“A pleasure to meet you,” came the chorus of two children’s voices.

“We have been eager to speak with you for some time now. My name is Emeric Raynor, and this is my sister, Ayleth Raynor,” said a young boy, his voice coming through with a soft cadence that somehow echoed, then grew stronger again.

Coral rubbed her thumb over the bone conductor. Perhaps the spell was beginning to wane. The sound made her hair stand on edge, and it sent a cord of fear through her.

“Good evening, Master Emeric and Miss Ayleth,” Coral said. Coral dropped into a respectful curtsey, unsure if these children had grown up with a governess that enforced societal expectations. Coral’s own education had included a rather forceful governess who was strict about manners. Her governess would be thoroughly displeased to know that her manners had slowly began to erode. In this instance, Coral would rather be respectful towards two ghost children who could become far more of a nuisance than any child had any right to be. At the very least, she hoped she was facing the ghost children.

Pearl let out a small gasp, got to her feet and performed her own curtsey.

“I’m afraid we will have to forgo niceties, as I have little time to speak with you,” Coral said.

“We understand,” said Emeric. There was something odd in the way that he spoke. There was an undercurrent that was setting her on edge, though she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. Coral resisted a shiver; the room had grown colder in the last few minutes. It unsettled her.

“We want to know how we can help you,” Pearl said in a rush.

“Help,” Ayleth said, her voice resonating sweetly. “We have already asked for your help. The basement is where you need to be.”

“We have already been to the basement, that is where we discovered your mother,” Coral said.

“Exactly. Help our mother. Make her right again,” Ayleth begged.

Words caught in the back of Coral’s throat at this. She wanted to agree. She knew that desperation, of wanting something or someone to come along and correct what was wrong. She had begged for it herself when her own mother had died. No one had helped and Coral was forced to grow up far too quickly.

“I will try,” Coral said, hating that she couldn’t really promise to make a difference. She would try, but she didn’t have the means or the knowledge to do anything effective. At least, not now.

“Thank you,” Ayleth said, her voice hopeful. “Will you go see her now?”

“Mother is in the basement,” Emeric said happily. “She has been a little better. We haven’t been able to speak to her in so long. Come.”

Nothing moved, and Coral stood still for a moment more, expecting a door to swing open or a brush of cold air against her skin. There was nothing. Including the absence of voices.

Coral looked at Pearl. “They want me to go down to the basement, to speak with Lady Raynor,” Coral said.

Pearl nodded her head and picked up the lantern. “Very well, let’s go.”

“You can stay in the kitchen,” Coral encouraged, then added under her breath so that she hoped only Pearl could hear her, “It will be safer for you.”

Pearl’s frown turned into a full scowl. “No. I’m coming with you.”

Coral didn’t protest. They made their way to the basement, carrying the lantern up high with its flickering flame. It cast long shadows over the walls. Her stomach squirmed slightly as the basement door swung open without her touch. She blinked a few times into that deep darkness below, her fear growing. The last time she had went down those steps, a monster had been down there.

Technically, the same monster was still there, except now it was a ghost. Which was not especially comforting. However, Lady Raynor’s ghost no longer had claws or gnashing teeth to kill with. Which was much more comforting to think about.

Coral refused to be scared out of her own home. She took one last deep breath, squared her shoulders, then plunged down into that darkness.

Together they reached the end of the stairs, Coral’s arm held high so that the lantern’s light could reach a little farther. She desperately needed to install lighting down here. Using candles and lanterns was becoming rather tedious.

The basement looked the same as it did the last time she was in here. When she moved forward, the light revealed strewn bits of wood across the flagstone floor. She was going to have to clean that up too. In the meantime, she was more than happy to leave it, it wasn’t as if guests were going to be coming down here.

The Raynor children had remained quiet since leaving the kitchen. Being unable to speak to anyone since their death, Coral would have assumed they would want to blather on as much as they possibly could. She certainly would.

Coral rubbed her fingers against the chicken bone again, assuring herself from the mild tingle of magic that the spell was still in effect. The basement remained quiet, so she walked deeper until she reached the dark stain on the floor, where the ghoul was first slain. That was going to require scrubbing as well.

“What are they saying? You have gone quiet,” Pearl asked.

“They aren’t saying anything,” Coral said. She avoided walking over the mess. For an extra measure she stooped down and picked up the hem of her skirt. She was dirty enough as it was.

“Try saying something,” Pearl said.

“I’m not sure what to say,” Coral said. She kept moving towards the hole in the basement wall, to the necromancer’s lair. Now that she was here, morbid curiosity was taking a hold of her. She stared ahead at the darkness trying to see as much as possible. What would she see if she stepped into that hole in the wall? It was likely Silas and his team would have stripped the room of all necromancer tools and paraphernalia. Still, her mind conjured up a dank room filled with meat hooks and bottled entrails. If Coral stepped foot inside of that space, maybe she would get a response out of Lady Raynor.

“Hello, may we speak with you?” Pearl called out.

Coral stopped walking. She looked about, and saw no movement, no shadows, not even a ghostly voice whispering back to them.

“Did she answer?” Pearl asked.

“No. This is anticlimactic,” Coral complained. She held the chicken bone up close to the lantern light so that she could squint down at it. “I can still feel the magic working. Maybe she isn’t down here after all.”

“That can’t be right. The children asked for you to go down here, didn’t they? She must be,” Pearl said, looking about as though she expected Lady Raynor to manifest before them.

“Good evening,” Pearl called out again, louder this time. She nudged Coral in the arm, motioning for her to follow on.

“Good evening, Lady Raynor,” Coral said, feeling rather foolish. This could entirely be a plot for the children to lure them to their deaths again. It wouldn’t surprise her.

The door to the basement slammed shut. Pearl squeaked and grabbed a hold of Coral. Coral spun to look back at the door, though she saw precious little; the darkness swallowed up all that was beyond the reach of the lantern.

“That better not have been you Mr. Bramer,” Coral called out. She was beginning to feel rather annoyed at all these silly tricks they were pulling.

“We really should have waited for Silas. Or anyone from the Adventurers Guild,” Pearl groaned.

“Nonsense,” Coral said, patting Pearls hand. Pearls nails were biting into her arm painfully. “At least we know we’re in the right place.”

Pearl frowned despite her fear.

The darkness moved from behind Pearl’s shoulder. Coral shifted a little so that she could see more, though whatever had moved had disappeared back into the shadows.

“Did you see something?” Pearl whispered, her hands tightening around Coral’s arm again.

“I’m not sure. I think so,” Coral said. She gave Pearl’s hand a squeeze in what she hoped was a reassuring way.

There was a whisper of movement from beside Coral, gooseflesh rippled down her at the sensation of someone touching her arm.

“This is our mother, Lady Seaver,” Emeric said from beside her, soft and full of love.

“Mama, come say hello,” Ayleth said somewhere from the other side of Pearl.

“You shouldn’t be down here,” a woman rasped.

Coral could only assume that the new voice belonged to Lady Rayner. Unsure if the comment was aimed at them, or for her two children that must be somewhere close by.

“Lady Raynor, it is a shame we aren’t meeting in more favourable circumstances. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Coral Seaver, and this is my sister, Pearl,” Coral said into the darkness.

“I know who you are,” said Lady Raynor, her voice smoothing out into a clear, lilting melody. The difference was rather alarming. “You want us gone.”

Coral made a mental note to be a little more careful when referring to the ghosts. She never knew what conversation they were listening into. She must have been a little too vocal about wanting the ghosts gone.

“We want to help,” Coral said.

“NO,” shrieked the woman.

Pearl flinched, jerking Coral’s arm. The sound of Lady Raynor’s voice was so loud that it echoed the basement. If the other ghosts were to be believed, it took a lot of effort on their part to reach through whatever veil that separated the living. The stronger the emotion or reaction, the clearer it became for the living. Perhaps that was why so many ghosts turned hostile, their calmer emotions were not strong enough to breach the barrier that separated them.

“You don’t want us to help?” Pearl asked.

“You can’t,” Lady Raynor said in a much calmer manner. “I am beyond help. There is nothing you can do. You should leave when you can.”

“I won’t leave,” Coral said more forcefully. “This is my home.”

“Then you are asking for death. I am not safe. This place is wrong. I am wrong,” Lady Raynor groaned. Her voice roughened with a gravelly tone, as though she were parched for water.

“I’m not leaving,” Coral said flatly. “I’m offering you a choice. You can either tell us about your situation. What you remember. Anything at all, so we can help you. Or. I am forced to resort to alternative means to have you removed.”

Coral left the threat hanging in the air. There was a ripple of shadow, the darkness coalescing into a vaguely human shape from the center of the basement, over the dark stain on the floor. Coral turned to watch it form into something denser than the darkness around them, until slowly, the outline of Lady Rayner became a little more visible. She was washed out, and her features were blurred as though Coral were peering through a rain drenched window.

“Alternative means. You mean shadowsteel,” Lady Raynor stated. She watched them from half lidded eyes, flicking between Coral’s and Pearls faces. After a moment that felt far too long, she gave a resigned sigh.

“I was sick,” Lady Raynor said. “I had contracted Spellburn. I had been fighting the sickness for years.”

Spellburn was a slow sickness that could be caught through the exposure and use of magic. It corroded away the body, draining every ounce of life until one day, there wasn’t anything left except for a husk of a body, the person barely recognizable. There was no known cure. Counteractive measures could be taken to prolong the inevitable – herbs and potions to sustain the body. It explained the long list of herbs Coral had read when she was rifling through the documents for the manor. Over time, the preventative procedures would become less effective, until nothing at all helped. Spellburn wasted the lives of far too many people.

“I’m sorry,” Coral said earnestly, her words meant for Emeric and Ayleth just as much as Lady Raynor. It was a horrible thing to watch someone you loved to succumb to such a fate. To see the acceptance after years of being beaten by a sickness that they couldn’t free themselves of until death took them. Death hadn’t set Lady Raynor free of torment. She went from one nightmare to another.

“I lived with Spellburn for ten years. It’s done now, there’s no need for your pity,” Lady Raynor said.

Ten long years of your body betraying you, of your life essence leeched from you with every breath. Ten years of being utterly exhausted. Coral couldn’t fathom what Lady Raynor would have had to endure all that time.

“My husband searched for ways to help me. He purchased this land from Lord Acheron, there is a ley line that runs deep through here, which helped with dealing with the sickness. The fresh air was good for me and the ideal to prevent spell exposure. He built this manor for me, as grand as he could make it so I would not miss the splendour of the city. When I fell pregnant, we feared we would lose the babe. It was a hard pregnancy. I was fortunate when I gave birth to Emeric. You can imagine our surprise when I fell pregnant a second time. When my daughter Ayleth was born, the sickness began to take a deeper hold and I was slow to recover.”

The shadow solidified and Lady Raynor took shape, her face and green eyes as clear as though Coral were looking at a real person. Her blonde hair was still falling out of a bun from atop her head and her dress flowed around her as though she were caught up in a gale of wind.

Pearl’s hand was clasped so tight against Coral’s arm, she was certain her skin would bruise. Lady Raynor didn’t look at them. Instead, she was looking up at the ceiling.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Little did I know that this place would become my prison,” Lady Raynor said bitterly. “I succumbed, finally, to the sickness two weeks before my thirty-sixth birthday. Midwinter.”

“When I awoke, for a lack of a better way to describe how I was once again alive, I was so fiercely hungry it was all I could think or feel. You must understand. I had gone from food I could not taste, of never feeling hungry in the ten years Spellburn had eaten away at me. Of scents, colours and sounds that had been nothing but mere, greyed-out imitations of their former selves, to sudden, ravenous hunger. I could smell things again. I could see in such vivid detail, the light hurt my eyes. And, I was hungry.”

“I don’t recall much in those first few hours, other than the insatiable hunger. After a while I became angry. I was nothing except anger and hunger come to life. I do recall the blood. How it wet my tongue, how I craved more. There was screaming, and they all looked the same to me. Until, that is, I came across my children.”

Lady Raynor’s eyebrows pinched together as she stared unseeingly at the ceiling, the edges to her becoming transparent then solidified as she was bolstered by a memory. “I regained some semblance of sanity then. My beloved Ayleth, sprawled on the floor like a tiny doll. And brave Emeric, just a few feet in front, a knife in his hand and staring back at me, the light gone from his eyes.”

Lady Raynor took a shuddering breath. “I don’t know if it was I who murdered them with my own hands. Or, if they were- If it was,” she lapsed into silence, her head dropping down and hands pressing against her chest. A sob broke from her, heartbroken and pained.

“Mama,” said the gentle voice of Emeric. “It wasn’t you. You didn’t touch us,” he assured her.

Lady Raynors hands dropped by her sides as she fell to her knees. Her pretty face was screwed up against whatever memory she was lost in.

“I’m sorry,” Lady Raynor rasped. “I killed them.”

“No, mama,” the soothing hush of Ayleths voice said. “Emeric kept me safe as long as he could against Papa. It was him, not you.”

Lady Raynor let out a wail, bellowing her grief and pain. It filled the basement, the noise bouncing off the walls and getting louder. She clawed at her face, as though she were trying to drive her fingers into her skull. She gasped and rocked forward, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulder.

The air around Coral chilled. Her breath puffed out before her in a white cloud.

“I killed them,” Lady Raynor muttered, now swaying back and forth. Her hands had fallen away from her face, and they dug into the stained stone beneath her. Her fingers passed straight through. She trailed her hand around, staring at the ground as though she were transfixed.

“Your husband killed your children, not you,” Coral said firmly. She didn’t know what else to say.

Lady Rayner jerked her head up, glaring and baring her teeth. “What do you know!” She screamed. “I’m a monster. I did it!”

Pearl recoiled, taking a step back behind Coral.

“You’re not a monster,” Coral said evenly, though truthfully, she felt anything but calm.

Lady Rayner cried out again, bending at the waist and letting her head fall forward. She wailed into the floor, hitting the ground with a clenched fist and taking ragged, gasping breaths.

“I’ve killed so many. I was so hungry,” Lady Rayner rasped. She wrapped a hand around her stomach, the other still sunk beneath the floor.

“That wasn’t your fault. Your husband did that to you. To those people. He was the one to try to bring you back to life. He turned you into a ghoul,” Coral said, piecing the puzzle together.

“He didn’t,” cried Lady Raynor. “He loved me. More than anything, he loved me! He spent years trying to find a cure. He did anything and everything to keep me alive for as long as possible. Even when I was ready to die, he wouldn’t let me.”

Lady Raynor let in a shuddering sob, tears spilling down her cheeks and dripping past her chin. The tear dissipated before it hit the ground.

Coral finally understood.

“Lady Raynor, did your husband regularly practice magic?” Coral asked.

“No. Only I did, and I hadn’t tried since I had fallen sick. It would make things worse for me,” she mumbled.

If Lord Raynor had done all that he had for his wife – the herbs and potions he stocked, the elaborate house built on a ley line far from civilization, risking attacks from monsters that lurked in the unexplored parts of the country. That didn’t sound like a man who had malicious intent or had wanted to learn the ways of death.

He was a man desperately in love with his wife, driven to any means to keep her alive. Even necromancy.

Lady Rayner had died on Midwinter, twenty-five years ago, then brought back to life with necromancy. Except information and texts were prohibited on death magic. The spells and texts that could be found on the black market would have been limited at best. Whatever Lord Raynor had done, it had gone wrong. He had brought his wife back as a ghoul, not returned her soul to her body as he would have wholly intended. Somehow, and Coral was certain, he had also started the Night of the Undead. The ghosts that were trapped in the manor were from that night only, and not from before. Every year, from sundown to sun-up, the dead rose from their graves.

It had all been from a man desperately in love with his wife. Lord Raynor was the true monster here. In his despair he had left a wave of sorrow and death behind him.

“Your husband loved you very much,” Pearl said gently.

Coral scoffed.

“That doesn’t absolve him of what he has done. Look at her,” Coral gestured towards Lady Raynor’s ghost, sobbing, over a stain that had been from her previous monstrous form.

“He did that to her. He turned her into a ghoul. He killed their children. Then set her loose through the manor and let her slaughter their staff. He is the reason the Night of the Undead happens every year. The sun and moon only know how many people he’s actually killed. He was a vicious, selfish man that deserved what he got.”

“How dare you,” Lady Rayner snarled, anger dripped from every syllable. “Don’t you dare besmirch my husband. He was a good man.”

Coral didn’t even have the chance to backtrack with her words.

Lady Raynor stood, her face hollowing out with rage. She lunged at Coral with her hands outstretched, very like how she would have during her time as a ghoul. Coral shuffled back, her feet not quite working as fear gripped her.

Lady Raynor caught Coral by her dress, halting her in place. She shoved hard, her hands were freezing, and Coral wasn’t expecting to feel that hardened force behind them. Coral hit the floor, her left shoulder taking most of the impact. She blinked away the stars in her eyes and grimaced as a moment later pain throbbed through her. She clutched at her shoulder, wincing at the movement.

A cold draft of air washed over her, and Coral looked up to see Lady Raynor standing over her. A rust red glow shone through beneath the skin of Lady Raynor’s throat, with concentrated light coming from streaks and patterns that looked oddly like sigils. The glowing linework sprawled down her neck and beneath the folds of her dress, completely cutting off the magical light.

Coral had been so focused on the magical lines etched across Lady Raynor, that she hadn’t seen the reaching hand coming for her.

Lady Raynor’s fingers were no longer tipped with long claws, so the slashing motion hardly hurt Coral, until her hands reached around her neck and squeezed. There was no flesh to feel, though the sensation was ice cold and a hard pressure closed down on Coral’s throat.

Slightly panicking, Coral swung a fist at the ghost, her hand sailing straight through the incorporeal form as though she were as dense as smoke.

“STOP!” cried Pearl as her hands passed through Lady Raynor in an attempt to push her off Coral.

Coral clawed at her own throat, unable to move the ghostly fingers pressing down on her throat. Her air was cut off. Coral couldn’t breathe. In complete panic, she writhed and tried to gasp for air, moving any which way to throw off the force closing down on her neck.

It was useless. Coral couldn’t touch a ghost.

A piece of wood swung above Coral’s head and then drove straight through Lady Raynor’s chest. The ghost distorted and rippled as the piece of wood sliced through, completely blurring Lady Raynor’s visage, only for the body to reform again.

Corals lungs were beginning to burn. The bruising pressure at her neck was pressing down even harder. Coral had to break the hold, or she would pass out. Her hands skimmed the flagstones, searching for anything to help. There was nothing. Even if she had found her own piece of wood, it wouldn’t have mattered. Only shadowsteel or magic could affect ghosts.

Hope sparked in Coral, even as her lungs began to scream at her. She stopped her panicked scrabbling and instead focused on the only spell she had ever successfully done. Fool’s Luck. She traced her fingers through the air, following the lines of the sigil required for the spell. Magic tingled in her skin. The edges of her vision began to fade.

Pearl was yelling incoherently, trying to pull Lady Raynor’s attention away from Coral. She didn’t know what Pearl was yelling, it was all becoming a loud buzz in her ear. A small, shadowy hand reached out and pulled on her sister, drawing her away. Pearl jerked her shoulder free.

“No. Please help her!” Pearl cried out.

Coral dipped her finger down, concentrating hard on the next direction she had to draw the symbol. She could still feel the tingle of magic, and hope bloomed in her as she drew closer to the completion of the sigil. She only needed to pull her finger up in the correct angle, and she would be done. Cursed shit she needed some luck right now.

Another set of small hands clutched at Pearl and was forcefully pulled back hard enough that she fell. Pearl’s leg kicked out and connected with Coral, shoving her hand in the wrong direction as she completed the last line of the sigil.

The tingle of magic grew hot, and then an explosive force erupted as the sigil tried to activate. A shockwave of magical energy bloomed out, flinging Lady Raynor away. Coral felt herself be pushed into the ground, and with nowhere else to go, she slid backwards. The energy was gone as soon as it had come. Coral lay where she was, gasping wildly for air now that the pressure had been lifted.

Pearl crawled back towards Coral, her eyes wide with fright and blood dripping down the side of her face.

“Breathe,” Pearl said, rolling Coral to her side and rubbing her back with harried force.

Coral choked down as much air as she could. It didn’t feel like she could get enough.

Lady Raynor screeched from the other side of the basement. Either she had been flung back far enough that their lantern light couldn’t reach her, or her form had disappeared in the wake of the magical explosion.

Anxious whispers filled Coral’s ears, and she realised over the ringing that they belonged to Ayleth and Emeric’s. The bone conductor had fallen from Coral’s grip and could be anywhere in the basement now. Coral shakily pushed herself upright, though it clearly wasn’t fast enough for the two ghosts, as she felt her body go rigid and then airborne. She couldn’t move her body at all with invisible hands holding her still. She could only stare at the darkness surrounding them.

Pearl squeaked in fright as she was lifted in the air, her feet dangling a foot from the ground.

Coral flew backwards, her heels catching on the hard edges of the stairs as she was driven back by some unseen force. Her back slammed into the basement door and then landed heavily on the ground. Pearl came soaring in after her, mouth open in a silent scream. She was dropped right over the top of Coral. The basement door slammed shut.

Pearl rolled off Coral, breathing hard as though she had been the one running and not the ghosts hurling her out. They stared at the basement door, then jumped as a chair screeched noisily against the floor and pushed itself up against it. The door shuddered.

Knowing full well that the door would not stop a spirit, Coral got to her feet, pulled Pearl up who was still staring at the door, and then ran. Coral sped past the Winter Salon, up the stairs and down the corridor. Pearl hesitated as they reached the foot of the staircase leading up. Coral didn’t wait for her, she took the stairs two at a time, then stopped halfway as she realised Pearl was still at the bottom and kept looking between her and the front door.

“What are you doing?” huffed Pearl impatiently, gesturing at the front door.

Coral shook her head. “I’m not leaving,” she said, turned and hurried to the landing. Pearl let out a frustrated groan, then followed, clasping her skirts in her hands.

The corridor was almost pitch black and her skin crawled as Coral made her way down the corridor and pushed open her bedroom door. She stood in the threshold, her eyes skimming over the darkest parts of the room first, then checked over the canopy bed and the closed bathroom door.

“Let’s get out of here before we are attacked again,” Pearl said.

Coral stepped into the room and went straight to where she had stashed the black crystals taken from Direwood cemetery. She scooped the raw chunks up. They were cold to the touch, though she could feel that pulse of magic emanating from them.

“This is our home. Ours.” Coral said stubbornly. She turned back to Pearl and took up her wrist. She forced Pearl to hold on to a crystal, ensuring she wrapped her fingers around it. “We didn’t leave our old life to give up so easily. I won’t leave with nothing to show for it. Keep this on you. Don’t put it down, not even when you bathe or sleep. Not until I can have Lady Rayner removed.”

“Coral,” Pearl said, frowning at the piece of tourmaline in her palm.

Coral pulled the blanked from her bed. It snagged on the mattress corner and she had to tug at it hard to pry it free.

“Coral,” Pearl said louder.

“Help me with this. I don’t want to leave the snapdragons alone. Not tonight with an angry ghost that could be anywhere. We’ll stay in the Salon with them and if we need to get out quickly, we will be closer to the door than if we stayed in the bedroom. It’ll be too hard to shepherd them all up here anyway.”

“Listen!” Pearl yelled.

Coral looked over at her. Pearl was clutching the crystal against her chest. She was sweaty and her skin was paler than usual. The bleeding had stopped from the small cut on her head, though it painted one side of her face a dark red.

“Let’s leave. Just for tonight, while we can,” Pearl implored.

“If we hold on to the crystals it will keep us safe.”

“Crystals aren’t going to fix this,” Pearl scoffed. “Look around Coral. We’re alone in an old manor, overrun with ghosts. With Lady Raynor’s spirit. This is dangerous. We can’t do anything against this. I can’t do anything. I couldn’t stop her from choking you, and I won’t be able to do anything if she comes for you again.”

“That’s what the crystals are for. They will repel the ghosts that mean us harm,” Coral said, piling the blanket into Pearl’s arms. She returned to the bed for some pillows and picked up the book sitting on her bedside table.

“We need a professional for this. Otherwise we’re going to get ourselves killed. We fall woefully short for the task,” Pearl said.

“What do you expect me to do? I searched for Silas and he’s the only one I would trust right now to help us. If I take this to the Adventurers Guild, they’ll deal with the ghosts using shadowsteel. Do you want them to have their spirits slowly eaten by a sentient weapon? I thought you wanted to help them, not destroy them.”

Even as Coral said it, she wouldn’t take that option. She couldn’t justify doing that to a single poor soul, let alone a whole house of people who had the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. She wasn’t heartless. Even if it did mean having to work around this problem before opening the inn’s doors up to begin making some coin to survive.

“You know I don’t want that,” Pearl snapped. “And I don’t want us to die either.”

“We aren’t going to die,” Coral said resolutely.

“You nearly did!” Pearl threw her arms out angrily, letting the blanket crumple to the floor.

Coral couldn’t argue with that. She wanted to. Her mouth automatically opened to shoot back a reply, then stopped herself. She had so much simmering frustration that it was beginning to boil over. The situation with the ghosts. Having limited coin, the implied suspicion that Coral was involved somehow with the ghoul and necromancy. It was becoming too much, and she knew it.

Coral didn’t want to admit that.

She didn’t like being incapable of looking after Pearl. Her first real attempt at making a home for them, and that dream was crumbling faster than the moulding walls in the manor.

They were unharmed right now because the fools luck spell had exploded and pushed Lady Raynor off of her. In a way, the luck spell had worked. Coral assumed it was the element of luck that had been weaved into the spellwork that had been on her side. The completed spell may not have even taken hold if there was no path to help Coral.

If she had passed out, even if she hadn’t completely suffocated, Pearl would have been the next victim. That thought alone sent Coral’s blood cold, cooling her frustration.

Pearl was scared, hurt, and she rarely stood up for herself. Pearl wanted them both to be safe.

“I won’t do anything stupid anymore,” Coral said.

Pearl’s pinched eyebrows eased. At this rate, Coral was going to cause Pearl to gain frown lines well before she reached her thirties.

“It would be just as dangerous if we attempt to leave the house this late at night. There are still monsters outside these walls. If we stay here, we have some form of protection,” Coral said.

“We walked back this evening when it was dark,” Pearl pointed out.

“Yes, just after sundown. It was rather stupid of us to do that, really. I wouldn’t risk it this late at night. We also won’t have anywhere to stay, we can’t afford to rent a room for a night, and if we went to Adventurers Guild they will want to know why,” Coral reasoned.

Pearl was quiet for a moment, sighed, then scooped the blanket back into her arms. “Very well. I did keep hearing something in the tree’s when we walked back, and that awful screeching. It will probably be warmer too, if we stay,” Pearl said.

“I’m going to change first. I don’t want anything more to happen to my good dress. You should clean your face up,” Coral said.

“What, on my own in there?” Pearl said looking terrified.

“Wait until I’ve finished dressing, then I’ll come into the bathroom with you. Make sure to keep that crystal with you,” Coral said.

At least the bathroom ghost had only ever etched words into the walls. It still unnerved her, standing in the cold bathroom and waiting for Pearl to wash her face. Her own reflection stared back at her in the cracked mirror. Her neck didn’t have any physical marks that she could see, but her throat still hurt.

When Pearl was finished, they crept back down the corridor, watching for any sign of a moving shadow or disembodied voice. Both of their hands were stuffed full of bedding. Coral kept squeezing hers every time she heard the house creak. She practically ran the last few steps to the Winter Salon and pushed the door open.

The warmth from the lit fireplace washed over her, the light pushing back some of her worry. The black snapdragon darted up from its sleeping place by the hearth and padded over to greet Coral, pawing at her legs with its two front feet.

Coral made sure to solidly close the Winter Salon’s doors, set a black crystal down in each corner of the room, with a few extra placed by intermittently about the perimeter and the door. She sat down with Pearl on the comfiest chair and spread the blanket over the top of them. Pearl had collected her snapdragon, Blossom, and was stroking it gently. As soon as Coral had sat down, the black snapdragon leapt up into Coral’s lap, flapping its wings for some additional momentum. All that it really succeeded with was smacking both Coral and Pearl before curling up in a ball beside them.

Coral took up her book, trying to read the information about the spell the book fell open to. Her eyes kept finding their way to looking around the room. They fell quiet, listening to the tiny snores of the snapdragons and the steady crackle of the fire. There was no way either of them was going to get any sleep tonight.