“This house gives me goose bumps,” Emma said, rushing me along. She led me into one of the rooms I’d seen on the tour—empty, save for being littered in soot.

“This is it.” She held out her hand to the fireplace, which Tom was busy cleaning with a rough brush. “The bane of my existence.”

“A dirty chimney?” I asked, and saw Tom’s shoulders shake as he chuckled.

“You don’t understand,” Emma said, “it’s constantly dirty. And when it’s dirty, it smokes. And we have to clean it, knowing it’ll be soiled any minute, any day.”

“There’s nothing in the room, why does the hearth need to be lit?”

“They all need to be lit, at all times. The house is too cold, otherwise.”

I’d felt the proper strokes for the Manifestation on entering the room, but approached it anyway. This one wasn’t making my amulet pound, so it was clearly not much of a threat. A nuisance, at most.

I knelt in front of the dirty fireplace, and Tom leaned back on his heels to give me space. I’d never actually looked inside one before … to be honest, I wouldn’t have been able to tell anything was wrong if I couldn’t sense the strokes.

“It’s unpredictable,” Tom said, scratching one of his sideburns, his soot-covered hands smudging black down his jaw. “Sometimes it happens when the house decides to rumble, sometimes it goes off on its own. No shake, no sound, no warning. The only sure way to not get covered is to clean it as soon as it’s done spitting, but—” He looked up at Emma, giving her a reassuring smile. “There aren’t many of us in the house, so it can’t always be helped.”

“Not many of us?” Emma said, pushing her hands so hard into her apron pockets I was sure she’d tear them. “It’s you, me, Peggy, and Andromeda—if she stays. Poor Edward has disappeared.”

“He left,” Tom said, with a weary sigh.

“None of the horses are missing. He didn’t pack any of his things. And do you really think a frail old man walked out into the desert alone? He disappeared, just like the others.”

“Where do they disappear to?” I asked.

“Tom thinks they leave because they just can’t stand being here,” Emma scoffed.

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Better than thinking they’re being held somewhere, only to be set free when the curse is broken, like some foolish fairy tale.”

“Well, let’s ask Andromeda what she thinks.”

They both looked at me for answers, and I wanted to climb up the chimney and disappear, myself. Instead I said calmly, “I’ll look into it.”