Part 5: The Backrooms

Saint Orlan’s Rest had been built when Arthan still had dignity. Pale stone paths wound between clipped hedges and old family vaults, each one carved with names that once mattered. Marble angels leaned over tombs while iron lanterns hung from ornate black posts. Surrounding it all, moonlit cypress trees lined the outer wall, their branches stirring in the slight breeze.

It was beautiful. Proper. Still. As were most dead places.

Lorna lowered her eyes to the grave.

Mara
Beloved. Devoted Mother. Daughter of Metharadan.

A few dried leaves had gathered against the base of the headstone. They sat there in a crooked little pile, brown and offensive against the pale stone. Lorna stared at them for longer than she should have. Then, with a slow breath, she bent and brushed them aside.

Her body objected at once.

Pain snapped through her side, sharp enough to make her stumble. She gripped the edge of the stone until it passed, jaw clenched. A sensible person would have left the leaves alone. A sensible person would have remained in bed. A sensible person would have stopped before Tad bled his life across Estelle’s floor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

The words vanished into the breeze.

She adjusted the small white flowers she had brought, nudging the stems until they lay straight across the base of the marker. Three blooms. Evenly spaced. The leftmost one had bent slightly during the walk. She smoothed it between her fingers, then moved the center bloom a hair’s breadth to the right.

Lorna closed her eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”

That, somehow, was worse than any other confession.

She had known what to watch, how to listen, when to smile, and when to strike. Every guarded door had a key, and every hold had a servant who knew more than they meant to say. Her mother had taught her that the world was a web of details. Patient eyes could follow any thread.

But every thread had led deeper into the shadows. And now Estelle's house was burned to the ground. Lilith was still gone. Tad was still dead.

Her throat tightened as she stared at her mother’s name.

“I thought if I kept moving, I could stay ahead. If I was careful enough, they wouldn't find me.” She gave a small, bitter laugh. “You would have hated that, I think. We weren't meant to hide, were we?”

A faint scrape sounded behind her. Lorna hovered her hands over her waistband.

The breeze shifted through the cypress branches. Then came another sound. A careful step on gravel, too soft for a cemetery keeper, too clumsy for a proper tail.

“Don’t,” she said.