Rain made everything smell like regret.
Elara Dorne stood beneath a flickering streetlamp, one soggy boot in a puddle and one caffeine-deprived eye twitching as she fumbled for her apartment keys. Her umbrella had inverted three blocks ago. Her coat—technically her neighbor's, who "wasn't using it while in prison"—dripped around her like a wilting canvas tent.
Life was aggressively average, and that was a generous rating.
She finally shoved open her creaking door, stomped inside, and flung her bag onto the couch—a couch that had once tried to swallow her whole. She didn't sit. She collapsed. Back first. Arms out like a crime scene outline.
"I ghostwrite billionaire romance novels," she told the cracked ceiling. "And I haven't been paid in three weeks. I deserve a haunting."
As if summoned by spite, the lights flickered.
Twice.
She sat up slowly.
"...No."
But the wind—or perhaps something worse—slipped under the doorframe, carrying with it the faint metallic scent of iron and a single sheet of paper.
No envelope. No knock. No footsteps.
The letter slid across the floor like a living thing and stopped precisely at her feet.
"Okay," Elara muttered. "That's normal."
The paper was heavy, thick as flesh. Creamy parchment that didn't belong in this century. Her name was handwritten in blood-red ink: Miss Elara Dorne. The R was just slightly wrong—as if whoever wrote it wasn't used to Roman lettering. Or hands.
She picked it up.
The wax seal wasn't a crest.
It was a mouth.
Smirking.
"Oh absolutely not," she whispered.
But her fingers had already broken the seal.
The moment the wax cracked, the letter exhaled—yes, exhaled—and something red bubbled from the crease like the slow ooze of a wound. The ink inside shimmered, moving subtly as if alive, shifting just enough to make her dizzy when she tried to focus.
---
> To Miss Elara V. Dorne, Sole Living Heir of the Valeblood Lineage,
It is our unfortunate duty to inform you that Lord Eryx Valeblood is dead (again) and the estate of Gravemoore Hollow is now yours by ancient covenant.
Per the family pact sealed in sanguine, you are summoned to Valeblood Manor immediately. The house will collect you shortly.
Refusal is not permitted.
Inheritance is final.
You are already inside.
—Executor of the Vein, Caspian Bellgrave
---
Elara stared at the letter.
Then she looked at the walls of her apartment.
Then she looked back at the letter.
"Sorry," she said aloud, standing. "I think you've got the wrong depressed woman."
She tossed the thing in the trash and poured herself a mug of the worst instant coffee in recorded human history. When she turned back around, the letter sat on the kitchen counter.
Not wet.
Not torn.
Smiling.
Elara froze.
"Nope."
She threw it out the window.
It reappeared on the bookshelf behind her.
"I'm not doing this."
She opened the freezer, shoved it inside, and slammed it shut.
When she turned—there it was. On her pillow. With a rose beside it.
The rose bled.
Elara stared, eyes dry and wide. "I will burn you."
The letter, clearly unfazed by arson threats, changed.
The words shimmered and rearranged.
> "We warned you: you're already inside."
She backed up toward the door.
But it was gone.
Where the door once stood, only wallpaper remained—faded and patterned with roses, the same as the letter's seal.
Her fingers trembled as she reached out. She touched the wall where the knob should be.
It was cold. Wet. Breathing.
She jerked her hand back.
"No. No, no, no—"
A soft meow broke the silence.
She turned.
A large, sleek black cat was seated on the back of her couch. It was wearing a cravat.
"Elara Dorne," it said, in perfect, dusty English. "Welcome home."
---
🕯️
Somewhere, far below what should be the floorboards, a candle sparked to life.
Then another.
Then hundreds.
Valeblood Manor awakened for the first time in seventy years.
And it smiled.