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Will

W e reached the hilltop manse just after one in the morning. The wind had picked up, rolling across the hills, its song low and eerie and full of teeth.

Thomas and I kept to the shadows, crossing the narrow street two blocks down and making our way along the curve of an avenue.

The mansion rose out of the dark like a baroque cathedral built for secrets. Its wooden panels gleamed even beneath the moonlight, stained dark as blood. Twisting eaves curled above shuttered windows. Frost caught in every ridge and groove.

It was a fortress dressed as a fairy tale.

We paused behind the same shrubbery that had concealed our surveillance the night before.

“Same pattern,” Thomas whispered, his eyes squinting despite peering through binoculars.

I didn’t need to ask which pattern he meant.

As we’d seen the night before, two stood at the front gate. One appeared stiff and still as a lamppost, the other leaned with a cigarette tucked between his teeth.

His body remained still, but his eyes moved.

Beyond them, I caught movement through the wrought-iron fencing—the perimeter patrol, a pair, just like before. They passed from left to right, vanishing around the corner of the house like clockwork. Every motion was a replay of what we’d witnessed, every step a precise recreation of a choreographed dance. Had there been a cloak of snow on the ground, I imagined they would have stepped in precisely the same footprints with each stride.

Every eight minutes.

We timed them twice. They never deviated.

Thomas tapped my shoulder, and we moved.

A short stone path skirted the edge of the road and dipped down into a drainage trench. From there, we hugged the tree line—dark skeletal limbs that clawed toward the house like they wanted to keep us out.

We rounded the mansion’s side with our breath caught behind our teeth. The windows glaring down at us were shuttered. The earth below was frozen and uneven. Twice, I nearly slipped. Thomas caught me once without looking.

At the rear of the estate, we paused.

The back of the manse was quieter.

Its wood here had grayed with age, weathered smooth by wind and winter. An elegant stone patio stretched outward in a semi-circle, framed by twisting wrought-iron trellises, where dormant rose bushes reached toward the sky.

There was no second fence. There were no floodlights.

Thank God, there were no dogs.

There was only the house, and it was asleep. Its back entrance sat recessed beneath a wooden overhang. The door itself was carved—beautifully so—but time and moisture had begun to turn the bottom soft.

We crept to it.

Thomas crouched to examine the lock.

It was old, likely handmade, definitely tricky.

He pulled his picks from his coat and set to work.

I turned to watch the corner of the house and held my breath.

The patrol would be back in—

A glint of metal.

Movement.

My pulse slammed.

I tapped Thomas’s shoulder three times, our signal to hurry, an alarm louder than any siren.

His fingers twisted and turned. The pick retracted, then dove deeper.

Boots crunched frozen grass.

The pick scraped.

The tension wrench shifted.

Thomas’s brow furrowed.

The bootsteps grew louder, deliberate and unfriendly.

I gripped his shoulder—less a signal than a plea.

He swore and twisted.

Click .

The door gave.

We dove inside.

Thomas closed the door behind us as a flashlight beam swept across the garden behind us. I caught a glimpse of it over my shoulder—the yellowish cone cutting across the ivy wall we’d just cleared.

Inside, the dark of the manse swallowed us whole.