Page 34 of Ashwood (Wallflowers and Demons #1)

TREACHEROUS THINGS

GAbrIEL

W e’ve laid out the sketches on an oak table, edges weighed down with stones to keep them from curling.

Peter had studied under a mapmaker, he told me once.

Ink lines warp under the pressure of disbelief.

The proportions are not human. The toes are too wide.

The depth is too sunken. And the sheer length of it…

You could fit three grown men shoulder to shoulder across it, and still have room for their fear.

Dorian leans over the table, gloomy in silence. Katherine is near the window, arms folded. Nora stands by the door. And in the corner, half- draped in a blanket, is the boy.

He’s about six. Maybe seven. Gaunt. Dirt under his nails, a bruise on his jaw. Someone gave him a wool blanket and a cup of milk he hasn’t touched. He doesn’t cry. He simply watches the fire without blinking.

Peter speaks first. “The coop is gone. Flattened. Not collapsed. Flattened .”

“Direction of the footprint?” Dorian asks.

“East to west. Whatever it was came from the forest. Not the road.”

“And it went back that way?”

“No tracks after the blood trail stops. Might’ve doubled back. Might’ve climbed the cliffs for all I know.”

I run a hand down my face. “We’re not dealing with a bear or even a demon. This thing walked. It tracked prey. It moved through fence posts and livestock without stumbling. That takes legs. Structure. Mass.”

“And hunger,” Nora adds. “It ate the pigs. Tore them open. A lot of bodies are unaccounted for. They are simply missing.”

Dorian curses under his breath.

I glance over at the child again. He hasn’t spoken since he was found beneath the floorboards of the collapsed barn. Peter says he was found wedged between two crates, covered in dust and blood that wasn’t his. The boy has not a scratch on his person.

“Katherine,” I say, softly. “Can you try? ”

She nods.

She crosses the room and kneels beside the boy, not touching him — just close enough to feel safe.

“My name is Katherine,” she says. “What’s yours?”

No answer.

“I’m not going to ask what you saw,” she adds. “But we need to know how many there were.”

The boy’s lips tremble.

“One,” he whispers.

She doesn’t push. “Just one?”

He nods. His eyes never leave the fire.

“Where were you?”

“In the barn,” he breathes. “The loft. Papa said to hide. Mama—” He swallows hard. “She tried to run.”

Katherine’s hand tightens slightly on her skirt.

“What did you see?” I ask. My voice is low, but not soft. It can’t be.

The boy doesn’t flinch.

“It came out of the trees,” he says. “It didn’t make a sound. It stepped on the chickens and didn’t stop. It grabbed Papa.”

He breathes.

“It didn’t stop.”

Katherine asks gently, “Did it speak?”

The boy shakes his head fast. “No. Just… breathing. It sounded like a bull. But worse.”

“Did it look like a man?” I ask.

“It was a man,” he whispers. “But a big man. Its mouth was big. And its arms were long. And its eyes—”

He stops.

“What about its eyes?” Katherine asks.

“They weren’t looking. They weren’t seeing. It didn't care what it stepped on. It tore…papa in half…”

The child shakes now.

He does not cry.

He simply shakes.

DORIAN

The storm hasn’t broken since morning, and the castle groans under the weight of it. Ashwood is never truly quiet, but today it it holds its breath, waiting for what comes next.

I stand near the great hearth, gloved hands clasped behind my back, watching as the final preparations are made. Outside, carriages rattle across slick gravel. The procession forms under the veil of rain. Katherine is already cloaked and gloved, speaking low to Nora near the portico.

The servants remain.

They must.

Containment of the forest is paramount.

If it spreads again, if it reaches the town…

The thought is enough to turn my stomach.

I have made it clear. They are not to abandon their posts. Peter, Everly, Issac, William—they will hold the line.

Gabriel emerges from the stairwell, coat fastened and his hat perched low. “The tides will shift soon,” he says. “If we’re to cross the way to Wexmoore, it must be now.”

“I know,” I reply flatly.

My eyes are on Katherine as she steps into the waiting carriage. The crested door closes behind her with a finality I hate. I turn back to Everly, who waits just behind me, sword at his side, soaked to the knees.

“The poison must reach the northeast ridge. You understand?”

“Yes, Your Grace,” he says. “We’ll keep the line tight. And if they come through?”

“You’ll stall them.” I clasp his shoulder. “There will be no heroics. I need you alive.”

He breathes a sigh of relief. “Yes, Your Grace.”

William nods from the shadows of the entryway, hat tipped forward.

“I am ready Your Grace, to piss myself again.”

Good. I need him steady.

I need them all steady.

Then, I step into the rain.

The journey to Wexmoore is slow. The forest closes in on either side, and up ahead it appears — a tunnel of blackened trunks and wooden fingers and the entrance to Wexmoore.

Inside the carriage, Katherine keeps her posture rigid and her hands folded in her lap. She’s dressed plainly, but no less regally — a dark green cloak over storm-blue silks, boots hidden beneath fur-lined skirts. Her eyes don’t leave the window.

“You’re quiet,” I say.

She turns only slightly. “I am thinking.”

“About?”

“The boy who has no family because monsters devoured them whole. I am thinking about the body that was left. I am thinking of everything we don’t yet understand.“

The wind screams over the hills.

“It will be alright, Princess.”

Tired, more than anything else, she grins weakly. “Perhaps it will be.”

We pass the halfway marker of ancient shrines worn by weather and neglect. It marks the boundary of the way before it turns into what Wexmoore considers theirs. Soon, the water claims it. The bridge drowns, and Ashwood becomes an island of its own once more.

Ahead, the path narrows. The forest opening appears, wide enough for the carriage to pass. We emerge onto wet stone — the beginning of the causeway. Waves crash below. The sea is loud here. Uncomfortably loud.

Katherine looks forward now as we travel a short while until Wexmoore Castle rises out of the mist. Sharp towers, black stone, windows that glow behind heavy curtains..I tap twice on the roof of the carriage. The driver slows as we approach the gate.

The Duke of Wexmoore awaits.

He is made of thick knives and only bows because etiquette demands it, not because he cares. He is, after all, a reformed pirate.

“Your Grace,” he says to Katherine. “Ravishing you are.”

Then to me, “And you. I’d ask why you travel in such weather, but I’ve already received word. Get your sorry arse inside.”

Gabriel steps out of the second carriage behind us and the Duke raises a brow. “I believe we are having a soirée this evening. I’ll tell the cook to bring out the aged scotch.”

The Duke doesn’t wait for a reply. He turns on his heel, boots echoing against the black stone floors, and leads us through the entry hall.

Wexmoore Castle is built for intimidation — towering ceilings, iron sconces, and no tapestries to soften the chill.

The whole place smells of brine and old tobacco.

Wexmoore pushes open a pair of double doors with a grunt. “Come. You’ll eat. You look like ghosts.”

The dining room is long and narrow, lit by two massive candelabras suspended by chains from above.

The table is already laid — not formally, but with the practical excess of a hunting lodge: roasted duck, smoked fish, dark bread, hard cheese, and a steaming tureen of root vegetable stew.

Several carafes of red wine and pale spirits line the sideboard like a sentry of vices.

“I thought pirates drank rum,” Katherine says as she takes her seat.

Wexmoore laughs. “Rum is for warm weather and sloppier sins. This is war. You’ll want the grain liquor.”

Gabriel mutters something about needing a bath more than a meal but sits anyway. His coat is still wet, and it leaves a trail on the bench.

I stand for a moment, gaze passing over the table, then pull out a chair for Katherine before taking my seat across from her.

Wexmoore tilts his cup toward her. “Tell me, Your Grace — do all your parties end in monsters and storms?”

“Only the memorable ones.”

That earns a chuckle from Gabriel.

I don’t smile.

Wexmoore eyes me. “God’s sake, Ashwood, you haven’t changed. You look like you’re about to draft a sermon on despair.”

“Give me a pen and I will.”

“Still the same bastard with a martyr complex. Do you remember St. Giles?”

“Not fondly.”

Gabriel raises a brow. “Is this going to be a tragic university tale? I am not in the mood for such trivia.”

“No,” Wexmoore says. “Worse. Theology. I swear Ashwood used to argue you could summon angels if you recited the Nicene Creed backwards in Latin.”

“I said no such thing,” Dorian mutters. “What a preposterous notion.”

“You implied it.”

“I implied that theology students were fools with candles.”

“Same difference.”

Wexmoore throws back the scotch and chuckles.

Katherine watches him with the edges of her mouth curved into a smile. “And what were you, Duke of Wexmoore?”

“A pirate in exile,” he says smoothly. “Or at least a bastard in a borrowed coat.”

Dorian grins at the memory. “You wore that thing until it disintegrated. Gentleman, ha!”

“It was the only wool I had that winter.”

Wind creaks the windowpanes and my smile falters.

‘Twas a trying time for Ambrose.

He had no friends, only foes and judgment.

Gabriel clears his throat and refills his glass. “If we don’t die tomorrow, someone remind me to burn that coat in effigy.”

“I already did,” I reply.

Wexmoore snorts into his drink. “He did. Found the sleeve in my fireplace come spring. Left me a note. ‘Get a real title.’ ”

I chuckle to myself.

He deserved it, the bastard.

Katherine raises a brow. “And did you?”

“No,” he says, lifting his glass. “But I inherited one anyway.“

“Well,” Gabriel says. “At least it wasn’t the coat.”