Maryna
The estate was changing.
At first, I thought it was me—maybe I was seeing things that had always been there.
But the walls were moving.
Literally.
Corridors turned where they hadn't before. Doors I'd passed a hundred times now opened to rooms I didn't recognize. Stairs climbed two flights and ended where they should have descended. And there were mirrors that reflected rooms I'd never been in, with people I didn't know.
I asked a servant once—just to test my theory.
"Was there always a chapel at the end of the eastern wing?"
She blinked. Hesitated.
"Of course," she said. "It's always been there."
Except it hadn't.
Not last week.
Not even yesterday.
I started keeping notes in the margins of a book I'd stolen from the library—just a slim journal with blank parchment and a rust-colored cover.
I didn't write down what the rooms looked like.
I wrote down what they felt like.
Some were warm. Familiar. Almost like memories.
Others—
Others made my skin crawl. One room in the northern wing smelled like salt and vinegar and something scorched. I couldn't explain it.
Another had no walls. Just black fabric hung like a shroud. When I turned to leave, the door had vanished. I had to wait until the candle I'd carried burned out before a new one opened.
It had no handle.
No hinges.
Just a seam in the wall that peeled apart when I whispered the word "Valmont."
That was the first time I realized the House wasn't just responding to me.
It was reading me.
I tried to speak to Vasilios that evening.
Tried.
But his guards turned me away at the study door.
"He's not to be disturbed."
I almost laughed.
If I wasn't a disturbance, then what exactly was I?
I wandered instead.
Not aimlessly.
There were places I hadn't dared go.
Places I'd once been told never to enter.
So I did.
The first was a wine cellar that no longer stored wine. Half the racks were filled with scrolls and jars sealed with wax. I opened one. Inside: a preserved flower—black as pitch, petals lined with gold ink. I set it back gently.
The second was a chapel.
Not the one the servant had mentioned.
This one was smaller. Hidden behind a decoy door in the west wing. The ceiling was low, the air tight with incense, the altar carved with old symbols I couldn't name. A single candle burned.
I moved toward it.
And then I saw the painting above the altar.
A woman.
Veiled.
Wearing a pendant I recognized.
My mother's.
I stepped closer.
But the moment I touched the frame—
The candle extinguished.
And the door behind me slammed shut.
I didn't scream.
But I pressed my back against the wall and tried to breathe.
I whispered her name.
"Celia."
Just once.
Just to see if the House would respond.
It didn't.
But I swear I heard footsteps behind the wall.
Just once.
Soft. Measured.
Like someone watching.
I stayed there until the candle re-lit itself.
And the door opened.
Back in my room, I unwrapped the cloth bundle I'd taken from the chapel.
Not the flower.
A piece of parchment tucked behind the altar.
Burned along one edge. But still legible.
Three lines:
"Only the flame opens the way."
"The House will not hold her."
"She must choose—inherit or incinerate."
There was no signature.
No seal.
But the script matched the one on the parchment Elira had shown me in the tower.
The one she said came from my mother.
I don't know what I'm becoming.
But I know the House is no longer a prison.
It's a puzzle.
A weapon.
A legacy.
And maybe—just maybe—it's mine.