Chapter One – The Wedding Night
I never imagined I'd see myself from the outside.
But there I was, crumpled at the foot of the balcony like a dropped porcelain doll. My limbs bent wrong. My veil trailed across the marble, tainted with blood that poured out from the back of my skull. My lips, pink and soft just as Mother had insisted, looked almost childish in death.
"A delicate girl must look delicate always," she said that morning.
Delicacy didn't save me.
The lanterns above flickered. I stared up at it then past it to the balcony on the third floor of the Montgomery Mansion. I wondered if he would be there. There was no breeze, and yet my sleeves stirred. Somewhere beyond the gardens, the orchestra kept playing, blissfully unaware that the bride had fallen.
Or maybe they knew. And kept playing anyway.
The servants screamed. A tray crashed to the ground. I could hear footsteps and someone sobbing. But no one rushed to me.
No one screamed my name.
I stared into my own lifeless eyes. I knew in that moment, without much denial that I was dead.
Not dreaming.
Not falling.
Dead.
And by morning, all of Setherven would know.
They would whisper about me in the streets. Say the girl who never wanted to marry had thrown herself from the balcony rather than say "I do." They would never say it too loudly. No one wanted the Montgomerys hearing their gossip.
The mansion was littered with candlelight. They had placed me in a rose-colored glass coffin and set it in the room that was supposed to be mine. Our room. The bridal suite. I hovered near the wall, still wearing the white nightdress I had slipped into hours before I died.
Mother sat by the coffin. She didn't cry. She held my hand, stiff and pale, and whispered nothing. Her shoulders were square, her eyes hollow. Too many people were watching her, waiting to see if the great Gwyn Heathrow would fall apart.
She didn't. Of course she didn't.
"Mother," I said, stepping forward. "I'm right here. Please, just look at me."
Nothing. No flicker. No sign she could hear.
I circled her. I waved. I screamed. The air around her barely shifted.
"It's time to leave." The voice came from behind me.
I turned, heart clenching in a way I didn't think ghosts could still feel. Barry Montgomery, my husband's younger brother, stepped into the room. He walked straight through me without flinching. The cold jolted me. I gasped, spinning to face him.
"If you stay any longer," he said, "Grandmother will get mad."
Mother stood slowly. Her gloved hand still in mine. "This is my daughter," she whispered. "My only daughter is dead, and you won't let me sit with her five minutes?"
"Lady Gwyn." That cold Montgomery tone. One word, and she obeyed.
She pulled out a black handkerchief, dabbed eyes that had no tears, and stood taller than I ever remembered her. That was the woman I'd always tried to become—graceful even in grief.
She left without looking back.
I chased after her, panic rising in me. "Mother! Don't leave me! Please! PLEASE! You have to listen to me! You cannot leave me. They did something to me! I'm right here!" I ran ahead of her. I reached out.
And she walked right through me.
My breath hitched. I froze at the top of the stairs, my insides unraveling with every step she took away from me. The entire Montgomery family stood in the lobby silently watching her descend as their eyes tore slits through mother's skin.
Grandmother. Madame Ella. Kenneth Weatherworn. Elliot. And Lord Grant. All there. All staring.
"She never wanted to marry," Madame Ella said gently, taking Mother's hand.
Mother stiffened. Her hand slipped away from Ella's. She cleared her throat. "I'll leave her to you," she said coldly.
And then she was gone.
The doors shut behind her with a heavy click. A cool wind washes over me as I stood on the stairs. The Montgomery family exchanged nervous glances at each other. Something was wrong.
Grandmother left first, her walking stick clacking coldy against the wooden floorboards led by her snooty assistant, headmaid Mossie. Then the others trickled out, exchanging murmured words. I hovered on the stairs, stunned, sick with grief I didn't know how to carry.
"Where is Alan?" Ella said. She walked up the steps, meeting her brother who was now standing beside me.
"Goodness knows," Barry muttered, raking a hand through his auburn hair. "What are we supposed to do with the body?"
Body.
Not "Alice."
Not "my sister-in-law."
Just… a thing.
"Alan won't be gone for long," Ella said. "Father already sent someone after him. Lock the room. We can't have anyone poking around."
I followed her.
"Wait!" I said, running ahead. "Did Alan… did he—did he do this to me?"
No answer. They couldn't hear me.
Flashes of the night before blurred in my head. Wine. Music. A hand on my back. A whisper.
Then… nothing. He was the only one I haven't seen. The man I was supposed to marry had disappeared after my death. An anchor sank in the pit of my stomach. "He couldn't have…" I murmured to myself. Lord Alan was the only good thing to come out of this godforsaken family. I walked to Ella. "Where's Alan?" I asked. She doesn't hear me.
"WHERE IS HE?!" I screamed. "YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO ME! DON'T YOU?! WHERE IS MY HUSBAND?! He wouldn't do this. Alan wouldn't kill me. Would he?"
The lights flickered. Ella flinched.
"Hells be damned! That girl better not be haunting the place," she muttered, pulling the doors closed and locking them. The key disappeared into her coat.
I ran through the door after her, rage searing in my veins. My hand passed through her skirts like smoke.
I ran through room after room, shouting, sobbing, pulling at walls and windows. No one heard me and no one saw me. The lights kept flickering, shadows deepening wherever I passed. I screamed until I couldn't remember why I started and then I collapsed in the center of the great hall, curling into myself.
I cried. Cried until night came again and i was left heaving breath and cold silence. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't fade. I just… existed.
Then I felt something shift. Footsteps echoed. But not normal ones. They didn't come from the stairs or the corridors. They came through the door. A man—tall, cloaked in black—walked in without opening it. As if doors no longer meant anything to him.
He knelt beside me.
"Don't be sad, child," he said softly.
I wiped my face with trembling fingers. "You can see me?"
He smiled. He was many years older than I was and there was something strangely familiar about his features. "Of course I can."
"Am I… am I dead?" I whispered. "Are you?"
"We are one in the same. No longer of this world, but still bound to it." His voice was warm and for a moment, I felt like there was a part of me that was still alive.
"I don't understand. I don't remember anything. I think… I think Alan killed me."
"Maybe he did," the man said, rising to his feet. "You have unfinished business, Alice. That's why you're still here."
"I need to find him. Do you know where he is?"
"I can't leave this house. My time to roam is long gone. But you? You still have some freedom left."
He paused, then reached into his coat and handed me something. A golden pocket watch. I turned it around. A name was scrawled across it:
Lord Phantom.
"Find him," the man said. "Give him that watch. Tell him Yuriel sent you. He'll help."
"Who is he? Is he a ghost as well?"
"An old friend. Someone who sees what others cannot. Though whether he's a man or a ghost… is still a matter of debate."
"And you?" I asked. "Can't he help you too?"
"My fate is sealed. Yours isn't. Go. Before this house turns you into one of its own." he held out a hand. I took it and he walked me through the front door and when I turned around, he was gone. Leaving me alone in the cold night.