Episode Twenty-Three- The Waiting Room.

No one spoke for a long moment.

Patience stood in the center of the conservatory, her hands still loosely folded, as if she’d forgotten what to do with them once she was finished being… wherever she had just been.

I didn’t like it.

I didn’t like the way she looked at me, like she expected me to explain something I hadn’t been told.

“Patience,” I said, keeping my voice even, “what do you remember?”

She blinked.

“I was in my room,” she said slowly. “And then I wasn’t.”

Sterling made a frustrated sound. “That’s not helpful.”

“Well, I’m sorry I didn’t take notes while I was being mysteriously relocated,” she snapped, some of her usual fire returning. “Next time I’ll bring a pen.”

Good.

That was better.

Kendrick circled the room once more, slower this time, his attention fixed on the shadows beyond the plants. “You said someone wanted you to wait,” he said. “What makes you think that?”

Patience hesitated.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It just… felt like that. Like I wasn’t supposed to leave.”

“Did you try?” I asked.

She shook her head.

That was worse.

I stepped past her and moved toward the corner she had glanced at earlier. The stone beneath my boots was cold, the air thinner here, like the room didn’t quite belong to the rest of the house.

Nothing.

No figure. No movement.

But the absence pressed in harder than anything that might have been standing there.

Kendrick stopped beside me. “You smell it too.”

I didn’t look at him. “Yes.”

Sterling stiffened. “Smell what?”

I turned back to him. “Something that doesn’t belong.”

“That’s incredibly vague,” he said.

“That’s also incredibly accurate,” I replied.

Behind us, Raven stepped into the room.

She didn’t rush. She never rushed. The door closed quietly behind her, sealing the four of us inside with her like the final piece of a puzzle sliding into place.

“Have you found what you were looking for?” she asked.

Her gaze moved over Patience, then to me.

“No,” I said. “But I think something found us.”

Raven smiled faintly. “That tends to happen here.”

Sterling crossed his arms. “You knew she’d be here.”

“I knew she would be… guided,” Raven said.

“By who?” Kendrick asked.

Raven tilted her head slightly, as if considering whether the question deserved an answer.

“That depends,” she said at last, “on what you believe is still present in this house.”

The air shifted.

Not physically.

Something quieter than that.

Patience looked between us. “Okay, I officially hate this conversation. Can someone please just say what’s going on?”

No one answered her.

Because no one wanted to say it out loud.

I stepped closer to Raven. “You’re not surprised.”

“No,” she said.

“Then you’ve seen this before.”

Raven’s eyes flickered, just once. “I’ve seen enough.”

That wasn’t an answer.

It was a warning.

I exhaled slowly and turned back to Patience. “We’re leaving this room.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said immediately.

Sterling moved to her side, his earlier irritation replaced by something more protective, more focused. Kendrick fell in behind us as we headed for the door.

Raven didn’t move.

I paused at the threshold and looked back at her.

“You’re not coming?”

“Not yet,” she said.

“Why not?”

Her gaze lingered on me for a beat too long.

“Because this part isn’t for me.”

That settled somewhere deep in my chest in a way I didn’t like.

I left without another word.

The hallway felt different on the way back.

It wasn’t the lighting. It wasn’t the distance.

It was the sense that the house had shifted its attention.

Before, we had been guests.

Now we were… participants.

Patience walked close to me, her usual chatter noticeably absent. Sterling stayed just behind her, eyes scanning every doorway we passed. Kendrick lingered at the rear, quiet in a way that meant he was paying attention to everything.

“Okay,” Patience said finally, unable to hold it in any longer. “I don’t like this. I don’t like any of this. One minute I’m in my room, the next I’m in a glass box waiting for you like I’m part of some weird art installation.”

“You didn’t feel anything?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “That’s the problem. It was like… skipping a scene in a movie. You know something happened, but you didn’t see it.”

I nodded.

That was exactly what I was afraid of.

We reached the main hall just as Ben reappeared from a side corridor, looking like he’d been hoping to avoid us entirely.

“Oh,” he said, stopping short. “You found her.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “You win the prize for most helpful information of the evening.”

He didn’t look convinced.

“Miss Holt,” he said carefully, “Mr. Merrick has requested that you and your companions join him for dinner.”

Sterling let out a short laugh. “Dinner.”

“Yes,” Ben said. “In the formal dining room.”

“Of course it is,” Kendrick muttered.

I shifted the paper bag still in my hand. “We have dinner.”

Ben glanced at the bag. “That’s… not what he meant.”

“I know,” I said.

Patience looked between us. “Do I even want to know?”

“No,” I said. “But we’re going anyway.”

Sterling frowned. “You think that’s a good idea?”

“No,” I said again. “I think it’s a necessary one.”

Because whatever was happening here, it wasn’t random.

And Merrick didn’t do anything without a reason.

The dining room was exactly what you’d expect.

Long table. High-backed chairs. More polished surfaces than any human should trust. Candles burning low in silver holders that probably cost more than my last car.

Merrick sat at the head of the table.

Raven was already there.

Of course she was.

She didn’t look at us as we entered, but I felt her awareness like a hand at my back.

“Ah,” Merrick said, rising slightly. “The flock returns.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

“We found our missing sheep,” I said, gesturing toward Patience.

“Did you?” Merrick asked, his tone mild.

Something in it made my spine tighten.

Patience shifted beside me. “I’m right here, you know.”

“Yes,” Merrick said, his gaze settling on her. “You are.”

He motioned to the seats. “Please. Sit.”

We did.

Because not sitting would have been worse.

A servant appeared at Merrick’s side and poured fresh glasses of blood, the scent filling the room with that same rich, intoxicating pull.

I didn’t touch mine.

Merrick noticed.

“Not hungry?” he asked.

“I have a burger waiting for me with my name on it,” I said.

His smile was small and knowing. “So, I’ve heard.”

Of course he had.

He knew everything that happened in this house.

Or at least… almost everything.

I leaned back slightly in my chair. “I don’t know if I said this before, but you have a beautiful home.”

“Thank you,” he said. “It has… history.”

There it was again.

That word.

Heavy. Deliberate.

“Does it?” I asked.

Merrick’s eyes held mine. “More than most.”

Silence stretched across the table.

Patience shifted again, clearly uncomfortable. Kendrick remained still, watching. Sterling looked like he was one bad sentence away from doing something stupid.

I let the silence sit.

Then—

“Your house moves people without their consent,” I said.

Patience’s head snapped toward me. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

Merrick didn’t react the way I expected.

He didn’t deny it.

He didn’t deflect.

He simply folded his hands on the table.

“And what did you find when you went looking?” he asked.

I held his gaze.

“Not what I expected.”

Raven’s lips curved faintly.

Merrick nodded once. “Good.”

That word landed harder than anything else he’d said.

Good.

Like this was a test.

Like we had passed something we didn’t know we were taking.

I felt it then.

That faint, impossible scent again.

Old.

Watching.

Waiting.

And this time, it didn’t fade right away.

Merrick’s eyes flickered, just slightly, as if he felt it too—or knew I did.

“Welcome,” he said softly, “to the part of the house that remembers.”

No one spoke.

Because this wasn’t about dinner.

And it definitely wasn’t about hospitality.

This was a room.

A waiting room.

And whatever we had disturbed in the conservatory…

Had followed us.