Change has always been an inevitable force. From one moment to the next, a place could become unrecognizable. Anything from a natural disaster to poor décor choices could play the part of catalyst there, and this only compounded with the passage of time.


    A day, a month, a year. The more time stood between one version and the next, the likelier it was for changes to have occurred.


    Two centuries.


    That much had passed since Edmund Adianoeta had walked the Earth.


    And unfortunately for his ghost, it showed.


    “It was this exact crack, I swear,” the ghost fumbled, forcing his ethereal fingers into an imperfection in the wall. “This was the latch, on this side!”


    Had it not been for the absurdity of it, Nikola might have had the energy to be outraged.


    “What need could you possibly have for a mechanism so thoroughly concealed?” he asked of the decedent before him, despite having a fairly good idea of the answers—occultists were all like that, so concerned for discovery, even when none of their acts broke laws.


    For all some shunned it, there was nothing strictly wrong with partaking in magical pursuits—it was when blood was spilled that problems arose, for crossing certain lines always came at a cost.


    “This is the path that leads— that led to that which I… prepared my mother’s well for. No expense could be spared, no detail too complex, not when I could not afford for any to stumble upon it,” the ghost’s response was blatant in its omission of key details. “Maria found it, regardless. I’d planned for them to rely on simply making offerings through the grate, for I took all steps necessary to make it close to unbreakable. Even to the likes of them, of us.”


    “You meant for your family to be doing this?” Nikola hissed out. Where he doubted he’d ever get the chance—or have the spine to—confront someone like Maria, something about the ghost’s initial deference increased his willingness to speak up now.


    “For eternal life, who would not?” Edmund Adianoeta counted. “This should have lasted us thousands of years, for the thing in the well was keeping the fountain’s waters in order! It was sustainable. Squandering my gift is what got us here!”


    Nikola’s hands had gone to his hips. “Pardon—sustainable? Your family’s famed fountain of youth was fueled by sacrificing people!”


    “What else would this famed fountain have been fueled by?”


    “I know not,” Nikola admitted. He tipped his head, considering this. “Alchemy?”


    “You must know nothing of alchemy, to be thinking that,” the ghost scoffed. At no point had it stopped its attempts at unlocking the exit.


    Nikola had to concede there. It was admittedly a concept he had not studied in depth—he knew nothing beyond the basics all with an outside perspective did. He knew not its limits, let alone how far it could be pushed. Perhaps he had erred, in blindly trusting the common belief that this was somehow how the family attained their longevity. That it must have been alchemy, their secrets well-kept to justify how none save them had ever achieved such a feat.


    “So it was the taking of lives, not a secret recipe. All this time. …How?”


    “Curious as to how it’s done, are we?” the ghost shot him a glance, actually grinning for a moment before its expression returned to one furrowed in concentration. “I might tell you sometime, if that will please it.”


    “All things considered, you are more forthcoming than I would have expected, given the circumstances,” Nikola noted. “Though I shall be the first to say, said circumstances are anything but comprehensible.”


    “I spoke in earnest, of my desire to keep the peace. I would do everything in my power to keep its ire from me and mine, despite their indiscretions.”


    That had been the second time Nikola had noticed the late patriarch’s ghost speaking of this nebulous it, some adversarial force in this conundrum. He found little option but to interpret that vagueness as willful obfuscation, not that he could do anything about it. Besides, the ghost’s fear of whatever it spoke of appeared to be behind its willingness to offer its aid to Nikola.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    What he could, however, do, was point out the obvious. “Are you not the ghost of Edmund Adianoeta?”


    “That, I am.”


    “Then would it not be within your power to simply go through the wall and open it from the other side?”


    In fact, common knowledge dictated that it was far more taxing for ghosts to interact with the corporeal than it would be for them to move as if it bothered them. He would have expected the ghost of a famous occultist to have thought of this.


    The ghost stilled, shaking its head. Rather than address Nikola’s suggestion, it took a step forward, then another. It left the room unimpeded, and within seconds, the wall gave.


    Nikola made an honest effort not to give Edmund Adianoeta the side eye.


    “We must make haste. I will guide you through the gardens,” the ghost started. He began to point in various directions, settling for a casement window nearby, perpendicular to the bookshelves. “Here.”


    “You better not be wasting my time, George.”


    At the voice’s increasing volume, both beleaguered columnist and trepidant ghost flinched. Footsteps could be heard, and they were getting closer.


    A moment later, Nikola placed the voice—it was Clarisse’s. His willingness to follow the ghost’s suggestion of leaping through the window increased.


    “I insist, madam. I know what I heard. It was the sound of something scratching at the walls, truly!”


    Nikola did give the ghost the side eye then, but the window—now ajar—soon subsumed his attention. His grip on the sill firm, he dared to look down. He could make out the grass below, somehow damp, and dark hedging that hugged the walls themselves.


    Before he could think better of it, he clumsily raised his feet to the sill, then allowed his legs to dangle out the window. It was more than large enough to accommodate the motion. He found he could hear his heartbeat upon his warming ears, and held his breath for a moment before letting go.


    Despite his hope to land either crouched or upon the hedge—he was admittedly lacking on experience jumping down from anywhere—pain buzzed from knee to hip as he landed, curling in on himself. He only barely managed to keep quiet, if hissing out a breath didn’t disqualify him from that achievement.


    Still, the pain dulled swiftly enough that he could focus on his surroundings again. Edmund’s ghost was hovering down the window, slowly lowering itself.


    Nikola inhaled, hoping the dimming pain was a sign that he would not be mistaken to try and stand. He did just that, swaying on uneasy feet—but ready to flee, nonetheless.


    “Three lefts and one right, for the first quarter,” the ghost told him as they approached the hedge maze. “I had this made for Ursula, back when she was little. Back when she was alive.”


    That was a comment that would have likely gone over the head of anyone who didn’t outright work for an Adianoeta—picking up tidbits that even those obsessed with the famous might not know was just unavoidable.


    The late Ursula Adianoeta—Edmund and Maria’s eldest—had preceded the family’s fame, dying before her 20th birthday. Had John not mentioned how an oversized painting of that aunt of his adorned one of their dining areas, Nikola doubted he would have ever heard of her at all.


    “Madam, there’s movement down there!”


    Nikola cursed under his breath, rushing to enter the maze. Moonlight barely qualified as illumination here, the gleaming of its touch upon the leaves not anywhere near enough to brighten the path.


    Despite having instructed him beforehand, the ghost led the way ahead.


    As little sense as it made, Nikola found he’d started following the ghost more on instinct than by sight. It was a gaping hole in the natural warmth of the world, and he didn’t need to see it, not quite, to let the cold simply drag him along.


    The last turn led them to a wider section, with a bear gripping balloons on its “hand” carved like a statue upon a standalone hedge. Two entrances stood there, one at each side of it.


    “The right one!” the ghost instructed.


    Nikola followed the advice, entering the next section of the hedge maze. Their run could have taken no more than a handful of minutes, yet time dragged on. His chest screamed as if he had been on the run for hours.


    Just as he chose the left entrance and slid into the last quarter, a loud noise roared from behind them. Though he resisted the urge to look back—if nothing else, this served as proof he needed to avoid even the barest delay—the distinct scent of cut grass reached his nostrils.


    “Make haste!” Edmund Adianoeta’s ghost howled desperately, as if Nikola could have gone any faster.


    They had almost reached the end of the maze, by the edge of the Adianoetas’ estate.


    “Would any wards deny us passage on the way out?” Nikola asked of the ghost.


    “No,” the ghost assured him. It looked off to the side, then to Nikola, and to the side again. “Not anymore.”


    Asking for clarification on the incessantly vague comments would have to wait.


    “Halt!” Clarisse Adianoeta’s voice thundered through the world, a command imprinted into reality for all who heard it.


    It passed through Nikola, a storm of sensations not unlike tickling that came from the inside. His stomach roiled from the force of it, but he did not feel inclined to stop. Free from the twists and turns of the maze, he began his sprint in earnest, down the hill.