February 4, 1814
London, England

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March. The last of the plumed lords and ladies swooped into Town like crows feasting upon carrion. Susan had escaped both her splints and her bedchamber for the first time in six long, dark weeks—only to be bundled in the back of a black carriage and jettisoned into the vast void of nothingness beyond London borders.

To Bournemouth. Bournemouth. An infinitesimal “town” on a desolate stretch of coastline a million miles from home. Less than a hundred souls, the carriage driver had said. Spectacular. Thrice as many bodies had graced Susan’s London come-out party four years ago, not counting the servants. Being banished from Town was the worst possible punishment Mother could’ve devised. Nothing could deaden the soul quite like the prospect of—

Moonseed Manor.

Susan’s breath caught in her throat. Her mind emptied of its litany of complaints as her eyes struggled to equate the stark, colorless vista before her with “town of Bournemouth.”

Dead brown nothingness. Miles of it. A steep cliff jutted over black ocean. And there, backlit with a smattering of fuzzy stars, a bone-white architectural monstrosity teetering impossibly close to the edge.

Moonseed Manor did not look like a place to live. Moonseed Manor looked like a place to die.

Not even a single candle flickered in the windows. The carriage drew her ever closer, its wheels bouncing and slipping on sand and rocks. Susan’s skin erupted in gooseflesh. She hugged herself, struck by an invasive chill much colder than the ocean breeze should cause.

The carriage stopped. The driver handed her out, then disappeared back into his perch, leaving her to make her presence known by herself. Very well. He could stay and mind the luggage while she summoned the help. Miss Susan Stanton was no shrinking violet. Although she wished for the hundredth time that her lady’s maid (and frequent collaborator in the very schemes that got Susan in trouble in the first place) had been forbidden from accompanying her. She was well and truly exiled.

The back of her neck prickling with trepidation, Susan found herself curling trembling fingers around a thick brass knocker, the handle formed from the coil of a serpent about to strike. The resulting sound echoed in the eerie stillness, as if both the pale wood and the house itself were hollow and lifeless.

The door slid silently open.

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