Chapter 76: When Walls Remember Names
The night air in the Callahan estate was thick with the scent of lavender and secrets. Moonlight pooled in silver puddles across the polished marble floors as Savannah tiptoed past the long, arched windows, her bare feet silent on the stone. The corridor ahead loomed with a stillness too deliberate, like something watching.
She paused before the sealed wing, the one Rhett said was condemned. It hadn’t stopped her. Nothing ever did.
"Locked for a reason," she whispered, tracing the old bronze latch. Her fingers trembled slightly, not from fear, but from anticipation. Savannah had always known there was more to this estate than luxury and cold beauty. There were stories in the shadows.
The lock gave way with a creak, and she slipped inside.
The air changed instantly. Dust clung to her skin, and the temperature dropped as though the wing remembered its dead. Broken chandeliers hung like skeletal remains above her. Portraits lined the walls, their faces faded, their eyes scraped out.
She moved forward, drawn deeper.
Each step felt like trespassing into memory.
At the end of the corridor, a grand double door stood half ajar. Savannah pushed it open. The scent hit her first, old parchment, dried roses, and something deeper: wolf musk.
Inside, the room bloomed with forgotten history. A domed ceiling stretched above her, painted with constellations and war. Bookshelves clawed up the walls, some broken, some burnt. And in the center of the far wall, a mural.
She stopped breathing.
The mural was larger than life, the colors faded but haunting. A woman with fire in her hair stood among wolves, her eyes golden, regal. Around her neck was a mark, not painted, but carved, a crescent bleeding into a star. Savannah’s hand flew to her own neck, fingertips brushing skin.