It had not even been a full day before the rumor Tabitha had planted at the soirée began to spread beyond the ballroom.
By the time evening approached, the news had already reached the town of Dwern.
Lambert Denton stepped down from his carriage as he returned home from the day's business, dusting the front of his coat absentmindedly. But the moment his feet touched the ground, something immediately felt wrong.
The street was unusually crowded.
Nearly the entire neighborhood had gathered outside their homes, lingering along the road and near the gates of the Denton residence. Conversations that had been loud moments before suddenly died down the instant Lambert appeared.
Dozens of eyes turned toward him. Some looked curious. Others whispered behind raised hands. A few simply stared.
Lambert's brow furrowed as he took in the strange scene.
A sudden thought struck him.
Could Christiana have been found?
Hope surged through him so quickly that he barely spared the neighbors another glance. Without wasting a second, he hurried toward the house, pushing open the door and stepping inside.
But the sight that greeted him was not what he had expected.
Venetia sat on the couch in the sitting room.
Her usually elegant appearance was completely undone. Her hair had fallen loose and tangled around her shoulders, and the carefully composed demeanor she always carried had vanished entirely.
In her hand was a half-empty bottle of wine.
Lambert stopped in his tracks.
"Venetia?" he said in alarm before quickly crossing the room.
"Dear, you mustn't—" he began, gently taking the bottle from her grasp.
But before he could finish, she cut him off.
"They know, Lambert!"
Her voice trembled as she tried to snatch the wine back from him.
Lambert froze slightly.
"What do you mean?"
Venetia leaned back against the couch, her eyes filled with distress.
"I went out for a walk with Melody this afternoon," she said, her voice uneven. "And while we were passing through the street, I heard someone say something to me."
Her lips trembled.
"They told me I should hold on tightly to this one… before she runs away like my first."
She watched her husband's face carefully, searching for reassurance that she desperately needed.
Lambert stood silent for a moment as the meaning behind her words settled in.
So the rumor had already spread. Someone had told the town that Christiana had run away. Likely with a man.
He exhaled slowly and forced his expression to remain calm.
"So what if they know?" he said firmly, though his voice carried a gentleness meant to steady her. "It isn't the end of the world."
He placed the wine bottle aside, kneeling slightly in front of her.
"And don't worry," he added, meeting her gaze. "We will find Christiana."
The words sounded confident.
But deep inside, a small seed of doubt had already begun to grow.
Far away from the reach of civilization, where no towns stood and no roads were properly kept, the steady rhythm of a horse's hooves suddenly came to a halt.
The animal's hooves struck the wet earth one final time, splashing mud outward as it stopped beside a narrow clearing. The ground was damp from the previous night's rain, and the smell of wet soil lingered thick in the air.
The rider dismounted without hesitation.
His boots landed heavily in the mud, droplets splattering across the hem of his dark coat. He did not seem to mind. With practiced ease, he brushed his gloved hands together before slipping them into the pockets of his coat.
A short distance away stood a crooked wooden sign, half-swallowed by creeping vines and moss. The paint had long begun to fade, but the carved words were still visible.
Willow Woods.
Anthony barely spared the sign a glance.
Instead, he began walking toward the forest itself.
From the very first step beneath the trees, it was obvious that this was not a place ordinary people visited. The forest carried an unsettling stillness, as though it had been untouched for decades.
The trees stretched unnaturally tall, their twisted branches clawing toward the sky like skeletal fingers. Thick cobwebs hung between the trunks, some so wide they draped like veils across the darker corners of the woods.
Even during the day, very little sunlight managed to break through the dense canopy above. What little light filtered through appeared pale and sickly, casting long shadows that shifted with the wind.
Somewhere deep within the forest, an owl hooted.
The sound was strange considering the hour. It was still daytime, yet the creatures of the night seemed perfectly comfortable here.
Anthony continued walking without pause.
Not far from where he stood, the faint sound of running water echoed softly through the woods. A narrow river wound its way between the trees, its current moving steadily over smooth stones.
And just beyond the river stood an abandoned cottage.
The building looked as though it had been forgotten for years. Thick weeds and wild vines had grown around it, creeping up the walls and wrapping themselves around the wooden structure as if the forest were slowly reclaiming it. The windows had all been sealed shut with rough wooden boards, and a section of the roof had collapsed inward, leaving a jagged hole through which leaves and rain had long been allowed to fall.
Anyone who came across such a place would assume the same thing.
No one lived there.
But Anthony knew better.
He knew exactly who he was looking for—and he knew the kind of place that person would choose to hide.
Without slowing down, Anthony stepped toward the river and leapt across it in a smooth motion. His boots landed firmly on the opposite bank before he continued toward the cottage.
The wooden porch groaned faintly beneath his weight as he stepped onto it. Each movement produced a quiet creak from the old planks, the sound echoing slightly in the otherwise silent woods.
Reaching forward, he pushed the door open.
The moment the door moved, a foul stench rushed out from the dark interior. The smell was thick and putrid, something between decay and mold that stung the nose the instant it reached him.
Anthony immediately stepped back.
Frowning slightly, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a neatly folded white kerchief. With calm precision, he tied it across the lower half of his face, covering his nose and mouth before approaching the doorway again.
This time, he stepped inside.
Darkness swallowed him almost immediately.
The boarded windows allowed very little light into the cottage, leaving the interior dim and heavy with stale air. Dust lingered in the corners and the wooden floor looked dry and brittle from years of neglect.
Anthony did not move at first.
Instead, he stood still, allowing his senses to adjust to the silence.
Outside, the forest carried its own sounds—the rustling of leaves, the distant flow of the river, the occasional call of an owl. But inside the cottage, the stillness felt different.
Then he heard it.
A faint noise broke through the quiet.
It was subtle enough that most people would have dismissed it as imagination, but Anthony's senses were too sharp to ignore it. The sound came again moments later, soft and distant, as though it had traveled through layers of wood and earth before reaching him.
It was coming from beneath the floor.
Anthony's eyes slowly opened as the realization settled in.
Without hesitation, he crouched down and ran his gloved hands across the wooden floorboards, his fingers moving carefully over the surface as he searched for something unusual. The planks were rough beneath his touch, aged and stiff with time.
For several moments, he found nothing.
Then his fingers brushed against a narrow crack between two boards.
It was subtle, barely noticeable, but it was enough.
Anthony pressed his fingers into the gap and applied pressure. The wood resisted at first, but after a moment it shifted with a dull creak, revealing that the plank was not fixed in place.
Slowly, the hidden panel lifted.
Beneath it, a narrow staircase revealed itself, descending into darkness.
The faint sound he had heard earlier drifted upward from the passage below, confirming that whatever he had come for was somewhere beneath the cottage.
Anthony rose to his feet and stared briefly into the dark opening.
Then, without hesitation, he stepped forward and began descending the stairs.