The dilapidated look of the mansion grounds struck me again as I walked down the big, opulent marble steps that led to the polished front door. The mansion was a beautiful place, I thought—incredibly opulent and majestic—but it was seriously let down by the lack of TLC. As my feet crunched on the white gravel of the main path down to the gate, I made a mental note to check with Kyrine about what it would take to improve the grounds.

Instead of walking away from the mansion and straight toward the gate, I decided on impulse to explore a bit of the grounds. I left footprints in the damp, knee-high grass as I wandered off the path between two huge, unkempt cypress trees, turning Astrid’s phone over in my hand.

The grounds were massive, extending off behind the mansion before stopping at the high white wall. Ivy grew up the inside of the wall at all points. Little paths meandered here and there through patches that looked like they might have once been manicured gardens. The cypress trees were planted in seemingly random groves throughout the grounds, and they were so overgrown that it was not long before they blocked my view of the mansion.

It was getting dark, and I shivered suddenly.

“Too quiet,” I muttered. I raised a hand and, with a quick draw on my Summoning Sphere, conjured a Flora Whelp. It leaped from a portal that immediately disappeared behind it. It landed on the ground and shook itself like a dog waking up from a nap. Then it sniffed the air and glanced up at me.

“Mind keeping me company?” I asked. “I have some heavy thinking to do.”

The whelp nodded its head. Did it understand me? Its intelligence was a bit higher than the Dragonling’s had been, so it was certainly possible. Contentedly, it dropped into step with me and followed at my pace while I aimlessly explored the neglected garden in the gathering dusk.

After a little while, I came across a bench, sitting in the little private space created by a semicircle of hedges. In front of the bench, there was a little pond, filled with algae and choked with weeds. Looking back, I figured I must be far enough from the mansion now to get a phone signal. I glanced at Astrid’s phone in my hand and saw that I was right; three bars.

The Flora Whelp sniffed its way around the pond and the base of the hedges as I sat gingerly on the bench, half expecting it to crumble under me. I was pleased to find that it seemed sturdy enough, despite being in need of cleaning and a fresh coat of paint.