb the porch steps. The brass knob was a block of ice against my palm. I turned it, the hinges groaning in protest.
I stepped inside, and the house swallowed me whole.
