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Contents (57)
  1. Prologue
  2. One
  3. Two
  4. Three
  5. Four
  6. Five
  7. Six
  8. Seven
  9. Eight
  10. Nine
  11. Ten
  12. Eleven
  13. Twelve
  14. Thirteen
  15. Fourteen
  16. Fifteen
  17. Sixteen
  18. Seventeen
  19. Eighteen
  20. Nineteen
  21. Twenty
  22. Twenty-One
  23. Twenty-Two
  24. Twenty-Three
  25. Twenty-Four
  26. Twenty-Five
  27. Twenty-Six
  28. Twenty-Seven
  29. Twenty-Eight
  30. Twenty-Nine
  31. Thirty
  32. Thirty-One
  33. Thirty-Two
  34. Thirty-Three
  35. Thirty-Four
  36. Thirty-Five
  37. Thirty-Six
  38. Thirty-Seven
  39. Thirty-Eight
  40. Thirty-Nine
  41. Forty
  42. Forty-One
  43. Forty-Two
  44. Forty-Three
  45. Forty-Four
  46. Forty-Five
  47. Forty-Six
  48. Forty-Seven
  49. Forty-Eight
  50. Forty-Nine
  51. Fifty
  52. Fifty-One
  53. Fifty-Two
  54. Fifty-Three
  55. Acknowledgements
  56. About the Author
  57. Also by Sharon Gosling

Gilly shuffled, trying to get comfortable and resigning herself to staying where she was for who only knew how long. She watched as the woman went to the sink and topped up her wine glass. Gilly thought she must have had a few already because her hand was unsteady, and she narrowly avoided knocking over one of the candles as she turned. She went back to the table, put the glass down beside the slice of tree and pulled out a stool that had been pushed beneath, settling herself on it and pulling the wood and a leather tool roll towards her. Gilly watched as the woman undid the tool roll, singing along with the music flowing around her. She pulled out a small tool, little more than a wooden handle with a spur of silver metal tapering from it. Then she bent low over the chunk of wood and began to carefully dig bits out of it.

It was another hour at least before the woman put away her tools, turned off the music and began to blow out her candles. Gilly watched as Edie flexed her fingers, slowly, as if they were stiff after all that time gripping those tiny tools. Gilly felt cheated, somehow; that she had watched for so long and yet had absolutely no idea what it was the woman was carving into the piece of wood.

Eleven

No one can know. I was here and not here, and no one must know.

The tower must stand, for both of them.

But no one must ever know.

It is not here.

It is not here.

It was never here.

Never.

Please. Please keep it secret.

E.A.M.

Rachel had read the note over and over since finding it. Short as it was, she kept returning to the brief words as if they might hold some hidden meaning that she would be able to divine if only she looked hard enough, read it enough. Several times since she had discovered it, she had dismissed it as a prank, some sort of joke that had been taken too far. The penmanship was of that florid, antiquated style, flowing across paper that looked very old. It was yellowing and fragile, curling at the edges, so slight that Rachel feared it would fall apart each time she slipped it from the equally uncertain envelope. But there were fakes that had taken in experts, and Rachel had never considered herself an expert in anything. She was fully willing to believe that she could be fooled by appearances. The note could have been written last month or last year.

But if it was a prank, the only person who could conceivably have pulled it was now dead, and what would be the point? It didn’t feel like Cullen’s style. Besides, Rachel kept seeing him on what had turned out to be his deathbed, so desperate to tell her about this place. Rachel could not conceive of Cullen going through so much for a trick. He’d never done such a thing to anyone in the five years that she had known him. Why would he do it in death? Why would he do it at all?