Chapter 1
It starts like any other ordinary day—walking through the hardware store, picking up supplies. As I trek across the asphalt toward my truck, my phone rings. I pull it from my pocket. Withheld Number.
"Hello, Ren Refurbishing, how can I help you?" I answer, my voice more upbeat than I’ve felt in months.
The voice that replies is low, harsh, and carries a razor-sharp edge. "I need Benny to come do some work for me. Right away."
Great. Another one of my dad’s old contacts he probably upset before he passed. "I'm sorry, but Benny passed away last year. I’m Ren, his daughter. I’ve taken over the business. Can I help at all?"
A deathly silence follows. Then, a growl of genuine annoyance vibrates through the speaker. "Fine," the mystery caller finally snaps. "You will have to do. There is much to be done. Payment is £30,000. Come now and I will show you. I am texting the address."
The line goes dead before I can even blink.
I stare at the screen, heart hammering. That kind of money doesn't just "happen" in this trade. It’s life-changing. It's debt-clearing. It's also suspicious as hell. But curiosity is a powerful drug, and I’m already punching the address into my sat nav.
The drive takes me further out than I expected. The city noise fades, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that seems to swallow the sound of my engine. As I pull up, the air smells of ozone and damp earth—the kind of stillness that precedes a massive storm.
My father always said that some houses have heartbeats, but this one has a snarl.
Standing at the towering, rusted gates of Thornhall, my tool belt feels like a lead weight against my hip. I took over Dad's business to keep his legacy alive, but this job is different. The pay is high enough to wipe my debts, but the atmosphere is low enough to chill my blood.
Then, the front doors swing open without a touch.
He stands in the deep shadows of the foyer—Caspian. He doesn't look like a client; he looks like a warning. Silver hair, eyes like a winter storm, and a presence that makes the air in my lungs turn to ice.
"You're late," he rasps, his gaze tracing the line of my throat as if he’s looking for a pulse.
I grip my drill case tighter, refusing to let him see my hands shake. "And you're lucky I showed up at all. Now, do you want to show me what needs doing, or are we just going to stand here and talk about the time?"
He steps into the light, a dangerous smirk tugging at his lips. "I am Caspian. And time is a luxury you're already wasting, Ren." He says my name like it’s a word he’s tasting, and I don't like it. Not one bit. "Follow. And do not touch anything that hasn't been assigned to you."
He turns on a heel, his long coat swirling like a shadow, and leads me deeper into the gut of the house. The air inside is even colder than the yard. It smells of old parchment and something metallic—like blood or rusted iron.
"The downstairs parlour," he says, gesturing to a massive set of oak doors. They are hanging off their hinges, the wood splintered as if something incredibly strong tried to kick its way out. "I want these boarded up. Solid oak, reinforced with steel plating. No gaps. No light."
"Boarded up?" I ask, stepping over a pile of debris. "Usually, people want their doors fixed so they actually open."
"I am not 'usually people,'" he snaps, turning to glare at me. "Then the windows. Every frame in the west wing is rotted. I want them re-framed with reinforced casing. Security glass only. If a breeze can get through, you’ve failed."
We move into the hallway, and the floorboards beneath my boots groan—not a normal wood-groan, but a low, vibrating sound that feels like a warning. Caspian points to a section of the floor where the wood has turned a bruised, oily black.
"The rot is spreading," he says, his voice dropping to a low hiss. "Rip it out. Replace the joists. If the foundation is compromised, the whole structure will wake up."
"Wake up?" I stop dead, looking at the back of his silver head. "Houses don't wake up, Caspian. They settle. They sag. They don't wake up."
He stops and turns slowly, his eyes locking onto mine with a terrifying intensity. "This one does. Your father understood that. He knew that a house like Thornhall is a cage, and cages require constant maintenance."
He leads me further down the primary artery of the house. The hallway seems to stretch, the proportions shifting just enough to make my head swim. He stops at a door wrapped in heavy iron bands—completely out of place for a Victorian-era manor. When he pushes it open, the air that hits me doesn't smell like dust; it smells like a thunderstorm.
This isn’t a study; it’s a laboratory for a madman.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves are packed with leather-bound books, but interspersed between them are humming brass canisters and flickering glass tubes that seem to belong in a pre-war bunker. In the centre of the room sits a massive mahogany desk, and behind it, a window that should look out onto the garden. Instead, it shows nothing but a swirling, charcoal-grey mist.
"The frame is buckling," Caspian says, ignoring the impossible view. "The glass is cracking under the pressure from the... outside. If that pane shatters, this room—and everything in it—will be lost."
I walk toward the window, my boots clicking on the cold stone floor. As I get closer, I see something that stops my heart. Tucked into the corner of the window frame is a small, brass shim—a trick my dad used to level out uneven surfaces. It’s stamped with a tiny 'B'.
My breath hitches. He was here. And he wasn't just fixing skirting boards.
"My father worked on this window," I say, my finger trailing over the brass.
Caspian appears behind me, his reflection in the cracked glass looking more like a ghost than a man. "Benny was an artist of boundaries. He understood that a window in Thornhall isn't for looking at the scenery. It is a seal. He promised me it would hold for a decade." He tilts his head, a silver lock of hair falling over his wintry eyes. "He was off by three years. I expect your work to be more... permanent."
I look at the hairline fractures spidering across the glass. Outside, something dark and massive shifts in the mist, pressing against the pane. The glass groans.
"Thirty thousand isn't enough," I whisper, the reality of the situation finally sinking in.
"Then take forty," Caspian rasps, leaning in until I can smell the scent of cedar and old cold on his skin. "But if that glass breaks while you’re on the clock, Ren, you won't live long enough to spend a single penny of it."
He turns and walks out, leaving the door standing open—an invitation and a threat all wrapped into one. I stand there in the hum of the strange machines, clutching my drill case, looking at my father's mark.
I’m not just a builder anymore. I’m a jailer. And the house is starting to growl.
