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Chapter One
In the dream, there was nothing. Nothing, and then fire.
It came upon the house with the fury of a sudden storm, a gale of flame that swept the cedars from the lawns and obliterated every window. It flung open the doors and thronged the staircases, possessing rooms with effortless violence. It surged among the hallways, avid and primrose bright, inundating the ballroom, rising in moments even to the chandeliers.
Eustace saw it all, and he did nothing. He stood in the fire’s midst, unmoving and somehow unscathed as he waited to be consumed in his turn. He could not see her, the child, could not have hoped to find her in time. He could not see her, and knew she could not call to him.
It was that despair that ruptured his sleep, that flooding grief. When he heard the shots, he had lain awake for some moments already with the bedclothes thrown back, his hand spread on his chest to quieten his heart. He started slightly at the sounds—there were two, in quick succession—but almost welcomed the distraction. Eustace was accustomed enough to gunshots. They were not quite usual, perhaps, but they caused him no particular alarm. But the dream—the dream had been another matter. He could not remember when he had last felt such dread.
He clawed at the nightstand for the chain of his watch and found, when he had wrung the dimness from his eyes, that it was a shade after one. It might have been worse. His duties were often irregular, and it was not rare for him to be called from his bed at unpardonable hours. Still, he did not welcome such disturbances. The years of his service had done nothing to soften them.
Wearily, but with the smooth economy of long habit, he rose and drew a dressing gown about him. The house, even in these last days of October, was wretchedly cold. The great drapes, as he parted them, were heavy with damp. They would, even at noon, betray almost nothing of their original colour. There was little here that did.
