Chapter three

Chapter three: The keeper of Ashes

The morning after the storm came silver and silent, with a breathless hush that pressed upon the cobbled streets of Duskmoor like the closing of a tomb. The gaslamps flickered in retreat against the gray light, and a fine mist curled in the alleyways like smoke from an unseen pyre. Isabelle Montrose stood at the tall windows of her townhouse, the sketchbook open in her hands. She had not slept.

The pages were dry now ,no longer stained with rain, but still held the imprint of a mystery that had deepened rather than resolved. The ciphered notes she discovered beneath the charcoal drawings had become legible only after heat had been applied: a faint script written in lemon juice, emerging like ghost letters over time. It had taken a fireplace poker, a breath of courage, and an hour of gentle coaxing to reveal the words.

“Seek the Keeper of Ashes beneath the clocktower. Trust only what burns.”

She traced the faded letters with a fingertip. The phrase had the flavor of poetry, but the weight of something darker. The “Keeper of Ashes”—was it a title, a metaphor, or someone real?

Isabelle closed the sketchbook gently and placed it on her writing desk, beside the ornate key Alexander had given her. The metal was warm from her palm, almost unnaturally so. Its teeth were carved like flames, its handle shaped into a circle of thorns. Not a key made for a door, she thought—but perhaps for something older. Or sacred.

She dressed quickly, her fingers trembling only slightly as she laced her bodice. Today, she would go to the clocktower. She had to know.

The center of Duskmoor was a place where time stood still—or rather, towered over everything, watching with mechanical vigilance. The old clocktower had been constructed before the Great Reformation, and its bronze face bore the scars of centuries. Gears groaned behind its stone skin, and pigeons roosted in its gargoyles’ mouths like watchful ghosts.

Isabelle arrived near midday, when the fog was thinning and the market square had emptied under threat of drizzle. She glanced up at the tower and then to the street below, scanning the base for any sign of an entrance that matched the key’s proportions. But there were no obvious locks, no doors left ajar. Only the caretaker’s gate—rusted and hung with a warning sign.

She hesitated.

Then the sound of a voice low, velvety, and unmistakably amused broke the tension behind her.

“You really ought to wear a cloak when walking into places forbidden to the public, Miss Montrose.”

She turned quickly.

Alexander Vale stood a few paces away, his coat slick with rain and his dark hair tousled by the wind. He looked like sin wrapped in silk, as if he belonged not to this city, but to some hidden chapter of its history—half-sorcerer, half-scandal.

“I could say the same of you,” Isabelle said, her voice cooler than she felt. “Are you following me?”

“Not precisely,” he said, stepping closer. “But I did leave you a key. I had a suspicion it might lead you here.”

She studied him, unsure whether to be annoyed or grateful. “Why?”

“Because this tower has secrets,” he said simply. “And so do you.”

They stood in silence for a beat, the mist shifting around them like curtains pulled back for a performance neither was ready to begin.

Finally, Alexander gestured toward the caretaker’s gate. “Come. Let’s see what fire that key unlocks.”

The interior of the clocktower was colder than Isabelle had expected its stone walls covered in soot and ivy, its air thick with the scent of old oil and iron. The ticking above was a steady thrum, like a heartbeat for something ancient.

At the base of the spiral stairs, beneath a large rusted gear half-buried in the floor, Isabelle found it: a small brass keyhole, nearly hidden by grime. She knelt and fit the key into the lock.

It turned.

A hiss of steam escaped from somewhere within the stone. A section of wall slid back, revealing a passage lit by gas sconces that must have been kept fueled despite decades of neglect.

Alexander whistled low. “Well, that’s charmingly gothic.”

Together, they descended.

At the bottom, they reached a circular chamber built of black stone and filled with urns—each etched with symbols Isabelle couldn’t translate. In the center stood a raised platform, and on it, a single object: a locket, resting on a crimson cloth.

Alexander reached for it, but Isabelle stopped him. “Wait.”

She stepped forward first, heart pounding. The locket’s design matched the key’s motif: flames and thorns, intertwined. She opened it.

Inside was a miniature painting,no larger than a coin of a young woman with dark hair and sorrowful eyes. Isabelle stared at it in silence. Something about the face was familiar.

And then she saw it: etched behind the portrait, almost invisible.

A name.

E. Montrose.

Her breath caught.

Alexander’s brows rose. “A relative of yours?”

“My grandmother’s sister,” Isabelle whispered. “She disappeared before I was born. They called it a scandal. Said she fled the city after a love affair went… wrong. But no one ever found her.”

The chamber grew colder. A gust of wind blew through the open passage behind them, snuffing several of the sconces.

Alexander took a step closer, his voice no longer teasing. “Isabelle… this is no longer about coincidence. Someone wanted you to find this.”

Her grip on the locket tightened.

“I think,” she said slowly, “this Keeper of Ashes isn’t a person.”

He frowned. “Then what?”

She looked up, her voice a whisper of awe and dread.

“A society. One that my family was once part of.”

As they emerged back into the gray daylight, the city no longer looked quite the same to Isabelle. Every alley, every shadow, held potential meaning. She felt the tremor of something awakening—some ancient bond reignited, not just in her blood, but between herself and the man who now walked beside her.

Alexander offered her his arm.

She took it.

For the first time, neither of them spoke.

The embers between them glowed steadily, dangerously—ready, perhaps, to catch fire.