Keeper of Enchanted Rooms

But despite the injuries, despite the misery entangling his body and screaming in his bones, Silas felt . . . different. He felt . . . strong, somehow. Not in a physical sense but a metaphysical one. His magic . . . His magic felt like a thousand brilliant candles within him. Like it had . . . grown?

He stared at his father’s face. His slow breaths still reeked of alcohol.

Using a hand unattached to himself, Silas let the fingers pinch over his father’s windpipe. No more.

The breaths stopped.

And the surge of strength snuffed out. So suddenly that Silas found himself gasping for its loss. He gaped at his father’s corpse. Had he taken . . . but he couldn’t have . . . could he?

One thing was certain, as Silas carefully, joint by joint, pulled himself upright once more.

No one would ever have power over him again.

Chapter 1

September 4, 1846, Baltimore, Maryland

The reading of a will was far more exciting when one hadn’t been disinherited thirteen years prior. Indeed, Merritt Fernsby was not sure why the lawyer had contacted him at all.

He hadn’t come with his family, of course. He hadn’t spoken to them in a decade. Hadn’t been allowed to. There were letters in the beginning, all from him—the start of his writing career, in a melancholy sort of way, but melancholy things always made for great fiction. The coddled and content seldom told good stories. And though he was thirty-one years of age as of last March, he had yet to start a family of his own, for various reasons he could get into but never did.

And so he was very interested to receive a telegram from Mr. Allen, his maternal grandmother’s estate lawyer. Interested and confused, he’d made the trip out to Baltimore to satiate his curiosity. If nothing else, it might make good fodder for an article, or perhaps his work in progress.

“I’ll get to the point, Mr. Fernsby.” Mr. Allen leaned casually against his desk with papers in hand. He seemed to loom over Merritt and the well-worn chair he sat in, like a vulture sniffing out a fresh carcass, which was a somewhat harsh metaphor given that, thus far, Mr. Allen had been nothing but polite and professional.

Merritt wondered if his parents and siblings had been called into this office as well, or if Mr. Allen had made the trip out to New York to read the will to them there. Admittedly—and Merritt loathed to admit it, even to himself—he’d hoped they’d be here. Death often brought people together, and—

He swallowed hard, keeping his tongue at the back of his throat, until the familiar disappointment burned up in his stomach.

He pushed objectivity into his thoughts. Perhaps they had all come to Baltimore to see Grandmother before she passed. Then again, Merritt had, at best, only seen his grandmother once a year during his childhood, and he couldn’t quite remember the scale of sentimentality between her and his mother.

He wondered what his mother looked like now. Did she have lines in the corners of her eyes? Did she wear her hair differently, and had it started turning gray? Perhaps she had gained weight or lost it. Wincing, Merritt shut off the wondering early; the more he wondered, the less he could remember.

He realized then that Mr. Allen was still talking.

“—weren’t included in the rest,” he was saying, “but an addition was made some time ago.”

Merritt put two and two together. “How long ago?”

He checked his papers. “About twenty-five years.”

Before the disowning, then. He wondered if his grandmother had forgotten to take him off. Then again, the break had been his father’s doing. Perhaps Grandmother had, despite never trying to contact him, still cared for him. He preferred that explanation to the other. Of course, there was always a third possibility: guilt might have prevented her from removing his name.

“To my grandson Merritt Fernsby, I leave Whimbrel House and anything that might be left within it, along with its land.”

Merritt sat straighter in his chair. “Whimbrel House?” When Mr. Allen didn’t reply quickly enough, he added, “That’s it?”

Mr. Allen nodded.

Merritt wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but the mention of a house had him distracted. “I’ve never heard of it. A real house?”

“I don’t believe false ones can be inherited.” Mr. Allen put the papers down. “But I looked into the matter myself; it’s all in order.”

“How did my grandmother own a second house?”

Mr. Allen leaned back to open a drawer in his desk. His shuffled a few things around before pulling out a large envelope. Withdrawing a new set of documents, he said, “The property came into the Nichols line some time ago. Before that . . . Well, it hasn’t had a tenant in a very long time.”

“How long is very long?”

He flipped a paper. “Last recorded resident was 1737.”

Merritt blinked. That was over a century ago.

“Understandable,” Mr. Allen went on. “The place is out of the way, on Blaugdone Island in the Narragansett Bay.” He glanced up. “Rhode Island.”