Chapter 5 Midnight Letter

LUCIAN'S POV

"Not a bad room for a hideout," I muttered, turning the brass key in the lock.

Click.

The deadbolt snapped firmly into place, cutting me off from the dim hallway. Room number four on the top floor of the Thistlewood Inn was far better than I'd anticipated.

Instead of the stale, musty stench typical of cheap boarding houses, the air here felt clean. The crisp scent of fresh pine blended pleasantly with dried lavender hanging neatly by the window frame.

Over in the corner, firewood crackled quietly in the brick hearth, casting a warm orange glow that danced across the walls.

For a necromancer who had spent half his life in freezing graveyards, damp catacombs, and bone-chilling ancient ruins, this kind of warmth felt strange.

Utterly foreign, yet somehow capable of melting the tension right out of my shoulders.

A sturdy teak bed sat in the center of the room, topped with a thick mattress and a plush patchwork quilt. The sheets were crisp, clean, and dust-free—cared for with meticulous, attentive hands.

I crossed over to the wooden vanity by the rain-streaked window. Shrugging off the heavy, sodden black cloak, I draped it over the back of a chair.

Stripped of the heavy outer layer, the warmth of the hearth seeped directly through my gray shirt.

I poured water from the porcelain pitcher into the washbasin and splashed my face, easing the stiffness wrought by the stormy winds outside town. Droplets trickled slowly down my chin, stirring up the image of the young innkeeper downstairs.

Sylvie Sterling.

A sweet name for a mortal girl who was either far too brave—or far too innocent. I recalled how a flush of pink had rushed up her cheeks all the way to the tips of her ears when our fingers brushed.

Her round brown eyes had blown wide in sheer panic, desperately trying to hide the fact that she could see the three ridiculous spirits hovering around me.

That flimsy excuse about "a lot of night mosquitoes" almost made me laugh out loud right at the counter. The corner of my lips curved into an involuntary smirk.

She was an oddly endearing mess. In the middle of my exhausting escape from the nauseating politics of the magic association, Sylvie's unvarnished panic felt remarkably pure.

The brief brush of her fingertips when she handed over the brass key still lingered as a faint tingle in my palm. Warm, pulsing with life, and entirely free of the scent of death that usually clung to me.

Letting out a slow breath, I stepped toward the bed. Days of riding hard through Bramblewick's dense fog were finally catching up with me.

Yet just as my back was about to hit the plush pillows, my magical senses flared. A crude, clumsy ripple of spectral energy stirred in the hallway outside.

A wave of cheap ectoplasm brushed against the invisible ward wrapped around me.

"Push it further toward the center, Pip! Don't crease the parchment!"

"Shh! Lady Cordelia, your phantom gown is caught on the doorknob!"

"Hush! My poetic verses require an angle of absolute precision to pierce his soul!"

Stifled whispers and muffled giggles leaked through the cracks in the wooden door. Those three spirits truly had no survival instinct before a mage who could extinguish them with a snap of his fingers.

Then came a soft rustle at the bottom of the door. An aged scroll of parchment was pushed slowly through the narrow gap, draped in a faint haze of bluish ectoplasm.

It didn't just sit there on the floorboards, either. Guided by the amateurish spectral shove from Barnaby and Pip, the old scroll wobbled into the air.

It floated across the rug, drifting straight toward my bed. Leaning casually against the headboard, I watched its clumsy trajectory with an amused brow raised.

Their control was pitifully fragile—like a twig swaying in a breeze compared to true necromancy. Without shifting from my relaxed posture, I raised my right hand.

Snap.

I flicked my fingers.

A flare of silvery-black mist sparked from my fingertips, darting forward to engulf the hovering parchment. Dark necromantic energy instantly quelled the residual spectral magic without making a sound.

Pulled by the gravity of my dark magic, the scroll folded neatly, glided through the air, and dropped squarely into my open palm.

From the other side of the door came muffled squeaks of shock, followed by the frantic whoosh of spirits scrambling away. At least they had enough sense to bolt before I decided to summon soul chains.

I stared down at the scroll in my hand, an undeniable streak of curiosity piqued. This clearly wasn't a room inventory or a list of inn rules from Sylvie.

With the tip of my thumb, I popped the crude magical seal holding the scroll shut.

Rustle.

The moment it unfurled, spectral gold ink flared across the surface. The radiant script illuminated the dim room, revealing an atrocious, wildly dramatic chicken-scratch scrawl.

In the upper corner was a ridiculous doodle of two stick figures connected by a squiggly Cupid's arrow. The male figure sported a messy black cloak, while the female had an oversized apron and a ponytail.

Beneath the absurd sketch was a bulleted list of matchmaking tactics, penned in laughably flowery prose.

My eyes locked onto the massive headline glaring in shimmering block letters across the top. I stared in stunned silence for several seconds, an amused scoff catching in my throat.

Shaking my head in sheer disbelief, I read the bold header aloud:

"Matchmaking Plan, Chapter 1: Make Sylvie Fall into Your Arms."