Chapter 14 - Fire at Blackwood HouseThe night sky above Blackwood House glowed orange.
Lena saw it before the car reached the gates.
Flames licked through the east wing windows, turning smoke into a living thing. Fire trucks crowded the driveway. Guests from the canceled gala stood outside wrapped in blankets and shock. Staff cried near the fountain.
Adrian was out of the car before it stopped.
Lena followed.
Detective Bell shouted, “Stay back!”
Neither listened.
The mansion was not simply burning. It was being erased from the inside.
“The archive wing,” Adrian said, voice hollow.
Mabel grabbed Lena’s arm. “The gown was there?”
Adrian nodded once.
Lena’s chest clenched.
The Sapphira gown.
Her mother’s final key.
Her mother’s last gift.
“No,” she whispered.
A firefighter blocked Adrian at the steps. “Sir, you can’t go in.”
“My staff—”
“Everyone’s being evacuated.”
“My father?”
The firefighter hesitated.
That hesitation said enough.
Adrian’s face hardened. “Where?”
“Inside. Last seen near the archive.”
Adrian looked at the burning wing.
For a fraction of a second, Lena saw the terrible war inside him.
A murdered mother.
A monstrous father.
A son still trained by blood to run toward danger.
Then a voice cut through the chaos.
“Adrian!”
Thomas Blackwood emerged through smoke near the side entrance, coughing but alive, supported by two security men. His tuxedo jacket was gone. Soot streaked his face. But his eyes were clear.
Too clear.
Adrian moved toward him.
Police intercepted both men.
Thomas looked past his son and saw Lena.
Even covered in ash, he smiled.
That smile chilled her more than the fire.
“Miss Ward,” he said. “Your mother caused trouble from the grave.”
Lena stepped closer. “Where is the gown?”
Thomas coughed into a handkerchief. “Burned, I imagine.”
Mabel made a sound of pain.
Adrian’s voice was deadly. “What did you do?”
Thomas turned to him. “What you were too weak to do. I ended this.”
Detective Bell approached with two officers.
“Thomas Blackwood, you need to come with us.”
He gave her an offended glance. “For surviving a fire in my own home?”
“For questioning related to multiple ongoing investigations.”
He laughed.
“You people adore drama.”
Lena stared at the burning windows.
Something inside her refused to believe the gown was gone.
Evelyn Ward had hidden a ledger in a wall for twelve years. She had pressed secret numbers into a photograph. She had stitched messages where only love would look.
She would not have left the final key somewhere easy to destroy.
Find the moon without stars.
Lena turned suddenly.
“Adrian.”
He looked at her.
“The gown had silver beading, right? Like constellations.”
“Yes.”
“Where was there a moon without stars?”
Mabel’s eyes widened.
“The lining,” she whispered. “Inside the bodice. Evelyn stitched a plain moon there. No beads around it. I thought it was decorative.”
Adrian turned toward the fire. “The gown was in the archive display room.”
“No,” Mabel said suddenly.
Everyone looked at her.
She gripped Lena’s hand.
“I moved it.”
Adrian stared. “What?”
Mabel swallowed. “After the gala, before everything went mad. I didn’t trust leaving it with Blackwood staff. I had it sent to alterations.”
“Where?”
“The old workroom below the west wing.”
Adrian looked at the mansion.
The west wing was smoky but not burning.
Lena was already moving.
Adrian caught her arm. “No.”
She looked at his hand.
He released her immediately.
“Sorry.”
Detective Bell stepped in. “No civilians enter.”
Mabel lifted her chin. “Then send someone who knows gowns.”
The detective looked at the firefighters, then at the west wing, calculating.
Finally she pointed at two officers. “With masks. Two minutes. No heroics.”
“I’m going,” Lena said.
“No,” Detective Bell said.
Lena met her eyes.
“My mother put the key there for me.”
For a long second, they stared at each other.
Then Detective Bell cursed under her breath and handed Lena a smoke mask.
“Two minutes.”
The west wing smelled of smoke and wet wood. Lights flickered. Water dripped from ceilings. Adrian came with her despite every warning, because of course he did.
The old workroom was down a narrow stairwell behind the service pantry.
Lena’s lungs burned even through the mask.
“There,” Adrian said.
The garment bag hung from a brass hook, untouched.
Lena rushed to it.
Her hands shook as she unzipped it.
The royal blue gown shimmered in the emergency light.
Alive.
She turned the bodice inside out.
There.
A small stitched moon.
Plain blue thread.
No stars.
Lena grabbed a seam ripper from the worktable and opened the stitching.
Something tiny slipped into her palm.
A brass key.
Attached to it was a strip of fabric with one word written in fading ink.
Glasshouse.
Above them, something crashed.
Adrian grabbed her waist and pulled her back as part of the ceiling collapsed near the door.
Smoke flooded the room.
The exit vanished.
Lena clutched the key.
Adrian looked at the blocked stairwell, then at a narrow service tunnel behind the old cutting table.
“Do you trust me?” he asked.
Lena coughed.
May you like
“No.”
Then she took his hand anyway.
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