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AUTUMN

T he attic door groaned like it remembered the first time it had been opened in fear.

Autumn exhaled through her nose and pressed her palm flat against the wood, feeling the subtle tingle of old magic along the grain.

The charm Missy had given her was tucked into her back pocket, a clump of lavender and bloodstone wrapped in silk, but it felt almost unnecessary now.

The air didn’t hum with menace. It pulsed with waiting.

The Harvest Spirits Sampler Night had come and gone without incident. Dorian had smiled through every awkward townie question, Autumn had done her part, and the ghosts—well, they’d stayed silent.

Too silent.

Which meant something was coming.

She stepped up into the attic, the light from her lantern casting long shadows across the boxes and crates she’d half-explored weeks ago. Her ribs still ached sometimes where the Hollow Man had clawed her. A warning, she’d told Dorian.

But it hadn’t been meant to scare her off.

It had been personal.

Now she understood why.

The journal lay where Dorian had left it after his hand had burned from touching the spellbound page. She’d waited until he was out with Rollo at the wildlife sanctuary that morning—checking on a fox with frostbitten paws, he’d said—before she came up here alone.

Autumn settled cross-legged on the creaky attic floor, setting the lantern beside her and pulling on her gloves before flipping the journal open to the shimmer-inked pages. The words still shimmered faintly, but they no longer repelled her.

The house knew her now.

And the ghost? He remembered.

She read slowly, her lips barely moving, tracing each curve of the script like the ink itself was reaching through time to etch the words into her bones.

October 13, 1817

He told me the stars were ours. That they’d always light our path. And yet, tonight, I bury a promise instead of a man. Hollis, forgive me. The blood was never supposed to fall.

Autumn sucked in a breath sharp enough to sting her lungs.

Hollis.

She flipped back through the earlier entries, hands trembling, every turn of the page kicking up a gust of cold air that didn’t come from the drafty attic windows.

The atmosphere thickened with every line, the weight of memory pressing in around her like the house itself was trying to warn her away—and still, she read.

There. A name scrawled in the margin, repeated three times in increasingly unsteady handwriting.

Hollis Blackthorne.

And beside it, in another hand—more severe, precise like a ledger or a curse—was the line that cinched it all:

Property deed transferred under duress. Curse invoked. Circle unbroken.

Autumn sat frozen for a moment, the journal warm in her gloved hands despite the chill sinking into her bones. Her breath fogged the lantern light.

This wasn’t just some angry soul clinging to the place he died. The Hollow Man wasn’t a random, violent echo.

He was the spirit.

The sorrow that dripped through Briar Hollow’s walls like mold. The reason no magic stuck long in the hallways, why the windows wept in the fall, why love stories here always turned tragic by the third act.

He’d been a man once. A man in love.

And he’d been betrayed.

She pressed her hand against the journal’s leather cover, feeling the faint thrum of leftover magic pulse beneath her palm like a heartbeat. Pieces of the story tumbled into place like bones snapping into alignment.

The original builder—Theodore Hawthorne—hadn’t just raised this house for grandeur or status. He’d built it with Hollis. Laid the foundation stone by stone beside the man he loved, whispered promises in the mortar, planned a life beneath its roof.

And then… he’d caved.

To power. To pressure. To fear.

There were hints in the writing—mentions of “family expectations,” “a union not yet sanctioned,” “an offer I cannot afford to refuse.” Words that reeked of cowardice dressed in duty.

Autumn felt it in her gut: the ritual that ended Hollis’s life hadn’t been born of cruelty, but desperation. Theodore had tried to sever the tie between them. To cut the cord of fate before it pulled him under.

But magic like that doesn’t disappear. It lingers. It rots.

And Hollis—heart split, soul unanchored—had stayed.

Not as a memory.

As a wound.

The ritual hadn’t summoned immortality. That had just been the lie told to make it palatable. The real spell had been darker. Ancient. Forbidden.

It had been cast not to preserve love, but to destroy it.

Autumn’s throat tightened. Her fingers curled into fists over the edges of the journal.

This wasn’t just a haunting.

This was grief, immortalized. A fated bond betrayed so completely it had warped into something vengeful. Something protective. Something afraid to let anyone else try again.

And now, she and Dorian—another pair on the cusp of something real, something binding—were paying the price.

It wasn’t just coincidence the spirit had targeted them.

He thought it was history trying to repeat itself.

Autumn’s stomach turned. She felt it then, behind her—a shadow shifting, just barely.

She didn’t move.

“Hollis,” she whispered into the stillness, “I know your name now.”

The attic didn’t respond. But something listened .

“I know what they did. And I know you’ve been trying to keep it from happening again.”

The lantern flickered once, then steadied.

“I’m not them,” she said, louder this time. “And Dorian isn’t Theodore.”

Still nothing. But the pressure eased.

She traced the edge of the page with her glove. The ink no longer shimmered—it stayed still, flat, like it had finally settled into truth.

The Hollow Man wasn’t trying to keep people out of the inn. He was trying to protect what had once been love. Fated. Sacred.

And somewhere in the bitterness of betrayal, he’d turned it into a weapon.

“Dorian,” she breathed, heart suddenly pounding.

It was why the spirit targeted them. Why it had scratched her. Why it had left everyone else alone.

He wasn’t punishing her. He was warning her.

Autumn slammed the book shut, grabbed the lantern, and bolted down the attic stairs two at a time, her breath coming in harsh bursts.

She needed to find Dorian. She needed to tell him.

But more than that, more than the haunted history and twisted love story—they needed to face the truth together.

Because if fate was still listening…

They had one last chance to make it right.