I sat on the floor, right next to a cardboard strong box that Finn made, and pushed my nails into my leg. “Elle…”
“I’m not feeling well.”
Not feeling well was Elle-speak for anxious. She hated being alone, and she was terrified of storms, which was a terrible thing during monsoon season. She tried to cope, but it was easier when Dad or I were around. We could stop her from scratching herself until she bled or biting her lip until it was raw. She needed therapy. We just couldn’t afford it.
“I know how much this means to you,” she continued, when I didn’t immediately respond. “I do. I really do. But they said there’s a storm coming in, and I just…I’m scared, Ever. At least come home before dark, okay?”
Returning before nightfall would cut my preparation time in half. Still…
“Okay,” I said. “But if it gets to be too much, call me. If you need to talk, call me.”
She stayed on the phone for a while, as I unpacked the boxes and found my rhythm. Until her breathing eased and I felt confident again. I still had to finish these preparations, hide the clues, map out skill checks.
After she hung up, the cabin was quiet. The birdsong felt more distant, and the creaking of the doors in the wind sounded like nails on a chalkboard. And I knew home was this too: laughter, company. Home was the opposite of loneliness.
I wasn’t home in Gonfalon anymore. I had to pretend. For one more weekend. One last time.
Then end it.
As I unwrapped the last of the clockwork toys, the entire cabin grew quiet and even the curtains stopped moving. In the distance, the echoing notes of a music box started playing.
I froze. Liva had told me ghost stories about this place, and though I knew better than to believe those tales, the haunting, lilting melody made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Liva had said the sound of a music box was the last thing the victims of the mountain heard…
I grabbed a fake candelabra from the table and tried to figure out where the sound came from. “Hello?”
I took a few tentative steps toward the middle of the room and tried to pinpoint the source of the music. It remained distant and yet felt just out of reach. The chills that curled up my arms and neck felt like featherlight touches. “Is anyone there?”
A bright flash lit up the whole cabin, throwing shadows everywhere. I yelped before thunder crackled through the sky, and I realized the flash was nothing more than a lightning strike.
But once the rumbling stopped, the melody was gone too. Disappeared, as suddenly as it came, leaving only silence and shadows.
* * *
Four sets of footsteps clatter down the stairs now, mirroring last night’s storm. I glance around me as if the music box might still be here somewhere—and wipe my clammy hands on my shirt.
Ghost stories are for children, old man. It’s game time.
It always starts with murder. Even here.
There is a story that is told about Lonely Peak. A story about how the mountain got its name. A story that’s been passed down as a warning: Once upon a time, this mountain was home to a serial killer. A solitary figure, a human poacher, who lived in a cabin far from the known world. No one knew exactly where he hid, but every so often, there were sightings. Traps and carved wooden figurines of animals. Trails of bloody prints and shadows. Threads of an old nursery song carried on the wind. And horror stories that were only told in whispers.
Travelers would go missing on the mountain. Hitchhikers and campers, who tracked the trails, never to be seen again. Locals, who would go for evening walks and never return. But when the sheriff’s seventeen-year-old daughter went missing, the local police were finally forced to act on the rumors. They searched day and night, underneath the hot summer sun. But all they found was an abandoned cabin, a handprint, a music box, and a bloody, torn-off finger.
They tore down the cabin and excavated the grounds. They remained on the mountain for a whole month, desperately searching for traces of the man—or of the girl—but to no avail.
For some time after, Lonely Peak stayed quiet. Over time, nature reclaimed the site where the cabin had been. But on a starlit summer’s eve, a young hiker reported hearing a girl sing in the distance. That night, an elderly man disappeared in the shadows of the cabin’s former location.
In the years that followed, the mountain kept claiming people. But eventually, the story changed from murderer to nature—wildlife attacks and unprepared travelers. People started building cabins on Lonely Peak again. The cabins changed hands and were passed through families.
But in the dead of the night, by candlelight and shadows, the story of the serial killer is still told. The sound of a music box is still heard. And it is said all the cabins are haunted by the killed—or the killer.
The mountain is hungry. The night has teeth. And both demand to be paid their price in blood.
But that’s not your story, tonight. Your story starts on a different peak, a thousand worlds away from here. Your story starts in a tower, where you’ve all gathered. You’ve known one another for years. You’ve grown up together. You claim to be friends, despite the secrets between you.
You are the Inquisitors. You were trained in the art of blood and magic, taught to seek out all crime that threatens the city and council of Gonfalon. You fight for justice—and freedom. For love of this place you’ve called home since you were born.
You are the council’s most talented young investigators; you’ve solved mysteries that others would not dare to touch. So when one of the city’s foremost councilwomen is found dead, you are the ones who are called.
This is what
