Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The rain came down like it was trying to drown the decade.

Sheets of it hammered the roof of the Ford Model A as it rattled up the cliffside road, headlights slicing through mist that seemed to crawl rather than drift. Inside, Stiles Stilinski leaned forward over the wheel, hat brim dripping, trench coat creased, voice running on pure caffeine and nerves.

“Scott,” he said, squinting through the windshield, “if we drive off the cliff, tell the papers we were investigating a mermaid haunting. We’ll go out mysterious and glamorous.”

From the passenger seat came a muffled, miserable groan. “I’m starting to think we already are ghosts,” Scott McCall muttered, clutching a satchel to his chest. “We should’ve stayed in Los Angeles. That séance gig with the widowed countess didn’t try to kill us.”

“Please. That countess tried to kiss me, not kill me,” Stiles corrected. “Entirely different kind of trauma.”

The car hit a rut, jolting both of them hard enough that Scott yelped. The motor wheezed and sputtered before Stiles gave it a reassuring thump with the heel of his hand.

“See? She’s fine,” Stiles said, affectionately patting the dashboard. “Old girl’s got more spirit than half the people we’re about to meet.”

“You keep saying that like it’s funny,” Scott grumbled, “but we’re actually driving toward a haunted house in the middle of a thunderstorm. That’s not funny, that’s—what’s the word?—suicidal.”

Stiles grinned. “That’s the spirit! Pun absolutely intended.”

They crested the final hill, and there it was: Hale House, crouched against the storm like a gothic cathedral that had opinions about people. The lights in the upper windows flickered through rain, gold against gray, and somewhere in the distance the ocean growled.

Scott whistled low. “Big place.”

“Understatement, my good man,” Stiles said. “It’s practically brooding. The Addams family would look at this and say, ‘bit much.’”

The motor coughed once more before surrendering entirely as they rolled to a stop before the iron gates. Stiles climbed out, coat snapping in the wind, and adjusted his fedora with a flourish that would’ve been impressive if his sleeve hadn’t immediately caught a downpour.

Scott joined him, already shivering. “Are you sure this guy’s legit? The ad said, ‘urgent spiritual cleansing required,’ which sounds like something you’d read on a bottle of gin.”

“He’s legit,” Stiles said, eyeing the massive ‘H’ worked into the gate’s iron. “Derek Hale. War hero, recluse, tragic family history, unexplainable deaths—he’s either cursed or cursed adjacent. That’s our specialty.”

“Our specialty is talking fast and running faster,” Scott muttered, following as Stiles pushed the gates open.

“Pays,” Stiles said brightly ,boots squelching up the gravel drive. “Great last words, partner.”

They trudged through the rain, coats plastered to their clothes, thunder grumbling overhead like the world’s largest disapproving uncle. Somewhere in the tangle of ivy and dead roses lining the path, a phonograph was playing—a faint, warped bit of jazz that stuttered and skipped, the record crackling just enough to make it sound eerily like laughter.

Scott, who’d been glancing warily from shadow to shadow, froze in his tracks. His eyes went wide.

“Stiles,” he hissed, voice cracking. “Tell me you hear that.”

Stiles tilted his head, rain dripping from his hat brim. “Oh, I hear it.”

He smiled faintly, the kind of grin that belonged to a man who knew trouble when it flirted with him. “Welcome to Hale House.”

By the time they reached the massive doors, thunder cracked overhead. Stiles seized the wolf-shaped knocker and let it fall. The sound rolled through the house like judgment.

The great oak door opened with a muted groan, spilling a wedge of golden lamplight into the rain. Framed within stood a man who looked as though he’d been carved from the very timbers of the house—tall, silver at the temples, posture faultless in a black tailcoat and starched collar.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said, voice low and perfectly measured. “May I ask your business at Hale Manor?”

Stiles, soaked through and smiling as if that might charm the weather itself, tipped his fedora. “Evening. Stiles Stilinski — and my associate, Mr. McCall.” He gestured toward Scott, who nodded stiffly, clutching the satchel. “Exceptionally brave when unconscious.”

Scott blinked. “Wait, what—”

Stiles grinned, “We were invited. Mr. Hale is expecting us.”

That earned a fractional softening around the butler’s eyes. “Indeed, sir. You must be the gentlemen from San Francisco.”

“That’s us,” Stiles said easily. “Mr. Hale wrote concerning… an unusual domestic difficulty.”

Whittemore’s gaze lingered a second too long, as if gauging just how much Stiles knew. “Quite so. The master did mention you might arrive this evening. Please—step inside before the rain makes itself at home upon the carpets.”

The two men crossed the threshold, and the manor closed around them with the hush of long corridors and old money. The air smelled of beeswax and old roses, and the floor gleamed under the chandelier’s subdued light.

“Mr. Hale will receive you shortly,” Whittemore said as he relieved them of their dripping coats with practiced grace. “May I ask the nature of your acquaintance?”

“Professional,” Stiles replied, smoothing his damp hair. “I specialize in… disturbances.”

“Disturbances, sir?”

“Of the more… unorthodox sort,” Stiles said, lowering his voice. “Things that unsettle a household — that don’t necessarily answer to a broom or a priest.”

Whittemore’s expression didn’t change, but a flicker of something — amusement, perhaps — passed through his eyes. “Ah. One of those professionals.”

“Precisely,” Stiles said, flashing his grin. “Discretion guaranteed, hourly rates negotiable.”

“Very good, sir.” Whittemore inclined his head, unflappable as ever. “If you’ll follow me, the master is in the west drawing room. He prefers that room after dusk.”

The place was magnificent in the way only old money and bad luck could manage: vaulted ceilings, carved oak, chandeliers that looked like they could collapse and kill half the household at any minute. The air smelled faintly of wax, dust, and something electric—like ozone after lightning.

Scott whistled low. “Wow. I feel underdressed and underpaid.”

“Try to look like we belong,” Stiles muttered, straightening his tie. “Think professional. Think spiritual authority.”

As he spoke, a younger man with perfectly set golden hair and in immaculate livery appeared, carrying himself with the chill precision of a clockwork soldier.

“Jackson,” Mr. Whittemore said without looking back. “My son. The household's manservant. He will attend to your luggage.”

Jackson’s bow was economical. “Welcome to Hale House. Upstairs is off-limits after sundown.”

“Because of ghosts?” Stiles asked.

“Because of accidents,” Jackson replied. “The ghosts come later.”

Scott’s laugh wobbled. “He’s kidding, right?”

No one answered.

A portrait loomed above the grand staircase: a man in a dark suit with the kind of smirk that promised trouble. A small brass plate beneath read: Peter Hale, 1893–1912.

Stiles tilted his head, rain still glistening in his hair. “Well. He’s got cheekbones for days. Tragic loss, I’m sure.”

“Tragic how?” Scott whispered, eyes darting up the shadowed stairwell.

Before Stiles could reply, a voice rolled out from the corridor behind them — deep, even, and unmistakably alive.

“He died in the Hale fire.”

They turned. Derek Hale stood framed in the long hallway’s amber light, a dark figure carved from authority itself. His face was all sharp lines and shadows; his eyes, wolfish in their stillness. He looked younger than the stories had made him—mid-thirties, perhaps—but carried the weary gravity of a man who’d already buried half his lifetime.

“Mr. Stilinski,” he said, his tone measured, every syllable precise. “You made it.”

“Barely,” Stiles replied, wiping rain from his brow and offering a hand that went politely ignored. “And you’re just as charmingly ominous as your reputation suggested.”

Derek’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. “Come with me.”

The words carried like an order, not an invitation. He turned and strode down the corridor without looking back, the soft thunder of his boots absorbed by the Persian runner.

Before they could follow, a young woman stepped from a side passage, framed by the steady glow of a wall sconce. Her black-and-white uniform was immaculate, her posture unshakably correct. Yet beneath the formality was something sharp—an intelligence that didn’t belong to service.

“Gentlemen,” she said crisply. “You’ll want to dry your coats by the hearth. Mr. Hale will speak with your employer privately.”

Scott blinked. “Wait—you mean leave him?”

“Relax, Scott,” Stiles said, tugging off his fedora and handing it over with a grin. “I’m armed with wit and moral superiority.”

Lydia Martin’s mouth curved, just barely, as though she’d already heard that line from better men.

“This way, Mr. McCall.”

Scott shot his friend a wounded look but followed her, vanishing into a warm-lit parlor that smelled faintly of lemon polish and restraint.

Stiles lingered a second longer in the hallway, meeting Derek’s expectant gaze.

“Well,” he muttered under his breath, straightening his tie. “Into the wolf’s den we go.”

Derek led Stiles into the parlor—a room so large it could’ve hosted a ball or a small revolution. The fire crackled in a stone hearth carved with wolves. Heavy curtains swallowed the storm’s light, casting the space in a rich, amber gloom.

Stiles glanced around, taking in the portraits, the ornate clock, the faint scuff marks on the floor like something had been dragged recently. “You know, for a haunted house, this place is really leaning into its branding.”

Derek didn’t bite. “You’re the medium.”

“Median,” Stiles corrected automatically. “A bit of everything: intuition, clairaudience, interpretive dance if the ghost demands it.”

That earned him a faint exhale—possibly a laugh, possibly disgust. Hard to tell. Mr.

Derek glanced toward the butler, who’d been standing a respectful distance behind them, silent as a shadow. “Thank you, David,” he said. “I’ll take it from here.”

“Very good, sir.” The butler bowed, precise as clockwork. “Should you require anything, Mr. Hale—”

“I’ll ring.”

David Whittemore inclined his head once more and withdrew, his footsteps vanishing down the hall until the door clicked shut, leaving them alone with the whispering tick of the clock.

Only then did Derek turn fully to face Stiles. The light caught the sharp planes of his face, the faint exhaustion beneath his eyes. “I need results,” he said simply. “The disturbances have gotten worse—doors opening on their own, whispers in the hall, laughter when the house is empty.”

“Laughter’s new,” Stiles said, leaning an elbow on the mantel. “Playful sort of haunting, or sinister?”

Derek’s gaze met his, steady and unreadable. “Depends who’s listening.”

The air between them went taut—something like static, something like interest.

Stiles cleared his throat. “Well. My listening ears are wide open.”

Before Derek could respond, a faint, scratchy melody floated into the room. A phonograph in the corner had started to spin, though neither man had touched it. The needle dragged across the record, stuttering through a warped jazz tune—the same one Stiles and Scott had heard outside.

“Do you… keep that on a timer?” Stiles asked lightly.

Derek turned toward it. “It’s been doing that since last week.”

“Self-starting music,” Stiles said. “Love that. Very speakeasy chic.”

The record hissed once, and a low chuckle slipped through the static—rich, amused, and unmistakably human.

Every hair on Stiles’s neck stood up.

“That,” Derek said quietly, “is my uncle.”

“Peter Hale,” Stiles murmured. “He does have a flair for the dramatic.”

The laughter faded, replaced by a brief echo—three slow knocks from somewhere upstairs. The chandelier above them shivered.

Stiles straightened, all traces of flippancy gone. “All right, Peter. Message received.”

“Can you stop him?” Derek asked.

“Eventually,” Stiles said. “First I need to figure out what he wants.”

Derek folded his arms. “He’s dead. He shouldn’t want anything.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” Stiles said, meeting his gaze. “The dead are a lot like the living—they just get louder when they’re ignored.”

Another flicker of something—amusement? irritation?—passed across Derek’s face. “You talk too much,” he said.

“And yet you’re still standing here listening,” Stiles shot back.

A beat of silence. The fire popped. Rain battered the windows.

Somewhere above, that low, velvet laughter drifted again—closer this time, almost affectionate.

“Guess he’s enjoying the show,” Stiles murmured.

“Derek didn’t answer right away. The light from the hearth threw amber across his face, carving out the planes of his jaw, the faint scar near his temple. He looked, for a fleeting second, less like a client and more like one of the house’s ghosts trying to remember how to be human.

Then he straightened, all command again. “You’ll excuse me,” he said, tone clipped but not unkind. “I’ll introduce you to the family properly.”

“Family introductions are my favorite part,” Stiles said dryly. “I collect awkward silences.”

Derek’s stride was direct; he moved through the house like a man used to boundaries. He opened the library door with a sound that was almost ceremonial.

Inside, Cora Hale lounged on a wingback chair with her arms folded, expression sharp as a snapped twig. She looked like someone who’d been in the habit of putting misbehaving relatives in their place since infancy. Erica sat cross-legged on a rug, elbows on her knees, smile bright and a little dangerous. Isaac, younger and quieter, peered from near a stack of books, curious and a little guarded.

At a smaller table by the window sat a woman Stiles hadn’t expected: Malia Hale. Her hair fell in darker, looser waves than Cora’s; there was a gentleness to her face that didn’t quite match the square-jawed Hales in the portraits. A brass plate near a faded photograph identified her—Malia Hale (b. 1902). There was an odd, almost stubborn softness to the way she watched the doorway.

Derek’s voice was even as he made the introductions. “This is my sister, Cora.” He gestured. “My cousin, Malia—Peter’s daughter. And these are our wards, Erica and Isaac.”

Stiles blinked. The sentence rearranged itself in his head. Peter’s daughter. That was a complication that set his teeth on edge in all the right ways.

Cora arched an eyebrow. “So you’re the man who manages spirits for a living.”

“Median,” Stiles said, correcting with the same practiced ease he used in salons and courtrooms alike. “I coax them, negotiate with them, and occasionally threaten them with salt.”

Erica grinned. “I like people who promise to negotiate on my behalf.”

Isaac offered a tentative smile. “Welcome.”

Malia stood as Derek finished, extending a hand. Her touch was cool and steady. “Thank you for coming,” she said. No flourish, no drama—just a clear, concise courtesy. There was something about her manner that suggested she had watched grief and chosen not to be defined by it, which, in a house like this, felt revolutionary.

Stiles took her hand and felt the hint of a pulse beneath the skin—very much alive, very much not a ghost. He gave his practiced half-bow. “Stiles Stilinski. I do my best work with tea and firm boundaries.”

There was a knock at open library door, all looked as Scoot returned with his satchel. He looked grim, “Sorry to interrupt. But I can hear noises already and we haven’t yet settled down.”

Derek’s gaze flicked to Stiles. “I’ve told them you were coming,” he said. “They’ll expect you to be… practical.”

“Practical is my middle name,” Stiles lied smoothly. “Right after ‘occasionally dubious.’”

A soft chuckle threaded the air—a sound that belonged to old money and older jokes—and the phonograph in the corner began to skip through a warped jazz record. The needle stuttered. The melody warped into something like a laugh.

Everyone in the room went still.

Derek’s jaw went hard. “That’s him.”

Stiles let his voice drop, gentler than usual. “Peter Hale.”

“Peter’s my late father,” Malia said quietly. Her voice didn’t tremble; it was simply factual, like weather. “He hasn’t left since the fire.”

“Yet he insists on playing date-night jazz,” Erica muttered, half-smiling, half-annoyed.

Scott, who’d been hovering near the doorway like a nervous shadow, swallowed audibly. “Was he… always like that?”

Derek’s eyes softened for the barest instant. “He had a way with a room. With people. With making everything about him. Some of that… lingered.”

Stiles felt the house press in around them—a patient thing, listening. He’d worked with haunted house theatrics before: the creaks timed to drama, the draft that made weak nerves snap. But this felt less like a show and more like a personality insisting on being heard.

He squared his shoulders and let his professional smile settle into place. “Well. If Uncle Peter fancies himself a nightclub, I’ll be his reluctant bandleader. With your permission, I’ll set up in the parlor, run a few tests, and see what he’s trying to say.”

Derek looked at his sister Cora, at Malia, at the wards Erica and Issac—then back to Stiles. “Do what you must. But be careful.”

“I always am,” Stiles said, though Scott’s pale face behind him contradicted that claim.

From somewhere high in the house, a slow, satisfied chuckle rolled like the last note of a trumpet. Peter, it seemed, approved of their arrangement.

By seven o’clock, the storm had gathered its strength, wrapping the Hale estate in thunder and rain. Lightning flared against the tall windows of the dining hall, revealing portraits of generations who refused to smile, even in oil and varnish.

The long oak table gleamed under candlelight—more candles than necessary, Stiles thought, like someone was trying to outshine the dark. Silver cutlery caught the light, and the scent of roast duck and thyme mingled with the faint, damp chill of old stone.

Lydia moved with quiet precision at one end of the room, dressed in her trim 1920s maid uniform—black dress, white apron, lace cap pinned with exacting care. Her expression remained perfectly composed, though her eyes flicked once—discreetly—to the empty head of the table.

Jackson followed, immaculate in his waistcoat, setting down crystal glasses with the air of a man performing a ritual rather than serving a meal.

Stiles, seated halfway down, leaned toward Scott, who was eyeing the chandelier like it might descend at any moment.

“Relax,” Stiles whispered. “It’s just dinner. With mildly cursed people.”

Scott’s fork clattered. “That’s not comforting.”

Cora sat at Derek’s right, posture straight, gaze sharper than any knife on the table. Across from her, Erica toyed with her wine glass, bright smile betraying equal parts curiosity and mischief. Isaac sat quietly beside her, looking like he’d practiced silence until it fit him perfectly.

At the far end, Malia watched the rain as though expecting someone in it.

Derek broke the quiet first. “I appreciate you both joining us. We don’t often have… guests.”

“Understandable,” Stiles said lightly, slicing through the awkwardness. “Dead relatives have that effect on the social calendar.”

Cora’s mouth twitched. “So it’s true. You really talk to them.”

“Talk, yes. Bargain, sometimes. Occasionally threaten with Latin I only half-understand.”

Erica leaned in, eyes bright. “What’s the worst one you’ve met?”

“Oh, easy,” Stiles said, gesturing with his fork. “There was this opera singer in New Orleans who refused to move on until someone promised to applaud her one last time. Nearly blew out the windows when I called her ‘mediocre.’”

Scott choked on his water. “You insulted a ghost?”

“It was a tactical decision.”

Malia spoke softly, her voice cutting through the laughter. “Do you believe they all want something?”

“Everyone wants something,” Stiles said, tone gentling. “Even the dead. Especially the dead.”

Derek’s eyes flicked toward him then—just a fraction, but enough to make the moment feel like it belonged only to the two of them.

Lydia stepped forward to refill the wine glasses, her movements economical, almost silent. Jackson followed with a platter of roasted vegetables, the faint scent of sage trailing him like perfume. When he leaned to serve Derek, he murmured, “We’ve checked the cellar. It’s colder than usual again.”

Derek’s expression didn’t change. “Noted.”

Cora’s knife scraped against her plate. “He’s here, then.”

Silence swept through the table like a draft.

“Peter?” Erica asked, softer now.

Derek nodded once. “He never leaves long.”

Stiles set his fork down, voice low. “Then we begin tonight. The longer he lingers, the harder it gets to draw the lines.”

Scott groaned. “Lines? You mean, like, actual lines? Because you said chalk, and I distinctly remember you said chalk—”

“Yes, Scott. Chalk lines.”

“Great. That’s very exorcist chic.”

Cora smirked. “You brought your assistant.”

“I bring him everywhere,” Stiles said. “He screams in all the right places.”

Even Derek’s mouth threatened to curve. Just once.

The grandfather clock struck eleven before the last ember of dinner conversation faded. The Hales retired in pairs and silences, leaving Stiles, Scott, and Derek alone in the parlor.

Candles replaced the chandeliers. Chalk dust drifted like pale snow over the old floorboards as Stiles crouched to complete a sigil. Scott, clutching a bundle of candles, looked about ready to faint.

“I feel like one of those doomed guys in a horror film who says, ‘I’ll be right back,’” Scott muttered.

“Then don’t leave,” Stiles said, straightening. “See? Problem solved.”

Derek stood near the mantel, the fire behind him making a silhouette out of muscle and stormlight. “Will this actually work?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘work,’” Stiles replied. “If you mean, will he appear? Definitely. If you mean, will he behave? Absolutely not.”

He placed the last candle, and as if on cue, the phonograph in the corner clicked to life. A needle set itself, scratching across the record’s surface before dissolving into a slow, sultry trumpet line.

Scott froze. “We didn’t turn that on.”

“Peter did,” Stiles said, calm but intent. “Always one for atmosphere.”

The music warbled—then a voice, smooth as smoke, threaded through the static.

“Always the showman,” it said. “And such charming company this evening.”

Stiles’s head turned toward the sound. “Peter Hale, I presume.”

“In the ghostly flesh,” came the velvet reply.

The candles flickered; shadows lengthened. In the mirror above the fireplace, a pale outline began to form—shoulders, eyes, a grin too alive for the dead. Peter Hale, still rakishly handsome in death, smiled out at his nephew like he’d been waiting for applause.

“Derek,” he drawled, “you’ve redecorated. Tragic. I rather liked the bloodstains.”

“Don’t start,” Derek said quietly.

“Oh, come now. You bring in a psychic and expect me to stay quiet?” Peter’s gaze slid toward Stiles. “I like him. He listens. Mostly.”

Stiles didn’t flinch, though he could feel the cold bloom in his bones. “You seem aware of your… situation.”

“Situation?” Peter purred. “Darling, I’m not trapped. I’m rooted.”

“Same difference,” Stiles said, voice dropping to a professional cadence. “You’re bound to this place by emotion. Usually anger, guilt, or unfinished—”

“Pleasure,” Peter interrupted. “You forgot pleasure.”

Scott made a strangled sound somewhere behind him. “He’s flirting with you. He’s literally flirting with you, Stiles.”

“I get that a lot,” Stiles said dryly.

Peter’s laughter rolled through the room like silk tearing. “You’re interesting. Most men come armed with crosses and prayers. You bring sarcasm and salt.”

“Salt works better,” Stiles murmured, stepping closer to the mirror. “What do you want, Peter?”

“To stay,” the ghost whispered.

The air thickened. Candles flared violently, and the sigil at Stiles’s feet sizzled as though struck by lightning.

“Peter!” Derek’s voice was sharp now. “Stop it.”

“Oh, but I’ve missed this,” Peter said, the grin turning predatory. “Family dinners, strangers meddling, and dear Derek pretending he isn’t terrified of what comes next.”

The glass rippled. Stiles braced as the circle’s edge cracked under unseen pressure.

“Stiles—” Scott’s voice pitched up, panicked.

“I see it,” Stiles hissed. “Peter, that’s enough.”

The lights guttered—and then Derek moved.

One stride, two, and he struck the mantel with his hand. The mirror cracked down the center, shattering Peter’s grin into a dozen warped fragments.

The music stopped. The air stilled.

Stiles exhaled slowly, heart still racing. “You’re really bad at letting people finish their spectral monologues.”

“He was trying to touch you,” Derek said flatly.

“Occupational hazard.”

“Not in my house.”

The words came dark, protective, and something else. Stiles met his gaze across the half-ruined parlor and felt, for a moment, that the room wasn’t the only thing haunted.

“Well,” he said finally, dusting chalk off his hands, “that went about as well as dinner.”

Scott groaned. “You’re both insane.”

“Correct,” Stiles said, deadpan. “But effective.”

Behind them, the phonograph clicked once more—one soft, deliberate pulse.

Then silence.

For a few seconds, only the rain spoke.

Scott knelt to pluck the burnt candle stubs from the circle, hands still shaking. “I think he’s gone,” he said, voice too hopeful.

Stiles didn’t answer right away. He turned toward Derek, lowering his voice. “If we’re going to stop this, I need truth. Truth alone, no polite omissions. There’s always a reason a ghost lingers. Most of the time, they don’t lie—can’t lie. But Peter said he stayed for pleasure.”

Derek frowned. “And that means what?”

“That means I’ve got a problem,” Stiles said, studying the cracked mirror. “In seven years, I’ve never met a spirit who stayed out of joy. Regret, anger, obsession—sure. But pleasure?” He shook his head. “That’s new. And bad.”

Scott’s trembling voice cut in from behind them. “Uh, Stiles?”

There was something in his tone that made both men turn.

Scott stood in the center of the parlor, staring upward. His face had gone sheet-white. A dark drop struck his cheek, then another—red against pale skin.

“Blood,” he whispered.

Derek looked up sharply.

The chandelier above them was trembling, its crystal drops rattling like teeth. From its central column, thin rivulets of blood threaded down, catching the candlelight in obscene glints.

“Move!” Stiles barked.

He snatched a pouch from his coat, ripped it open, and flung a handful of herbs and ash toward the ceiling. The mixture hissed midair, bursting in a greenish shimmer that filled the room with the smell of sage and burnt iron.

The chandelier jerked once—violently—and then went still. The dripping stopped.

For half a heartbeat, everything was frozen. Then a sound split the air—high, piercing, and inhuman.

It wasn’t coming from the parlor, or even the hall—it came from the walls, from every beam and nail, from the bones of the house itself.

A shrill, unearthly scream tore through the Hale estate, rattling glass, shuddering through the floorboards. Candles guttered out in unison.

And then, as quickly as it began—silence.

The scream faded, leaving behind a ringing silence that felt almost alive.

Smoke from the candles curled toward the ceiling like pale fingers, and the scent of singed herbs lingered in the air.

Stiles’s heart was still hammering, but his voice came steady. “Leave the chalk marks, Scott. Don’t touch anything.”

Scott, who had gone rigid mid-step, nodded shakily and eased backward. His eyes darted up to the chandelier, now perfectly still, gleaming innocently as if it hadn’t just dripped blood onto his face.

He fumbled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his cheeks in trembling swipes. “It was blood, Stiles. It was blood.”

“I know, buddy.” Stiles reached out, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before guiding him toward one of the armchairs. “Deep breaths. No sudden movements. Preferably no fainting, either—bad for morale.”

Derek crossed the room in two long strides, grabbed a crystal decanter from the sideboard, and poured a glass of something amber and old enough to have survived prohibition in secret. He handed it to Scott.

“Calm your nerves,” he said simply.

Scott hesitated for half a second before taking it with wide eyes. “Is this legal?”

“No,” Derek said.

Scott downed it anyway. He coughed once, grimaced, then exhaled with the shaky relief of a man who’d just met both God and the devil and couldn’t tell the difference. “Okay,” he rasped. “Okay. Better. Terrible. But better.”

“That’s the spirit,” Stiles said dryly, crouching again near the circle. “Pun absolutely intended.”

He pulled a sage bundle from his satchel and struck a match, the tiny flame flaring bright against the dark. The scent of burning sage filled the air—sharp, cleansing, stubbornly alive against the musty chill that clung to the parlor.

As he moved through the room, smoke trailing from the bundle like a veil, Stiles murmured under his breath—not Latin this time, but something softer, older. The kind of half-chant that lived in memory more than in words.

Scott watched him, glass still in hand. “You think he’s gone?”

“No,” Stiles said quietly. “He’s regrouping.”

Derek stood by the cracked mirror, watching the smoke curl around the splintered glass. “Then what do we do?”

Stiles smudged the last corner of the room and straightened, turning toward him. “We wait. Ghosts always show their hand after the first move.”

The three of them stood in the faint haze, the fire guttering low, the sound of rain still whispering against the windows. For the first time, the Hale mansion felt less like a house and more like a living thing—holding its breath, waiting for the next beat.

“Let’s keep this room locked for now,” Stiles said once the air had settled enough to breathe without tasting iron.

Jackson nodded wordlessly, slipping the padlock into the latch and snapping it shut. The click echoed down the corridor like punctuation on a warning.

Scott, looking less pale but distinctly more intoxicated, swayed a little as he started down the hallway. “Remind me to never agree to any more historic tours,” he muttered.

Stiles and Derek followed, the old floorboards creaking underfoot. The storm outside had dulled to a steady drizzle, but the house still seemed to listen, every shadow stretched long and watchful.

When they reached the landing, Stiles spoke—quietly, but with that edge that meant business. “What blood was your late uncle talking about?”

Derek’s jaw tightened. His stride slowed.

“Derek,” Stiles pressed. “You know the rule. Only truth works when it comes to the dead.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the rain on the windows and Scott’s uneven footsteps ahead of them. Then Derek exhaled, sharp and reluctant, like the words tasted bad on the way out.

“My uncle, Peter Hale,” he said finally, “murdered his mistress in that room. She told his wife about their affair.”

Stiles blinked, letting the words sink in. “That’s… grim even for a Hale.”

Derek’s mouth twisted in a scowl. “My aunt was pregnant with Malia at the time. Her condition was delicate—to say the least. Peter’s betrayal nearly killed her before the fire ever did.”

The corridor seemed to darken at that, the wallpaper’s faded roses suddenly oppressive in the lamplight. Stiles glanced toward the locked parlor door behind them.

“Well,” he said softly, “that explains why the ghost isn’t resting. Murder and guilt make for very clingy afterlives.”

Scott gave a weak laugh that died in his throat. “I’m sleeping with all the lights on tonight.”

Stiles patted his shoulder. “Good plan, Scotty. Maybe grab some holy water while you’re at it.”

Derek didn’t answer. His gaze lingered down the hall, toward the shadows pooling at the end—like he could still hear Peter’s laughter threading through the walls.

Morning arrived late at Hale Manor, creeping in through the fog like it had second thoughts. Rain still drizzled against the tall windows, and the whole house seemed to hold its breath—like it, too, remembered the scream that had split the night.

Breakfast was served in the east dining room, where the long mahogany table gleamed and the silver was polished to a blind shine. Lydia stood at her usual post by the sideboard, immaculate in her black-and-white uniform, while Jackson moved between guests with the quiet efficiency of a man who’d rather be anywhere else.

Derek sat at the head of the table, unreadable as ever. Cora and Malia flanked him, both trying and failing to look unruffled. Across from them, Stiles and Scott shared the uneasy air of men who’d seen too much and slept too little.

Lydia placed a dish of poached eggs in front of Cora with a small nod. “Your breakfast, miss.”

“Thank you, Lydia,” Cora said politely, though her gaze flicked toward Stiles. “Is it true what I heard last night? About the chandelier—”

“—bleeding?” Malia cut in, eyes bright. “Because Jackson said he had to mop something off the floor this morning.”

Jackson coughed discreetly behind her. “It’s been seen to, Miss Malia.” His tone was perfectly respectful, but he didn’t quite meet her eyes.

Scott lowered his fork, already pale again. “Please tell me it wasn’t what I think it was.”

Stiles gave him a look. “You think right. The good news is, it stopped. The bad news is, it screamed.”

A knife clinked sharply against a plate. Everyone turned—Derek’s jaw had tightened, a flicker of memory ghosting through his eyes.

Lydia, ever composed, stepped forward with the teapot. “More coffee, sir?”

“Yes. Thank you, Lydia.” Derek’s voice was low, distant.

As she poured, her gaze flicked just once to Stiles, a quick, unspoken something. She’d heard the scream too, and unlike the rest, she seemed to understand when a house was listening.

When she left, Cora broke the silence. “So what happens now, Mr. Stilinski? Do you—what—banish it?”

“Preferably not during breakfast,” Stiles said, stirring his coffee. “But yes, that’s the general idea. Although this one’s… personal.”

“Personal?” Derek echoed.

Stiles met his gaze. “Most hauntings are about unfinished business. This one’s about pleasure. Your uncle’s ghost said so himself.”

The table went still again. Even the clock on the mantel seemed to hesitate between ticks.

Malia frowned, voice dropping. “Uncle Peter always did enjoy being the center of attention.”

Scott winced. “Yeah, well, he’s certainly got it.”

Derek pushed his chair back slightly, the scrape of wood on tile louder than it should’ve been. “Enough. We’ll discuss this later.”

Lydia and Jackson returned to clear the plates, moving with the choreography of long practice—careful, efficient, invisible. But as Lydia passed behind Stiles, she murmured just low enough for him to hear, “The locked parlor door was found ajar this morning, sir.”

Stiles froze. “What?”

Her gaze flicked toward Derek, then back to her tray. “Only a few inches, but… it wasn’t my doing.” She straightened, expression once again polished and blank. “Shall I bring more toast?”

Stiles smiled tightly. “You’d better.”

As Lydia swept from the room, Stiles leaned toward Derek, voice dropping. “Looks like your uncle’s still in residence.”

Derek’s jaw set. “Then we finish this tonight.”

“Tonight?” Scott asked faintly. “Can I be sick instead?”

“Not unless you want to be haunted,” Stiles said, already rising. He glanced once toward the fogged window, where the faintest outline of a handprint marked the glass from the inside.

The morning light caught it for only a moment—then it vanished.

By midday, the rain had thinned to a mist that clung to the windows like memory.

The manor was quieter than it had any right to be—servants moving softly, the echo of Lydia’s heels fading into polished corridors, the occasional low rumble of thunder still pacing the hills beyond.

Stiles never did well with stillness. Stillness was just guilt waiting to speak.

He and Scott had claimed a corner of the upstairs gallery, where the scent of lemon polish and candle wax hung heavy. “You’re doing that thing again,” Scott said, watching him pace.

“What thing?”

“The thing where your brain starts chewing through walls.”

Stiles stopped, tapping the end of his pen against his notebook. “Scott, this family’s practically hemorrhaging secrets. That chandelier didn’t just start bleeding for aesthetic reasons. Someone—or something—is feeding it energy.”

Scott grimaced. “You mean like Peter?”

“Maybe. Or maybe someone living is helping him.”

That earned him a sharp look. “You think the Hales—”

“I think the dead don’t linger without help.”

He turned down the hallway before Scott could argue, and together they began what Stiles charitably called “a conversational reconnaissance.”

They found Cora first, in the study, sorting through a box of old correspondence. She didn’t look up when Stiles knocked, only said, “If you’re here to analyze my handwriting, I’ll save you the trouble. I was twelve.”

“Tempting,” Stiles said, stepping inside, “but I was actually hoping to ask about your uncle.”

Her jaw tightened, just enough to notice. “You’re very persistent, Mr. Stilinski.”

“It’s either that or unemployed.”

Cora set a stack of letters aside, each envelope yellowed at the edges. “Uncle Peter liked secrets. He liked watching people twist themselves in knots trying to keep them. When the fire came, I suppose he finally got his wish—he became one.”

“Was there anyone he hated enough to stay for?” Stiles asked quietly.

Her gaze flicked to the window, where the fog had thickened again. “You don’t understand, do you? Peter didn’t hate. He enjoyed. Even his cruelty was just another form of entertainment.”

Scott shifted uneasily. “That’s… comforting.”

Cora gave him a dry look. “You wanted honesty.”

When Stiles and Scott left the study, the sound of paper fluttering followed them like wings.

Erica was easier to find—lounging on a chaise in the solarium, sunlight slipping through the misted glass to catch in her hair. A half-read magazine lay open beside her, but her gaze was distant.

“Erica,” Stiles greeted, “how’s the haunting treating you?”

She smirked faintly. “Oh, you know. Blood drips, phantom jazz, existential dread. All the usual amenities.”

Scott winced. “You sound… okay about it.”

“I grew up in worse places,” she said simply. “At least here, the ghosts are polite.”

Stiles tilted his head. “You weren’t born a Hale, were you?”

Her smile cooled, eyes flicking up. “No. My parents worked for them before the fire. When they died, Derek took me in. Isaac too.”

“Because Peter asked him to?”

“No,” she said sharply. “Because he didn’t. Derek doesn’t do charity out of guilt. He does it because he remembers what it’s like to be left behind.”

Stiles studied her face a moment longer—something unguarded there, raw. Then he nodded and left her to her sunlight.

They found Isaac near the stables, brushing down one of the old horses while fog rolled in from the fields. He startled when Stiles approached, shoulders bunching as if caught doing something illicit.

“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Stiles said gently. “Just wanted to ask a few questions.”

Isaac hesitated, glancing toward the manor, where the gray outline of the roof loomed through the mist. “Is it true?” he asked finally. “What Jackson said?”

Stiles lifted a brow. “Depends what Jackson said.”

“That the chandelier in the parlor bled. That you three locked the room. And this morning, the padlock was broken clean off.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “That can’t just happen, can it?”

Stiles and Scott exchanged a look. “No,” Stiles said quietly. “Not without help.”

Isaac swallowed hard and went back to brushing the horse, though his hand trembled slightly. “I didn’t see anything last night,” he said. “But this morning—when I was in the corridor—I swear I heard something in the parlor. Like glass shifting. Or breathing.”

“Breathing?” Scott echoed, eyes wide.

“Yeah. Like someone was in there. Waiting.”

Stiles frowned, scanning the fog beyond the stable door. “And you’re sure it wasn’t one of the servants?”

“I don’t think Lydia or Jackson go near that room now. Not after what they saw.”

“What they saw?” Stiles asked.

Isaac’s voice dropped again. “When Jackson went to lock the door, he said the blood on the chandelier was gone. Just… gone. But there was a handprint on the ceiling.”

Scott made a strangled noise. “That’s—okay, that’s not great.”

Stiles blew out a slow breath. “No, that’s definitely not great. That’s Peter leaving a calling card.”

The boy looked at him, hesitant. “You don’t think he’s angry, do you?”

“Oh, he’s angry,” Stiles said, eyes distant. “But not at us.”

He glanced toward the house—toward the shuttered windows, where something unseen pressed against the glass from the inside.

“Not yet.”

They found Malia in the music room just before lunch, where sunlight cut through the haze and pooled on the piano’s lacquered surface. The house was holding its breath again; even the clocks seemed to tick quieter near her.

She was playing softly, the same melody Stiles had heard the previous night—a slow, melancholic thing that seemed to fold the air in on itself. The notes hung heavy, like secrets pretending to be beautiful.

“Beautiful,” Stiles said, leaning against the doorway.

Malia didn’t look up. “It’s my father’s piece,” she said. “He used to play it when he couldn’t sleep. My mother said it soothed him.”

“Did it?”

A pause. Then: “No. But it made him think it did, and that was almost the same.”

Stiles moved closer, watching her hands glide across the keys. “You believe he’s still here.”

“I know he is.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, not fearful. “He’s been here since the fire. Sometimes you can feel him listening when you play. It’s… worse when you stop.”

Scott shifted awkwardly beside him. “That’s not creepy at all.”

Malia’s eyes flicked up, sharp, cool, assessing. “You came here to make him go away, didn’t you?”

“That’s the idea,” Stiles said lightly. “He’s overstayed his welcome.”

She turned back to the piano, pressing one low note that lingered in the air like a heartbeat. “He won’t leave until he’s done. My father always finished what he started.”

There was something in her voice—an old echo of grief, yes, but also defiance.

Stiles tilted his head. “And what exactly did he start, Miss Hale?”

Her fingers stilled. “A fire,” she said simply. Then, before he could speak again, she closed the lid of the piano. “Lunch will be served soon.”

It was the kind of dismissal Stiles recognized instantly: polite, final, and full of things unsaid.

He left her there, half-shadowed by light, the piano reflecting a faint red sheen where the sun hit the keys—like dried blood polished into wood.

By the time lunch came and went, Scott had decided he was officially “done with ghosts before dinner.” He mumbled something about sandwiches and retreated gratefully toward the kitchens, leaving Stiles alone with his thoughts and his notebook of half-truths.

The rain had stopped entirely by mid-afternoon, leaving the air heavy and raw. Stiles found himself wandering the path behind the stables again, drawn by habit or instinct—or maybe just the hope of finding someone who wouldn’t speak in riddles.

The sound of hooves came first: rhythmic, solid, reassuring. He looked up as two horses crested the hill path.

Derek Hale rode one, posture precise as ever, reins held like a soldier’s grip. Beside him was a tall Black man with a calm, unreadable face and the quiet ease of someone used to doing more work than anyone noticed.

They slowed near the gate. Derek dismounted first, boots hitting the mud with a soft thud. The stranger followed, giving Stiles a nod before leading both horses toward the trough.

“Mr. Stilinski,” Derek said, unfastening his gloves. “You’re still here.”

“Well, someone’s got to keep your ghosts entertained,” Stiles said, flashing a grin. “Otherwise, who knows what they’ll start bleeding next.”

That earned the faintest twitch at the corner of Derek’s mouth—almost, but not quite, a smile. “This is Vernon Boyd,” he said, gesturing toward the man. “He helps with the horses and the property upkeep.”

“Also good at fixing the unfixable,” Boyd added in an easy drawl. “Which, from what I hear, might include your parlor.”

Stiles blinked. “Word travels fast in this house.”

Boyd chuckled. “Faster than you’d think. Lydia says the blood’s gone, but Jackson swears the padlock didn’t break—it melted.”

“Charming,” Stiles muttered. “Your ghost has flair.”

Derek folded his gloves neatly into his pocket. “You said last night that ghosts don’t lie.”

“Generally, no. Death strips away the polite filters.”

“Then what did Peter mean by saying he stayed for pleasure?”

Stiles studied him carefully. “I was hoping you’d tell me that.”

Derek’s jaw flexed, a muscle ticking there. “He had affairs. He enjoyed power. But nothing about this house was ever pleasure.”

“Maybe not for the living,” Stiles said softly.

That earned him a look—steady, measuring. Then Derek exhaled, turning to face the rolling fog that crept low along the paddock fence. “You think he’s hiding something.”

“I think you all are,” Stiles replied. “And until I know what it is, I can’t put him down.”

Derek’s voice was quiet. “Maybe it isn’t Peter that needs putting down.”

Stiles met his eyes, the air thick between them for a heartbeat—charged, strange, and not entirely unfriendly.

Then Boyd cleared his throat. “If this is how your séances start, I’ll be feeding the horses early tonight.”

“Wise man,” Stiles said. “Run while you can.”

Boyd gave a small grin, leading the horses away, leaving the two men in the thinning fog, silence pulsing between them.

“You really believe this can end neatly?” Derek asked at last.

“Nothing about this job’s ever neat,” Stiles said. “But if I can help a family sleep without bleeding ceilings, I call that a good week.”

“Then you’d better get some rest,” Derek said, starting toward the manor. “Tonight, he’ll come again.”

Stiles watched him go, then glanced once more toward the shuttered windows of the parlor. The air was too still—no wind, no sound, just that faint, waiting pressure that always came before a haunting broke loose.

He smirked faintly to himself.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The guest room they’d been given had once belonged to someone with expensive taste and terrible luck. The wallpaper was faintly singed near the window, and the lingering scent of smoke clung to the drapes. Two iron-framed beds faced each other, neatly made with heavy wool blankets and the kind of pillows that guaranteed a stiff neck.

Stiles sat at the little desk wedged between them, hunched over a notebook, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbows. A cigarette dangled from his lips, the ash curling dangerously close to the page. Beside him, a half-drunk pint of beer caught the lamplight like old amber.

Scott pushed the door open, already scowling. “Tell me that’s not what I think it is.”

Stiles didn’t look up. “That depends. If you think it’s the ghost of Prohibition haunting my taste buds, then yes. Guilty as charged.”

Scott shut the door behind him, lowering his voice. “How do the Hales even get beer? That’s supposed to be illegal.”

Stiles smirked around the cigarette. “Please. They’re old money, Scott. The law doesn’t apply to people who can bankroll the people writing it. I’m sure Lydia just winks at a customs officer and—poof—case of imported stout from Dublin.”

Scott blinked. “That actually sounds believable.”

“Exactly,” Stiles said, scribbling a note. “It’s always the pretty ones doing the smuggling.”

Scott snorted, dropping onto his bed. “You’re impossible.”

“Efficient,” Stiles corrected. “And occasionally inspired.”

Scott leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So, Professor Stilinski, what have you actually figured out?”

Stiles exhaled smoke toward the ceiling, eyes narrowing as he flipped a page. “Patterns. Lies. A chandelier that bleeds on cue.” He flipped back another page, brow furrowed. “Okay, run this with me. The ghost of Peter Hale—murderer, narcissist, general sleazeball—is lingering for ‘pleasure.’ But ghosts don’t feel new pleasures. They feed on old ones. The emotional kind. So what’s his source?”

Scott frowned. “Terrorizing his family?”

“Too simple,” Stiles said. “Peter was a craftsman. His cruelty always had purpose.” He stubbed out the cigarette, leaning forward. “Think about Malia.”

“What about her?”

“Three things.” Stiles raised a finger. “First, the piano. She plays his music—says it soothes him. But did you see her hands? When she hit the low notes, her knuckles went white. That’s not comfort, that’s restraint. She wasn’t playing to calm him down; she was playing to keep him quiet.”

A second finger. “Her wording. She said, ‘He won’t leave until he’s done.’ Not at peace. Done. Like he’s finishing a task.”

Scott hesitated. “You think she’s the task?”

“Bingo.” Stiles’s voice softened, sharp with thought. “Peter’s pleasure wasn’t random cruelty—it was control. He doesn’t haunt the house for vengeance. He haunts it to keep her under his thumb. Even dead, he wants his family to dance to his tune.”

Scott rubbed his face. “You think Derek did something?”

“Not directly,” Stiles said, eyes flicking up briefly. “But guilt’s an anchor. If Peter’s still here, he’s feeding on something thick—regret, grief, that juicy emotional vintage. Derek’s got enough of that bottled to start his own brand.”

Scott looked at him curiously. “You say that like you’d know.”

Stiles didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched, filled with the hum of the rain outside.

Finally, he said, “Let’s just say I’ve been around Derek Hale long enough to know guilt’s his native language.”

Scott raised a brow. “You’ve been around him a lot longer than you admit, huh?”

Stiles shrugged, a faint grin ghosting across his mouth. “Old case. Long story. He’s not easy to forget.”

Scott’s expression softened, teasing. “That sounds like more than a case.”

“Focus, McCall,” Stiles said quickly, though the flicker of color in his face betrayed him. “We’re talking ghosts, not gossip.”

Scott held up his hands, chuckling. “Alright, alright.”

Stiles leaned back again, smoke curling through the lamplight. “If Peter’s still around, he’s not just feeding on fear. He’s feeding on relationships—old loyalties, buried love, broken trust. He’s a parasite in emotional form.”

Scott grimaced. “That’s… dark.”

“Welcome to the medium business,” Stiles said. “It’s all blood, guilt, and unpaid invoices.”

Scott smiled despite himself. “You ever think about doing something normal? Like accounting?”

Stiles snorted. “Sure. Until a ledger starts whispering back.”

Scott laughed, collapsing onto his bed. The sound was warm and human, cutting through the manor’s gloom.

For a moment, Stiles just watched the smoke drift upward, listening to the rain and the sea beyond. Then, faintly—like a note played on a broken gramophone—came laughter. Velvet and low.

He froze.

The cigarette burned down to the filter.

“Guess Peter approves of my theory,” Stiles muttered.

Scott groaned, rolling over. “Can we not talk about the ghost while I’m trying to sleep?”

“No promises,” Stiles said, turning back to his notes.

The clock on the mantel ticked toward midnight. Outside, a single window creaked open of its own accord.

And though he didn’t say it aloud, Stiles couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere in the dark halls beyond, Peter Hale was listening—and smiling.

Dawn broke cold and gray over Hale Manor. The fog came rolling in from the fields again, heavy enough to blur the fences and swallow the trees at their roots. Somewhere a horse stamped and snorted, impatient with the chill.

Stiles stood just inside the stable doors, cigarette between his fingers, watching the smoke twist into the mist. He hadn’t slept much—his head still full of blood-dripping chandeliers and the echo of laughter that didn’t belong to the living.

A low voice drifted from the far end of the stable.

“—I told you she’d be the death of him,” someone said. “Argent women always are.”

Stiles froze.

Another voice—deeper, steadier. “He loved her anyway. Said she made him feel alive. I suppose that’s worth dying for, if you’re that kind of man.”

Isaac and Boyd.

Stiles moved closer, the boards creaking softly under his boots. The smell of hay and saddle oil mingled with the sea damp. Boyd was tightening a bridle strap while Isaac brushed down a dappled mare, his expression distant, lost in thought.

“Still,” Boyd added, voice quieter now, “you’d think he’d have learned. One Hale, one Argent, and the whole town went up in fire.”

Stiles cleared his throat gently. “Morning, gentlemen.”

Both men jolted, Isaac nearly dropping the brush. Boyd turned sharply, expression guarded but polite.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt,” Stiles said easily, blowing out a stream of smoke. “I was just passing through. Seems this place has a way of drawing conversation.”

Boyd gave a slow, cautious nod. “Mr. Stilinski.”

“Just Stiles,” he corrected, offering a faint grin. “No need to get formal unless you’re planning to haunt me too.”

Isaac’s mouth twitched, somewhere between a smile and a wince. “We didn’t know anyone was listening.”

“Occupational hazard,” Stiles said. “Eavesdropping’s part of my charm. You were talking about the fire?”

Boyd’s eyes flicked toward Isaac, then back to Stiles. “Old stories travel fast around here.”

“Sure,” Stiles said. “But the interesting ones usually have teeth.”

Boyd didn’t answer. Isaac busied himself with the mare again, brushing harder than necessary. The silence stretched until Stiles tilted his head.

“How long have you both known the Hales?” he asked, tone casual.

Isaac’s voice was soft. “Since I was twelve. Me and Erica—we were orphans. Worked the kitchens and the kennels. Mrs. Hale was kind.”

Boyd nodded once. “I served under Captain Hale. War makes strange families. When it ended, he asked me to stay on as groundskeeper.”

“Captain Hale,” Stiles repeated, tapping ash off the cigarette. “That’s Derek’s father, I assume.”

Boyd’s eyes darkened. “Was.”

Stiles let that hang, then exhaled smoke through his nose. “You said something about an Argent woman. Any relation to the hunter family? Or just a coincidence of surnames?”

Neither answered immediately. Isaac shifted, brushing the horse’s mane with renewed focus. Boyd gave a quiet, deliberate look—the kind that said you’ve asked enough.

“Dangerous women,” Boyd said finally. “The kind who make men believe they’re safe.”

Stiles raised a brow. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Not mine,” Boyd replied. “Theirs.”

Isaac’s voice cracked slightly. “The fire wasn’t an accident. Everyone says it was. But it wasn’t.”

Stiles went still. “You were here?”

Isaac nodded faintly. “Erica pulled me out. I saw him—Peter—running back inside. Said he couldn’t leave her. The woman.”

“The Argent woman?”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, all Stiles could hear was the soft snort of the horses and the drip of rain from the stable eaves. He stubbed out his cigarette on the door frame, tucking the butt into his pocket.

“Well,” he said lightly, “that’s one mystery confirmed: the dead still have good taste in bad company.”

Isaac gave him a nervous smile. Boyd didn’t. His gaze stayed steady, measuring.

“Be careful, Mr. Stilinski,” he said at last. “The Hales don’t like strangers digging through their ashes.”

Stiles smiled thinly. “Lucky for me, I’m not a stranger to fire.”

He turned to leave, the fog curling around his boots as he stepped back into the gray morning. Behind him, the horses shifted restlessly, and Boyd murmured something low in Latin—or maybe it was just a prayer.

Either way, it sounded like warning.

By the time Stiles returned to the manor, the fog had thickened into something close to weathered wool. The house loomed through it—windows dull with condensation, chimneys exhaling faint curls of smoke like breath from a sleeping thing.

Inside, the air had changed. Quieter. Tighter. Even the tick of the grandfather clock sounded cautious.

Lydia was arranging flowers on the parlor mantle—white roses, all thorns clipped away. She didn’t look up when Stiles entered.

“Out early,” she said mildly. “The stables aren’t much company at this hour.”

Stiles flicked an ash from his cigarette into the cold fireplace. “Depends who you talk to. Horses are honest. People less so.”

She smiled, small and polite, but her eyes flickered—green glass catching the light. “You think honesty is a virtue, Mr. Stilinski?”

“I think it’s expensive,” he said. “Most folks can’t afford it.”

The faintest tilt of her head. “And yet you spend so much time asking questions.”

“Habit. I like patterns. Ghosts, blood, family secrets. This house has plenty of all three.”

“Then you’ll find it quite lively,” Lydia said, her tone perfectly even. She turned, adjusting a rose that didn’t need adjusting. “The Hales are… sentimental about the past.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “I’ve noticed. It won’t let go of them.”

“Or perhaps,” she murmured, brushing her fingers along the petals, “they won’t let go of it.”

For a moment, her reflection shimmered in the mirror above the mantel—a trick of the morning light—but Stiles could swear he saw a second shadow beside her. Taller. Familiar. Watching.

Peter.

When he blinked, it was gone.

“Do you believe in anchors, Mr. Stilinski?” Lydia asked softly. “Things that keep the dead close. A scent. A song. A person.”

His cigarette paused halfway to his lips. “You’re saying someone’s keeping Peter here.”

“Not saying,” she corrected. “Merely wondering.”

He gave a slow smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “And what would you anchor yourself to, Lydia, if it were your choice?”

Her gaze met his then—sharp, unreadable, with something that wasn’t quite human in it. “Why choose?” she said. “Some ties aren’t made. They’re owed.”

Stiles watched her leave, the faint scent of rosewater and smoke following in her wake. When he glanced at the mirror again, the bouquet’s reflection was slightly wrong—the flowers in it weren’t white, but red.

Chapter Text

By the time Stiles made it back up to the guest room, the air smelled of rain and dust. Scott was at the window, elbows on the sill, staring out toward the garden. Down below, Malia was walking through the overgrown roses, a pale dress moving like fog among thorns.

“You’ve got that look,” Stiles said, setting his notebook on the desk.

Scott startled. “What look?”

“The one that ends with you rescuing someone and regretting it later.”

Scott flushed. “She just looks… lonely.”

“Sure,” Stiles said, lighting a cigarette. “And the fact that she’s got cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass has nothing to do with it.”

Scott huffed. “You’re impossible.”

“True,” Stiles said, puffing smoke toward the ceiling. “Just remember—roses have thorns, and Hale women have history.”

Scott muttered something about cynicism and decided he ought to go “check if she’s all right.”

Stiles saluted him with the cigarette. “Try not to bleed on the marble.”

When the door shut behind him, the room quieted. Stiles turned to his desk again, flipping through notes: Lydia’s evasions, Jackson’s nervousness, Boyd’s talk of fire and loyalty. It all circled back to one thing—devotion twisted into something else. He tapped his pencil, eyes narrowing, the way he always did right before the pieces began to line up.

A knock broke the silence.

He looked up, expecting Scott. “If you’re here to report a tragic love confession, I’m charging overtime.”

The door opened. Derek filled the frame, coat damp from the mist, jaw set. “We need to talk.”

“Well,” Stiles said, leaning back in his chair, “that’s usually what people say before I make them uncomfortable.”

Derek stepped in, shutting the door with more force than necessary. “Isaac told me you were down by the stables this morning. Listening.”

“Listening is my job,” Stiles said lightly. “Eavesdropping is a public service.”

Derek’s scowl didn’t budge. “You’re digging into things that don’t concern you.”

“Listening is my profession,” Stiles corrected, lighting a fresh cigarette with a steady hand he didn’t feel. “Digging implies I’m the one who buried the bodies. You Hales handled that part yourselves.”

Derek’s scowl deepened. “You’re prying into things that will get you hurt.”

“Everything in this house is a potential hazard, darling. Including the client.”

Stiles rose slowly, smoothing his vest. He crossed the room until he was standing well within Derek’s space—close enough to smell the rain clinging to his wool coat, the faint trace of shaving soap he’d always used. The air between them tightened, humming with old familiarity, a decade of unsaid things.

“You called me here,” Stiles said softly. “You wanted the great Stiles Stilinski to peer into the dark corners. Don’t be cross with me for seeing what’s there.”

Derek’s expression flickered; for a heartbeat, the stern heir gave way to the man Stiles remembered—the one who’d kissed him once in a Parisian alley with jazz bleeding through the fog.

“Just make the ghost go away, Stiles,” Derek said finally. “That’s all I asked.”

Stiles tilted his head, voice dropping to a whisper threaded with something dangerously intimate. “You and I both know that’s never all it is with you. You don’t hire an exorcist for a simple haunting. You hire one when the family secrets start screaming louder than the dead.”

Derek’s jaw clenched. “Can you,” he said quietly, “just once stop turning everything into a Shakespeare tragedy?”

Stiles’s grin was quick and bright. “I’m more of a screwball comedy kind of guy.”

“No, you’re not.” Derek stepped closer, erasing the space between them. “You see a mystery, and you pick at it until it bleeds. You did it in Marseille. You did it in New York.”

“And both times, I was right,” Stiles countered, his voice low now, stripped of bravado. “Both times, you were glad I did.”

Outside, thunder rolled again—low and distant, as if the house itself were listening. Neither moved.

Then Stiles smiled—slow, deliberate, dangerously fond. “Darling,” he murmured, “you know how I work. I warned you from the start.”

A low rumble of thunder echoed the one in Derek’s chest. He moved with a sudden, fluid grace, he caught Stiles’s chin between his thumb and forefinger, his grip firm but not cruel. The touch stilled Stiles completely. It was an old gesture, intimate and grounding—one they’d used before words ever did them justice

 A silent I know you, and you know me.

“Don’t,” Derek breathed, his voice a low, private rasp. “Don’t call me ‘darling.’ Not within these walls. They listen.”

Stiles’s breath hitched. “Touchy,” he managed, the word barely a whisper. When Derek released him, the spot where his thumb had been burned. “Wouldn’t want to tarnish the pristine reputation of the Hale heir. What would the neighbors say if they knew you had a taste for fast-talking men from the wrong side of the tracks?”

“They’d say I have a type. And that it’s a damned inconvenient one.” Derek’s gaze, dark and intense, a full of a war between fear and desire, dropped to Stiles lush, pink lips. “You never know when to stop talking.”

“It’s my best and worst quality,” Stiles said, turning back to his desk to hide the flush on his neck, needing to put a physical barrier between them before he did something reckless. “You’ve never complained about my mouth before.”

The silence that followed was thick, heavy with the memory of every time Derek had, in fact, praised that mouth—in the dark, behind locked doors, where the only sound was the city breathing beyond the window and the soft, desperate noises Derek made when Stiles’s clever tongue and sharp wit were focused entirely on him.

Derek didn’t deny it. He took a single, silent step forward, close enough that the heat from his body was a brand through Stiles’s clothes. His voice was a low, rough scrape of sound, meant for Stiles alone.

“There’s a lot I haven’t complained about,” he murmured, the words a confession and a promise that hung in the dusty air between them. “But this isn’t a speakeasy in Manhattan. One wrong word, one look that lasts a second too long… it’s not just my reputation on the line here, Stiles. It’s your neck.”

He reached out, not to touch Stiles’s face again, but to straighten the pen lying beside his notebook—a small, intimate gesture of care and possession that sent a shiver straight down Stiles’s spine.

“Be careful what you dig up,” Derek said, his fingers lingering for a heartbeat near Stiles’s hand. “Some secrets are buried for a reason.”

Then he was gone, the door clicking shut softly behind him, leaving Stiles alone with the ghost of his touch and the terrifying, thrilling certainty that the most dangerous thing in Hale House wasn’t the dead—it was the living, beating heart of the man who owned it.

Stiles finally exhaled, the sound loud in the sudden quiet. He could still feel the pressure of Derek’s fingers on his skin. He looked at the closed door, then at his notes, at the web of secrets he was untangling.

“Too late,” he murmured to the empty room, the ghost of a touch still warm on his chin. “I was invited a long time ago.”

The silence Derek left behind was thick and humming. Stiles stood for a long moment in the center of the room, the ghost of Derek’s touch still warm on his chin, the warning echoing in his ears. Some secrets are buried for a reason.

Well, Stiles had a shovel.

He needed a drink. More than that, he needed a conversation that wasn’t layered with six years of personal history.

He found his way to the main floor, following the faint, efficient sounds of final dinner preparations. A light was on in the butler's pantry. David Whittemore was within, inspecting a row of crystal decanters on a silver tray, his posture as impeccable as ever.

"The household is preparing for dinner, Mr. Stilinski," Whittemore said without turning around, his voice a calm, measured statement. "Is there something you require?"

"A moment of your time, and a beer, if it's not too much trouble," Stiles said, leaning against the doorframe with a practiced, easy smile. "It's been a long day of travel and... atmospheric adjustment."

Whittemore turned, his expression unreadable. "The Hales are pragmatic about certain laws, even during Prohibition." He opened a small, discreet icebox built into the cabinetry and produced a brown bottle. He opened it with a quiet hiss and placed it on a coaster on the counter. "I trust this will aid your adjustment."

Stiles took a grateful swallow. "It's a start. This house has quite a history. You must know it better than anyone."

"I have been in service to the Hale family for many years, sir."

"Through the fire," Stiles stated, watching him carefully.

Whittemore's hands, which had been adjusting the position of a decanter by a fraction of an inch, stilled. "Through the fire."

Stiles leaned in slightly, his tone conversational. "It's the children I can't stop thinking about. A tragedy like that marks a person, especially someone as young as Malia was. Losing her mother... how did she bear it?"

The butler's gaze was like polished flint. "The Hale children have shown remarkable fortitude."

"I'm sure. But fortitude often hides the deepest wounds." Stiles took another sip, shifting his approach. "Jackson seems utterly devoted. I imagine he was a steady presence for them all in the aftermath."

The change was immediate. Whittemore’s professional composure tightened into something colder, more protective. He picked up a cloth and began meticulously wiping a spotless glass.

"My son's devotion, Mr. Stilinski, is not born of mere service. It is a debt of life. When the east wing collapsed, it was Mr. Derek who went back into the inferno. He pulled Jackson from the rubble and carried him out on his back. There is no line my son would not cross for this family, and no question from an outsider he would ever answer to its potential detriment."

He set the glass down with a soft, definitive click.

"If you are digging, sir, I would advise you not to bark up that particular tree. You will find nothing but immovable loyalty."

Stiles held his gaze for a beat, then offered a conciliatory nod. He finished the beer and set the empty bottle on the coaster. "Thank you for the drink, Mr. Whittemore. And for the... orientation."

"Of course, sir. Dinner will be served in one hour."

As Stiles walked away, the pre-dinner quiet of the manor felt more ominous. He hadn't learned more about Malia's past, but he'd uncovered a far more critical piece of the puzzle: a living, breathing wall of loyalty, built not just on duty, but on a life saved. Derek had an army of one in Jackson, and Stiles had just been formally warned to stand down.

Supper at Hale Manor was never loud. Conversation came in low, measured tones that barely carried beyond the gleam of the long mahogany table. The storm outside pressed against the windows, soft rain sliding down the glass in restless streaks. Candlelight trembled over the silverware, gilding each face in flickering amber. The chandelier above swayed slightly in the draft, its crystal prisms whispering faintly as if the air itself were listening.

One chair stood empty.

Derek noticed first. He sat at the head of the table, the picture of control in his dark waistcoat, but his gaze kept straying to the empty place two seats down.

“Where’s Malia?” he asked finally, his voice breaking the quiet like a knife through silk.

Erica glanced up, spoon halfway to her mouth. “She said her head was starting again. I told her to rest.”

Derek’s frown, a muscle in his jaw working. “Should we call the doctor again?”

Lydia moved soundlessly around the long dining table, the soft rustle of her skirts the only sound between forks and whispered conversation. She set down a decanter, refilled Derek’s glass halfway, and spoke without being prompted—her voice measured, polite.

“I’ve already taken Miss Malia her supper, sir,” she said, hands folded neatly in front of her. “Once she’s finished, I’ll see she takes the tonic the doctor prescribed.”

Derek’s gaze lifted from his plate, frown deepening. “Was she awake?”

“For a moment.” Lydia’s eyes flickered toward the staircase beyond the hall, then quickly away. “She said the music helped with the pain.”

“She looked fine this evening,” Scott said, ever the peacekeeper. He reached for the breadbasket, glancing around. “We were in the garden. She was teasing me about the roses.”

Cora stirred her soup absently, shoulders tense. “It happens suddenly. The headaches.” She didn’t look up. “They’ve been worse lately.”

“How long has she been having them?” Stiles asked, his tone almost offhand as he broke a roll in half. But his eyes, quick and curious, flicked from Cora to Derek, gauging the pause that followed.

Derek’s gaze found him immediately—steady, warning. “Six months,” he said after a beat. “Give or take. I came back from San Francisco because of it.”

Erica nodded. “They’re bad sometimes. She screams. Can’t sleep for nights.”

A hollow silence followed. Outside, thunder rolled distantly, and for a moment the candles seemed to gutter.

Stiles leaned back, fork tapping lightly against his plate. “Sounds like more than migraines.” He didn’t mean to sound accusing, but the question hung there anyway, heavy and sharp-edged.

Lydia’s smile was polite and cold. “The doctor says nerves. The manor can be…stifling.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said softly, eyes lingering on her too-long. “It does have that effect.”

No one answered. The storm deepened, a steady drumming on the roof. Silver glinted, soup cooled. Conversation shifted, brittle and thin—talk of the estate, the weather, the next shipment from town. But the unease stayed, quiet and clinging.

The air in the withdrawing room was thick with the scent of port and unspoken tension. The Hales had retired there after dinner, a picture of strained civility. Scott was doing his best to make polite conversation with a visibly bored Cora, while Erica and Isaac kept to a quiet corner. Derek, however, had vanished almost the moment the last course was cleared.

Seeing his chance, Stiles murmured an excuse about needing air and slipped into the shadowed corridor. He didn't head for the gardens. His feet, guided by a pricking in his thumbs, carried him up the grand staircase and toward the east wing, to Malia's room.

The door was slightly ajar. He knocked softly before pushing it open.

Malia was sitting upright in her bed, propped against a mountain of pillows. She was awake, but her skin was sickly pale, almost translucent, a web of faint blue veins visible at her temples and tracing up her slender wrists. She was agitated, her fingers plucking nervously at the embroidered coverlet.

"Get out," she said, her voice thin and strained. The words lacked their usual quiet force, brittle with pain.

"Headache worse?" Stiles asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. He didn't wait for an invitation. One look at her was all he needed. This wasn't a migraine; this was a spiritual violation. The air around her was cold, tainted with the cloying, electric scent of the grave. She was being touched by something dead, and in this house, it could be none other than Peter.

"I said get out!" she snapped, her eyes flashing with a feverish light. "I don't need your... your hocus-pocus."

"Maybe not," Stiles said, his voice dropping into a low, steady cadence, devoid of its usual sarcasm. This was his professional register. "But you're fighting a war on two fronts, and you're losing. Your body is one battlefield. Your mind is another."

From an inner pocket of his waistcoat, he produced a small, worn leather pouch. He loosened the drawstring and pulled out a spool of jet-black thread.

Mia watched him with wide, distrustful eyes as he began to chant under his breath—soft, guttural words that belonged to no modern language. His fingers worked quickly, deftly weaving the thread around her right wrist in a series of intricate, looping knots. With each knot, he murmured a word of binding, of protection.

She tried to pull away, but a fresh wave of pain made her gasp and go still, her resistance crumbling.

Lastly, he drew a small, cold piece of black iron from the pouch—a nail, old and hand-forged. Without a word, he slipped it beneath her pillow.

"The thread will help keep his voice out," Stiles said softly, finishing the final knot. "The iron will keep his hands off you while you sleep. It should keep the nightmares at bay. Or at least, give you a fighting chance."

He didn't wait for her thanks or her renewed protests. He simply gave her a long, knowing look, then turned and left as quietly as he had come, closing the door on the pale, haunted girl in the too-big bed.

The hallway outside felt warmer. But as he walked away, the faint, warped notes of a jazz tune drifted from the walls, a sound both mocking and enraged. Peter, it seemed, did not appreciate the interruption.

The manor had settled into its midnight hush.

The storm had moved off to the east, leaving the air thick and damp, the corridors still humming faintly from thunder’s retreat.

Scott was in their guest room, guiltily nursing a bottle of cold beer he’d pilfered from the pantry icebox. He sat cross-legged on his bed, the lamp turned low, eyes half-closed in relief as he took another sip. Somewhere down the hall, the wind rattled a loose shutter, but he didn’t notice. He told himself he’d earned this small rebellion.

Stiles wasn’t there.

He’d left right after supper, muttering something about needing air—but the direction he’d gone was unmistakable.

Down the west corridor. Toward Derek’s rooms.

Derek’s study was dimly lit, the fire reduced to red-orange coals. He stood beside the window, one hand braced against the sill, the other holding a glass of something that looked darker than whiskey. When Stiles entered without knocking, Derek didn’t turn. He just said, quietly, “You should learn to knock.”

“And you,” Stiles shot back, “should learn to tell people when your cousin’s having nightly migraines that make her scream.”

That made Derek turn. His eyes caught the firelight—gold and shadow both. “You’re angry.”

“Sharp deduction, detective.” Stiles’s tone was acid, but his expression betrayed more hurt than rage. “You left San Francisco without a word. I had to hear from your maid that your cousin’s been sick for months. You think that doesn’t concern me?”

Derek set the glass down. “When did we start sharing notes like married couples?”

The words landed like a slap dressed as wit.

Stiles’s mouth twitched—half a smile, half a flinch. “Cute,” he said finally. “Deflection always looks good on you.”

“I didn’t mean—” Derek began.

“Sure you did.” Stiles stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You meant it the way you mean everything—with just enough distance to make sure no one gets close enough to matter.”

Derek’s jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t take this personally.”

“Too late,” Stiles said. “I already do.” He took a deep breath, “That Malia’s been sick. That’s why you left New York. That’s why you vanished without a word.” Stiles crossed the room, hands shoved deep into his pockets. “Instead, you let me sit there thinking I drove you away.”

Derek eyes were steady, unreadable. “It wasn’t about you.”

“That’s the point,” Stiles snapped. “You didn’t let it be about me. You just disappeared. No letter. No call. No nothing. You left me a note like a goddamn business memo—‘Family needs me’—and vanished.”

Derek’s jaw tightened. “I didn’t have time to explain.”

“Bullshit,” Stiles said softly, dangerously. “You had six months.”

Silence settled thick between them. The rain rattled the glass harder now, wind whispering through the cracks in the old frame. Derek’s throat worked once before he spoke.

“You were with someone,” he said, low. “In New York.”

Stiles blinked, then gave a short, bitter laugh. “That again? I was having a drink with a colleague, Derek. One drink. You saw what you wanted to see.”

“I saw you with your hand on his arm,” Derek said, still quiet, but his voice roughened. “And you didn’t see me at all.”

“You didn’t see me either,” Stiles shot back. “You didn’t write. You didn’t call. You left me guessing what I even was to you. Then you act like I betrayed something you never claimed.”

Derek said nothing. The lamplight carved the planes of his face into sharp lines — restraint, regret, and pride locked in a silent war.

“When I said I didn’t know we were together,” Stiles went on, softer now, “I meant it. You kept everything so damn contained, I started to think I imagined it. And when you left—” He broke off, swallowed hard. “I thought that was your verdict.”

Derek exhaled, long and tired. “I brought you here because I trust you,” he said finally. “Not because I wanted a reunion.”

The words hit clean and hard, like a blade pressed flat against skin — no blood yet, just the sting.

Stiles let out a small, humorless laugh — part disbelief, part ache. “You don’t get to draw the line after the fact, Hale. You don’t get to make me care and then tell me I shouldn’t.”

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then something flickered in Derek’s eyes — regret, guilt, or maybe the smallest pulse of longing that refused to die, no matter how deep he buried it.

Stiles took a slow step forward, then another, until they were close enough that the lamplight blurred the edges of them. His voice dropped to a whisper. “I know you, Hale,” he said, reaching up, his fingers brushing the stubble along Derek’s jaw. “I’ve known you long enough to know when I’ve hurt you. And I did, somehow. Maybe without meaning to.”

Derek’s breath hitched — the smallest break in his composure.

Stiles’s thumb traced along his cheekbone, a trembling touch that carried too much history to be casual. “But I also know you love me,” he said, quiet but steady. “Madly, stupidly, in that way you try to pretend you don’t. And that’s why it hurts more.”

He swallowed, the last words barely holding together. “I forgive you, Der. Just—don’t push me away again.”

Derek’s composure fractured not with a sound, but with a stillness. The air left his lungs in a silent, shuddering exhale.

He didn’t speak. His hand came up, his fingers closing around Stiles’s wrist. It wasn't a harsh grip, but a grounding one—a plea and an anchor. He turned his face into Stiles’s palm, his eyes closing as he pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to the center of it. The gesture was one of profound surrender, a silent admission that Stiles was right.

His thumb stroked once, twice, over the frantic pulse point in Stiles's wrist, a soothing rhythm that calmed them both. When his eyes opened, the war in them had resolved into a quiet, devastating certainty.

“I can’t do this without you,” he said, the words low and rough, as if dragged from a place deeper than his chest. “That’s the truth.”

He didn’t say I love you. He didn’t have to. The words were etched into the line of his shoulders, into the way his other hand came up to rest on Stiles’s hip, not pulling him closer, just holding him there—a fixed point in the chaotic spin of the world.

Stiles understood. He always did.

“You don’t have to,” Stiles whispered.

He shifted his wrist in Derek’s grasp, not to break the hold, but to intertwine their fingers. Then, he leaned in and bridged the final, breathless distance between them.

The kiss was not a collision of passion, but a sealing of a pact. It was slow, deep, and unbearably tender, a language of its own that said everything their words could not: I’m here. I’m not leaving. We face this together.

When they parted, Derek rested his forehead against Stiles’s, their breaths mingling. He didn’t smile, but the harsh lines of grief and duty around his eyes had softened.

“The house is listening,” he murmured, his voice a husky vibration against Stiles’s lips.

“Let it listen,” Stiles replied, his own voice thick with emotion. He squeezed Derek’s hand. “Let it learn what it means to be loved by a Hale. It’s about time this place remembered.”

A ghost of a smile—a real one—finally touched Derek’s mouth. It was a rare, unguarded sight, more powerful than any confession. He brought their joined hands to his chest, holding them over his heart, letting Stiles feel the steady, strong beat beneath his palm.

A single, wordless promise.

After a moment, Stiles pulled back, and Derek looked at him.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Derek said finally. The words sounded like they’d been waiting months to escape.

“I know,” Stiles answered softly. “Doesn’t stop it from stinging.”

Derek’s thumb ghosted once more over the edge of Stiles’s wrist before he let go. The warmth lingered even after he stepped back.

He turned toward the fire, his voice low. “She’s been hearing music,” he said. “At night. That’s how it started.”

Stiles blinked. “Music?”

Derek nodded once, eyes on the flames.

Something twisted in Stiles’s chest—not fear exactly, but that familiar cocktail of dread and discovery. “Then I’ll start listening,” he murmured.

He lingered for a heartbeat longer before turning for the door.

The floor creaked, the wind hissed through the eaves, and Derek didn’t call him back.

The stables in the early morning were a world apart from the oppressive manor—all clean, honest scents of hay, horse, and leather. Stiles had come looking for answers, his mind full of black thread and sickly-pale skin.

He found far more than he bargained for.

Derek Hale was a vision carved from the dawn itself, trotting a magnificent dark brown stallion into the yard. He was shirtless, dressed only in riding breeches and boots, his suspenders hanging loose off his shoulders. The cool morning air did nothing to hide the heat rolling off him, his skin sheened with a fine sweat that highlighted the powerful map of muscle across his chest and shoulders. As he dismounted with a fluid, practiced grace, the shift of every corded muscle was a deliberate assault on Stiles’s senses.

Stiles felt his train of thought derail, spectacularly and completely. He blinked, his mouth suddenly dry.

“No wonder I can’t leave him,” he muttered under his breath, a quiet, despairing confession to the morning mist.

He hadn’t made a sound. He was certain of it. But Derek, now running a cloth over the stallion’s flank, spoke without turning around, his voice a low, familiar rumble that Stiles felt in his bones.

“Stop skulking in the corner, Stiles. I’m alone.”

Chastised and thoroughly flustered, Stiles stepped out of the shadows. “It’s not skulking. It’s strategic observation.”

Derek finally turned, his gaze sweeping over Stiles, taking in his rumpled clothes and sleep-deprived eyes. The early light caught the scar near his temple, the faint stubble along his jaw. He looked more real, more grounded than he ever did inside the manor walls.

A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. “See anything you like?”

“The horse has excellent conformation,” Stiles shot back, his voice a little too high.

Derek’s smirk widened a fraction as he took a step closer, the scent of horse, sweat, and clean leather wrapping around Stiles. “Just the horse?”

Stiles's brain short-circuited. You. Always you. He leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Well, the view from the saddle isn't exactly a hardship either."

He saw the flash of heat in Derek's eyes a second before Derek closed the final distance between them. Derek didn't kiss him immediately. Instead, he ducked his head, burying his face in the crook of Stiles's neck and taking a long, deep whiff, as if memorizing his scent. The nuzzle that followed was slow, intimate, his stubble a rough, thrilling contrast against Stiles's sensitive skin.

A helpless smile broke across Stiles's face, a giggle escaping him as the sensation tickled. "Hey—" he protested, his hands coming up to Derek's shoulders. Instead of pushing him away, his fingers tangled in the dark, damp hair at the nape of Derek's neck. He yanked Derek's head back, not hard, but with enough force to claim the moment.

A low, possessive growl rumbled in Derek's chest, vibrating against Stiles's front.

"Okay, tiger, calm down," Stiles murmured, even as his other hand betrayed his words. His palm slid down Derek's sweaty, solid chest, feeling the soft trail of hair under his touch, mapping the fierce, living heat of him. He drew his hand back up the same path, a slow, deliberate caress that ended with his fingers cupping Derek's jaw. "I have impeccable taste in men," he said fondly, staring deeply into Derek's hazel eyes, losing himself all over again.

For a long moment, the world narrowed to the stable, the steam of their breath in the cool air, and the space between their mouths. The reason for his search—Malia, Peter, the haunting—felt a million miles away.

Then Derek’s gaze sharpened, the ghost of the real world returning. "You didn't come out here at dawn to admire the... view," he stated, his voice rough but steady.

The spell broke. Stiles’s smile faded, the memory of Malia’s pale, veined skin crashing back over him.

"No," Stiles admitted, his hand dropping from Derek's face. "I didn't." He took a small, steadying step back. "It's about your cousin. I saw her last night."

Derek frowned, his hands dropping from Stiles’s waist. “She was asleep last night. Lydia gave her the tonic.”

Stiles shook his head, the last of the flirtatious haze clearing from his eyes. “She was awake. And she wasn’t sick, Derek. She was being drained.”

The air in the stable went cold. Derek’s playful demeanor solidified into something hard and grim. “Explain.”

“She was pale as a sheet, with these… thin blue veins crawling up her neck and wrists. That’s not a migraine. That’s a spiritual violation.” Stiles’s voice was low and urgent. “Peter is feeding on her. Siphoning her energy, her life. It’s how he’s staying so strong. I put a binding of black thread on her wrist and slipped a piece of cold iron under her pillow. It was all I could do to give her a few hours of peace.”

“You touched her? Without my permission?” Derek’s voice was a low thunderclap, his eyes flashing with a protective fury that had nothing to do with the supernatural.

“I helped her!” Stiles shot back, refusing to back down. “Which is the job you hired me for! Or would you rather I stood by and took notes while your uncle slowly devours your cousin from the inside out?”

The words hung between them, harsh and true. Derek stared at him, his chest heaving, the conflict between the man who loved Stiles’s initiative and the patriarchy who needed to protect his family warring on his face.

Finally, he looked away, toward the manor, his shoulders slumping in a rare show of defeat. “What do we do?” he asked, the question quiet, stripped bare.

Stiles spent the entire day doing nothing of consequence, and he did it with a kind of frantic, deliberate purpose.

His grand investigation into the haunting came to a screeching halt. The notes remained in his room, the clues un-pursued. Instead, he embarked on a different sort of mission: a campaign of strategic, coincidental encounters.

He discovered a sudden, profound interest in the portrait gallery just outside Derek’s study, studying the dour-faced Hale ancestors with a feigned fascination every time he heard a door creak open. He developed an urgent need for a book from the library, which just so happened to be down the same corridor Derek used to go to his midday meeting with Boyd. He even took a prolonged, meandering stroll through the rose garden, because the path offered a clear view of Derek’s study window.

Each encounter was a spark.

In the hallway, their shoulders brushed. Derek didn’t break his stride, but his hand shot out, steadying Stiles with a grip on his elbow that burned through his shirtsleeve. “Watch your step,” was all he said, his voice low, before continuing on his way.

Later, by the library, Stiles “accidentally” dropped his cigarette case. Derek, passing by, stooped to pick it up. His fingers brushed against Stiles’s as he handed it back, their eyes locking for a charged second before Jackson appeared around the corner, forcing them apart with nothing more than a curt nod.

It was maddening. It was a game they had played in cities across the world, and here, in this mausoleum of a house, it felt both desperately familiar and dangerously new. Stiles wasn’t just seeking Derek out; he was trying to rebuild the map of him, to find the man beneath the weight of the manor, to remind them both of what existed outside these haunted walls.

By late afternoon, he was leaning against a doorframe, watching Derek from across the entrance hall as he spoke quietly with Lydia. Derek’s gaze lifted, finding his instantly. He didn’t smile, but the intensity in his eyes was a physical touch. He gave a barely perceptible shake of his head, a silent, fond admonishment. I see you.

Stiles felt a slow smile spread across his face. He pushed off the doorframe and finally, finally went back to his room. The ghosts could wait. For a few more hours, anyway.

The air in the guest room was thick with the scent of sage and intent. Stiles, sleeves rolled up, moved with a focused precision that brooked no argument. Scott watched from the edge of his bed, looking deeply unconvinced.

"So let me get this straight," Scott said. "Your plan is to go poke around the room of a known murderer and narcissist, who also happens to be a ghost, while I... what, exactly?"

"You," Stiles said, not looking up as he ground a mixture of ash and dried belladonna in a small marble mortar, "will be the noble knight, keeping a watchful eye on the fair maiden Malia. Ensure our spectral friend doesn't decide to pay her a visit while I'm ransacking his sanctum."

Scott groaned. "You make it sound so simple when you say it like that."

Stiles laughed, a sharp, bright sound in the hazy room. "It's basic resource allocation, Scotty. You handle the living damsel, I handle the dead distress." He lit a black candle on the desk, the flame casting long, dancing shadows. He burned a pinch of sage dust in a small copper bowl, the smoke curling in ominous tendrils, then carefully sprinkled a circle of salt around the entire arrangement.

From a velvet pouch, he produced a heavy silver ring etched with phases of the moon and slid it onto the forefinger of his right hand. Finally, he took out his pentacle pendant, the amethyst at its center looking dull in the low light. He rubbed his thumb over the stone, his voice dropping into a low, rhythmic chant as he began to recharge its protective energies.

Just then, a firm knock sounded at the door.

Scott shot Stiles a wide-eyed look before getting up and opening it.

Derek Hale filled the doorway, his gaze immediately finding Stiles in the center of the makeshift ritual. He stilled, taking in the black candle, the smoking bowl, the salt circle, and Stiles with his pendant in hand, mid-chant.

Stiles looked up, startled, but didn't break his rhythm. He finished the last few words of the enchantment, his voice steady despite the interruption, then brought the pendant to his lips and blew a soft breath onto the amethyst. A faint violet light seemed to flicker within the stone for a heartbeat before he set it aside.

"I'm sorry for intruding," Derek said, his voice unusually formal. "But I need a word with Mr. Stilinski."

Scott threw a deeply significant, raised-brow look in Stiles's direction that screamed, 'Mr. Stilinski?' Oh, we're in trouble now.

Stiles met Derek's gaze, his own expression unreadable. "You're not intruding," he said, wiping his hands on a cloth. "You're the client. What do you need?"

Derek gave a strained smile, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. "Walk with me."

It wasn't a request. It was a quiet command, layered with the history of a thousand such walks in cities whose names now felt like ghosts between them. Stiles felt the words like a physical pull. He glanced at Scott, who just shrugged, looking entirely too amused by the whole situation.

Without a word, Stiles carefully stepped over the salt circle, the protective enchantment now complete. He didn't look back as he followed Derek out the door and into the shadowed corridor.

Derek didn't speak at first. He led them away from the guest wing, his strides long and measured. The silence was heavy, filled with everything they hadn't said in the stables, everything Stiles had been trying to provoke all day. They turned a corner into a long, empty gallery lined with rain-streaked windows, the gray afternoon light casting the world in shades of lead and pearl.

Derek stopped before an unremarkable door, opening it and gesturing for Stiles to enter. As Stiles stepped into the dim, windowless room—a forgotten linen closet smelling faintly of lavender and dust—the door clicked shut with a soft, final sound.

In the sudden, intimate dark, an arm wrapped firmly around Stiles's waist, pulling him backward into a solid, warm chest. Stiles stumbled into Derek with a surprised "Uh!", his back meeting the hard plane of Derek's torso.

Before he could form a coherent thought, Derek’s other hand came up, fingers tangling in his hair, tilting his head to the side. He felt the heat of Derek’s breath, then the press of his face against the bared column of his neck. It wasn't a kiss. It was something more primal—a deep, shuddering inhalation, as if Derek were trying to breathe him in, to sear his scent into his lungs.

Stiles’s hands came up, gripping Derek’s forearm where it locked around his waist, not to pull away, but to hold on. His eyes slid closed. "Derek," he breathed, the name both a question and an answer.

Derek didn't speak. He just held on tighter, his body a fortress in the dark, as if trying to memorize the feel of him before letting the world back in.

“What were you trying to do all day?” Derek whisper-growled near Stiles ear.

Stiles shuddered as the whisper-growl vibrated against the sensitive skin of his neck. A helpless, breathless laugh escaped him.

"What did it look like?" he managed, his own voice unsteady. "I was conducting a thorough survey of the manor's structural integrity. Very important work."

Derek's arm tightened around his waist, pulling him even closer until there was not a sliver of light between them. "Liar."

"Fine," Stiles gasped, his head falling back against Derek's shoulder. His fingers tightened their grip on Derek's arm. "I was... re-calibrating. Reminding myself what I'm fighting for. Reminding you what you have to lose if you try to be a noble idiot and shut me out."

He felt the low, approving rumble in Derek's chest before Derek finally spoke, his lips brushing Stiles's ear.

"It worked."

The two words were a confession, a surrender, and a promise all at once. Stiles felt the tension he’d been carrying all day melt away, replaced by a fierce, warm certainty.

He turned in the circle of Derek’s arms, the movement awkward in the cramped space but necessary. In the near-total darkness, he could just make out the stark planes of Derek’s face, the faint gleam of his eyes.

“Good,” Stiles whispered, his hands coming up to frame Derek’s jaw, his thumbs stroking over the rough stubble. “Because I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me, Hale. Ghosts, secrets, and all.”

Derek’s answer was a low, wordless sound that was half-growl, half-sigh. He leaned forward, his forehead resting against Stiles’s. They stood like that for a long moment in the silent, lavender-scented dark, two points of solid reality in a house of echoes.

Then, Derek shifted. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, glass vial filled with a clear, slick oil, its purpose unmistakable. He pressed it into Stiles’s hand. Stiles’s fingers closed around it, the glass warm from Derek’s body heat.

“I was hoping,” Derek murmured, his voice a low, rough vibration against Stiles’s lips. “I’ve missed you.”

The admission was quieter than a whisper, more devastating than a shout. It wasn’t just about the physical distance of the last six months. It was about missing the trust, the intimacy, the person who knew his body and soul.

Stiles’s breath hitched. He curled his fingers tightly around the vial. “I’ve missed you, too,” he said, the words simple and utterly true.

This time, when their lips met, it was not a collision but a homecoming. It was slow and deep, a silent conversation of apology and forgiveness, of six months of loneliness poured into a single, perfect point of contact. Stiles fumbled with the buttons of his trousers, his hands steadied by Derek’s larger, surer ones.

In the close, fragrant dark, there was no room for the past or the haunted future. There was only the shared rhythm of their breathing, the press of a forehead against a shoulder to stifle a sound, the slide of skin against skin made slick and easy. It was a reclamation. A quiet, desperate reaffirmation of life in a house dedicated to death. A promise, sealed not with words, but with a touch that said, I am here. You are mine. We are alive.

Afterward, they leaned against each other in the quiet gloom, clothes rearranged, breaths slowly steadying. Derek’s lips brushed Stiles’s temple, a gesture so tender it made Stiles’s chest ache.

“Tonight,” Derek murmured, his voice now calm and certain, “you’re not going into that room alone.”

A slow, triumphant smile spread across Stiles’s face. He felt grounded, centered, and ready for a fight. “I was hoping you’d say that.”

He made to move toward the door, but Derek’s hand on his arm stopped him. The warmth in his eyes had been replaced by a familiar, searching intensity.

“What’s the plan, Stiles?”

Stiles’s smile turned wry. He patted Derek’s chest gently. “Ignorance is bliss at this particular moment, trust me.”

Derek’s jaw tightened. “No. This isn’t what I wanted. I didn’t call you here to watch you throw your life into danger.”

“You didn’t call me here to tiptoe around the edges, either,” Stiles countered, his voice softening but losing none of its steel. “You called me because you have a ghost that bleeds from the chandelier and a cousin who’s fading by the hour. You called me because you know exactly what I am, and you know exactly what I’m capable of.” He reached up, his thumb brushing the line of Derek’s jaw. “So have a little faith, lover.”

He held Derek’s gaze for a long moment, letting the challenge and the endearment hang between them. Finally, Derek let out a slow breath, the fight draining from his shoulders. He gave a single, reluctant nod.

Stiles smiled, a real one this time, and slipped out of the linen closet, leaving Derek in the fragrant dark. The plan was already in motion, and faith, he knew, would have to be enough.

The corridors of Hale Manor held their breath after midnight.

Shadows stretched long across the paneling, and the chandeliers, unlit, swayed faintly as if the house itself were exhaling in sleep. Somewhere in the upper halls, a clock struck one—each chime a cold pulse in the silence.

Stiles moved quickly down the servants’ passage, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, suspenders drawn tight over his shoulders, his steps near soundless on the worn runner. His hair was tousled, his pulse quick from the climb down the narrow stair. He hadn’t bothered with a jacket or tie—whatever haunted this house didn’t merit formal dress.

He had been half-dreaming when he heard it: a thread of music weaving through the dark, so faint it might have been imagined. But it had shape. Melody. Purpose. And it was coming from the east wing—from Peter Hale’s old room.

He stopped outside Jackson’s quarters and rapped sharply.

A muffled groan. “Who is it?”

“Your conscience,” Stiles said. “And she’s impatient. Up with you.”

The door opened a crack. Jackson Whittemore, the Hale family’s unnervingly handsome manservant, appeared in shirtsleeves and suspenders, hair mussed, expression sour. “Good Lord, Mr. Stilinski—it’s the middle of the night.”

“Excellent observation. Now fetch some salt.”

Jackson blinked. “Pardon?”

“Salt,” Stiles repeated. “The ordinary sort, not the fancy Maldon crystals Mrs. Argent keeps for supper. Quick about it.”

Jackson hesitated, studying him. “If this is one of your little—episodes—”

“Do I look amused?” Stiles snapped, though a corner of his mouth betrayed a twitch of dry humor. “There’s music in the east wing. No one’s playing it.”

That seemed to unsettle even Jackson. He swallowed, reached for his waistcoat, and produced a small tin from a sideboard. Then, almost as an afterthought, he took a silver cross from his nightstand and slipped it into his pocket.

Stiles arched a brow. “Planning to exorcise something, are we?”

“Can’t hurt,” Jackson muttered.

“Oh, it can,” Stiles said lightly. “Especially if the ghosts here don’t care for Christian sentiment. Most of them predate it.”

Jackson gave him a narrow look. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Terrified, actually,” Stiles murmured. “That’s half the fun.”

They stepped into the hall. The gaslights hissed faintly along the corridor, throwing amber pools that barely touched the high ceiling. Rain lashed at the tall windows; the whole house smelled faintly of damp oak and polish.

“Where exactly are we going?” Jackson asked under his breath.

“Peter Hale’s room.”

Jackson stopped short, color draining from his face. “No, sir. Absolutely not. That door’s been locked since the funeral.”

“Then you’ll show me how to open it,” Stiles said.

“I can’t—”

“You can,” Stiles interrupted, reaching into his coat and drawing out a narrow blade—one of those elegant, cruel little knives meant for letters or throats, depending on circumstance. The metal caught the light like water. “Before you protest further, I should mention that Lydia might be terribly interested to learn of your fondness for moonlit walks with the twins who tend the gardens.”

Jackson’s jaw tightened. “You wouldn’t.”

Stiles’s smile was all teeth. “Ethan and Aiden, is it? Or do they come as a matched set?”

A long pause. Then Jackson exhaled through his nose, low and murderous. “You are the very devil, Mr. Stilinski.”

“Flatterer,” Stiles said. “Now—lead the way.”

Reluctantly, Jackson obeyed. They walked in silence, their footfalls soft against the carpet. As they neared the east wing, the air cooled perceptibly, heavy with the scent of disuse. The wallpaper there had begun to yellow; the sconces flickered like dying fireflies.

Then the sound came again.

Music. Soft, lilting, unmistakably real—something between a waltz and a lullaby, played on a gramophone with a failing needle. It floated down the corridor like a memory adrift on air.

Jackson stopped dead. “Do you hear that?”

“I do,” Stiles said quietly, his pulse quickening. “And unless you’ve been sneaking gramophones out of storage, I’d say we’ve just found our ghost.”

Jackson’s jaw tightened. “Nobody goes in there after dark.”

“Then it’s a good thing I’m not nobody,” Stiles said, already moving past him.

They reached the door—a heavy oak slab, its brass handle cold as bone. Stiles paused, glancing toward Jackson. “You can wait out here if you’d like.”

““And what, get my head snapped by some mad ghost?” Jackson scoffed as he opened the padlocked door.

Stiles’s eyebrows soared, then he squinted in the dim light. “Has that happened before?”

Jackson snorted, a harsh, humorless sound. “Why do you think we have only three footmen, one red-haired housemaid—who is overworked as housekeeper and nursemaid—an eccentric Romani cook, two young Romani girls as scullery and laundry maid, and Mr. Boyd taking care of the estate’s accounts, garden, and stable alone?”

The simple, logistical truth of it landed with more weight than any ghost story ever could. It wasn't just about whispers and chills; it was about a staff roster that had been whittled down by attrition, by fear, by things that "snapped." The sheer, mundane reality of the manpower shortage painted a more terrifying picture than any specter.

Stiles stared at him, the last of his flippant remarks dying on his tongue. "Right," he said, his voice low and sober. "Point taken."

Jackson added more somberly, the bravado gone from his voice, "We should be a big household, Mr. Stilinski. Our master is rich and kindhearted. It's a perfect place for more people to join. But the curse of this manor... it is not to be taken lightly. It has a taste for new blood."

The hinges protested softly as the door creaked open. The two men stood in the threshold, candlelight wavering between them. The air inside Peter Hale’s room was thick and stagnant, as though the walls themselves had been holding their breath since the night he died.

“Christ,” Jackson muttered, covering his nose with the back of his hand. “Smells like someone bottled sin and left it to ferment.”

“Wouldn’t put it past him,” Stiles murmured, stepping in first. The floorboards creaked under his boots.

Stiles’ eyes swept the room—sharp, calculating, unafraid. The place was oddly preserved. Books still lined the shelves in meticulous order, the bed neatly made, a decanter half-full on the writing desk. But there was a heaviness here—an unseen presence that seemed to hum beneath the veneer of civility.

Then came the sound.

A low crackle from the far corner, faint but distinct—the stuttered voice of a gramophone coming to life. The needle had moved of its own accord. A slow waltz spilled into the air, warped and ghostly, the kind of melody meant for drawing rooms and candlelit dances, not graveyards of memory.

Stiles’s pulse kicked. “That’s not—”

“I didn’t touch it,” Jackson said quickly, eyes wide.

Stiles approached the gramophone. The record spun lazily under a layer of dust, the music dragging like something reluctant to leave the grave. “He used to play this,” Stiles said quietly, more to himself than to Jackson. “For his mistress. Malia told me once—he liked the sound of the strings in this one. Said it made him feel alive.”

Jackson shivered. “He’s got a funny way of staying that way.”

The waltz hit a high note, then fractured into static. In the brief silence that followed, Stiles’s gaze drifted to the wardrobe—a tall, black thing in the corner, its door slightly ajar.

He crossed the room in two strides and pulled it open.

Inside, amid neatly folded shirts and a faint trace of cologne, something glinted. He pushed aside a coat and froze.

There, on the floor of the wardrobe, sat a small shrine—roughly assembled, yet deliberate. A black stone, wet with a fresh, gleaming drop of blood. A small nailed doll, bound with red thread, the iron pins glinting dully in the candlelight. Around it were scraps of burnt parchment and a lock of hair.

Jackson went pale. “Bloody—fucking—shit,” he breathed, stepping back so fast he nearly tripped.

Stiles crouched low, eyes narrowing. “Voodoo,” he said softly. “Or something close. Blood magic—binding, maybe. Someone was keeping Peter tethered.”

The gramophone sputtered again, the warped waltz rising faintly—soft, distorted, and wrong.

“Someone still is,” Stiles murmured, lifting his eyes toward the ceiling, where the faint echo of the music trembled through the beams like a living pulse.

Stiles crouched, sleeves rolled to the elbow, cigarette now clamped between his teeth like a soldier with a knife. From his pocket, he produced a stub of chalk—half-melted, smudged with old salt—and began sketching on the warped wooden floorboards with quick, practiced strokes.

Jackson hovered near the door, holding the candle with all the steadiness of a man watching his own funeral. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Containment circle,” Stiles muttered around the cigarette. “Basic principle: you trap the nasty thing before it traps you. Think of it as pest control, but for souls with boundary issues.”

The chalk hissed faintly as it dragged through the dust. Stiles’s muttering slipped into Latin—or something older, darker. The symbols curved, crossed, looped back on themselves like the pattern of an elaborate waltz. When he finished, he flicked a pinch of salt into the center, murmuring one last word under his breath.

The air seemed to tighten. Then—whoomph—the sigil flared to life, glowing like a coal fresh from the forge. The floorboards sizzled. Jackson swore loudly and stumbled backward, nearly dropping the candle.

“Jesus Christ, Mr. Stilinski—”

“Wrong mythology, but I appreciate the enthusiasm,” Stiles said, exhaling smoke through his nose, unbothered. “If I did it right—and I always do—it’ll hold whatever’s still sniffing around Peter’s leftovers.”

Jackson’s eyes flicked to the shrine, then back to Stiles. “You’re telling me someone built that…thing to keep a dead man company?”

“Oh, sure,” Stiles said, brushing his hands off on his trousers. “Little home décor project. Pick a rock, add blood, hammer in a few nails—voilà, instant haunting. Very avant-garde.”

The glow from the sigil dimmed, leaving the faint scent of ozone and scorched oak. Stiles straightened, his expression darkening beneath the quip. “Problem is, when you put a shine like that in a dead man’s room, it’s like lighting a candle in a church full of bats. Every lost spirit in a ten-mile radius starts fluttering this way.”

Jackson swallowed hard. “So… what now?”

“Now?” Stiles flicked ash into the circle. “We wait. If tomorrow morning that pretty little sigil’s been replaced with a circle of blood, it means we’ve exorcised a few unhappy houseguests.”

Jackson gave a strangled laugh. “And if it’s not?”

Stiles took the cigarette from his mouth and crushed it out on the floorboards. “Then I start charging hazard pay.”

The gramophone crackled again—one soft, dragging note of that same mournful waltz. Both men froze, listening as the sound faded back into the dark.

Stiles smiled faintly. “Guess the dance isn’t over yet.”

They were halfway down the west wing corridor when Stiles stopped short. A thin veil of smoke curled from the far end of the hall, pale against the moonlight that filtered through the tall arched windows.

Jackson tensed beside him. “If that’s another ghost, I’m quitting,” he muttered.

But as they drew closer, the smoke resolved into something less spectral—and, somehow, more suspicious. Lydia Martin stood in her nightgown and shawl, hair coiffed to impossible perfection despite the hour, waving a smoldering bundle of sage like an aristocrat directing an orchestra.

“Of course,” Stiles sighed. “The haunting isn’t enough—now we’ve got domestic witchcraft.”

Lydia turned, blinking innocently through the haze. “Oh! I didn’t see you there, Mr. Stilinski.”

“Clearly,” Stiles said dryly, waving a hand in front of his face. “What’s this then? Trying to smoke out the ghosts, or just ruin their property value?”

She held up the sage bundle with the grave air of someone presenting sacred relics. “The Romani woman in the village said it purifies bad energy. I thought perhaps it might—”

“—clash with the house’s existing bad energy?” Stiles supplied. “Bold strategy, Miss Martin.”

Lydia sniffed, unoffended. “You don’t believe in cleansing rituals, then?”

“Oh, I do,” Stiles said, smirking. “Just not when they’re done in silk slippers and pearls. The spirits might die laughing.”

Jackson choked on a laugh, quickly pretending to cough when Lydia turned her cool, imperious gaze on him.

She drew herself up. “Well, forgive me for wanting the place to feel less cursed.”

“Sweetheart, this manor has been cursed since the day Peter learned to tie his cravat,” Stiles said. “At this point, sage won’t fix it. You’d need dynamite and an exorcist with nerves of steel.”

Lydia gave him a look that could have frozen fire. “You’re impossible.”

“Thank you,” Stiles said cheerfully, stepping past her. “Flattery at this hour is most welcome.”

As he and Jackson continued down the hall, Lydia’s voice drifted after them, soft but sharp: “You’ll thank me when you stop waking up to whispering in your ear.”

Stiles didn’t turn, though his smirk faltered just a little. “If it starts whispering compliments, I might,” he muttered.

Jackson’s reply was a nervous glance back down the corridor—where Lydia, still framed in the moonlight, waved another curl of sage smoke after them like a blessing or a curse.

He muttered under his breath as they rounded the corner, the sound half a grumble, half a prayer for patience.

“Banshee blood and pearls,” he said. “Why a maid wears silks and pearls is beyond comprehension.”

Stiles smirked without looking at him. “She’s not a maid, she’s a menace in pearls. Acts like she dusts the chandeliers out of charity.”

Jackson huffed, running a hand through his neatly slicked hair. “You ever notice how she floats about like she owns the place? No wonder the ghosts like her.”

“Oh, they do,” Stiles said, tone light but edged. “They see one of their own.”

That earned a startled look from Jackson. “You think she’s—”

“I think,” Stiles cut in, stopping just short of the staircase, “that if she keeps waving sage around like that, she’ll wake something we can’t put back to sleep.” His gaze slid down the dim corridor where Lydia’s faint humming still drifted through the draft. “And between you and me, I’m not convinced she hasn’t already.”

Jackson swallowed hard. “You saying she’s—what—part of it?”

“I’m saying,” Stiles replied, starting down the stairs, “that this house has a taste for beautiful things that scream.”

Jackson went pale at that, his footsteps quickening to keep up. “You’re not funny.”

“I wasn’t joking,” Stiles said, eyes glinting in the gaslight. Then, softer: “But thanks for noticing.”

The wind rattled the high windows as they descended, carrying the faintest echo of laughter—not Lydia’s, not quite human, and far too close to mistake for anything else.

Jackson peeled off toward the servants’ stair with a mumbled goodnight, boots fading into the hush of the corridor. Stiles lingered a moment longer, the echo of that strange laughter still needling the back of his skull.

He struck a match on the wall, the flare cutting brief gold through the gloom. The cigarette found his lips like an old habit, and the smoke rose pale and steady as candle flame as he walked.

The west wing stretched long and narrow, half of its sconces unlit, the wallpaper curling faintly at the seams. Each step of Stiles’s shoes tapped soft against the runner as he went, left hand trailing along the paneled wall, right hand tossing pinches of salt in lazy arcs along the baseboards. A ritual, half precaution, half comfort—he’d never been good at telling the difference.

Outside Malia’s room, he slowed. A silver tray sat on the floor, neat as a confession: an empty bowl, a porcelain cup, and the faintest ring of moisture where steam had once been.

He crouched, balancing the cigarette between his teeth as he examined it. The scent hit first—chamomile and valerian, cut with something sharp and metallic beneath. He plucked the bowl closer, gave it a cautious sniff, and frowned.

“Well,” he murmured around the cigarette, “that’s not soup.”

His breath clouded faintly in the cold corridor air. A prickle ran down his spine.

He set the bowl back, drew a small pouch from his pocket, and tapped a pinch of salt into the empty cup. Then he muttered low under his breath, words that had no place in polite company—half spell, half prayer. The salt shimmered faintly, fizzing against the porcelain before sinking out of sight.

The air around the tray went still. Too still.

Stiles straightened, exhaling smoke and a quiet curse. “Sleep tight, sweetheart,” he said softly to the closed door. “And try not to hum.”

Then he turned and continued down the hall toward his room, leaving the faint scent of tobacco and salt in his wake.

Morning came pale and reluctant over Hale Manor.

The rain had stopped sometime before dawn, leaving the windows veiled in mist. Light filtered weakly through, thin as watered milk, catching on the lingering smoke from the hearths that had burned all night. The corridors smelled of damp stone and candle wax. Somewhere, a clock ticked with slow, aristocratic patience.

Scott didn’t sleep much. He hadn’t since arriving.

There was something about the manor—its size, its silences—that got under the skin. The house felt aware, as if it drew breath with its walls. At first, he’d blamed the weather, the creaks, the drafts. But each day it felt less like superstition and more like… attention. Like something in the house was watching back.

He thought about Malia.

He couldn’t help it.

The first time he’d seen her—in the library during that tense family introduction, standing by the window with a stillness that seemed to absorb the room’s noise—something in his chest had caught. She had looked toward him, lamplight catching in her eyes, and offered a small, polite smile with that strange, self-contained grace of someone who lived half in another world. It hadn’t been love, not yet, but something adjacent. Recognition, maybe. Or pity. He wasn’t sure which frightened him more.

He told himself it was curiosity, that he was only worried because she looked unwell. But even now, thinking of her alone upstairs, his pulse betrayed him.

He left the guest corridor quietly, passing Stiles’s closed door. The air still smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and salt. Down the hall, Lydia’s faint humming drifted—something tuneless, lilting, faintly off-key. He ignored it and descended toward the west wing.

The music found him first.

It was faint—soft, deliberate notes carried on the draft that haunted the hallway. A waltz, measured and elegant, yet slow enough to feel wrong. Scott froze. No one had touched that piano since Peter’s death. He knew that much from the whispers downstairs. Still, the melody curled through the air, alive and intimate, as if played by invisible hands.

He followed it.

The music room door was ajar, light spilling across the polished floor. Inside, Malia sat at the piano bench, her fingers ghosting over the ivory keys. She wasn’t pressing them—just hovering—yet the music played anyway, each note blooming like a memory that wasn’t hers.

“Malia?” he said softly.

She didn’t flinch. Her head tilted slightly, eyes half-lidded, lips moving around words he couldn’t catch. He stepped closer, heart thudding. The tune was hauntingly beautiful—old, formal, the kind Peter might’ve danced to when the house still threw its infamous midnight galas.

“Malia,” he said again, a little louder.

Her voice joined the music, a low murmur under her breath.

“Come away, my love, come away… the fire waits to dance again…”

Scott’s stomach turned cold. He didn’t know the song, but it carried weight—like something remembered by the house itself.“Malia, you’re scaring me.”

She blinked once, slow. Then her hands dropped, and the music cut off mid-note. The silence that followed was sharp enough to sting.

She turned her head toward him with a faint, distant smile. “It’s just a song,” she said dreamily. “Peter used to play it for her.”

Scott frowned. “For who?”

“The lady who burned,” she said, almost sweetly, as though reciting a bedtime story. “He said she was perfect when she danced.”

Before he could answer, the door creaked open behind him.

Lydia stood there—serene, composed, a silver tray balanced perfectly in her hands. Steam curled from a porcelain cup.

“Miss Malia,” she said gently, “your morning tonic. Doctor’s orders.”

Scott turned. “She doesn’t need that right now, she needs—”

“It’s only tea,” Lydia interrupted, her smile polite and unshakable. “Chamomile. A touch of valerian. For the nerves.”

Scott’s nostrils flared. Beneath the steam, the scent was wrong—sweet and bitter, like crushed mugwort and something darker. Belladonna, maybe. He’d smelled it before on tinctures meant for binding dreams.

Malia reached for the cup, dazed, obedient.

Lydia’s gaze flicked to Scott’s. For one brief instant, he thought he saw amusement—something cold and knowing—before her lashes lowered again.

“Drink up, dear,” she said softly. “You’ll need your rest.”

Scott’s hand twitched, but he said nothing.

He just watched as Malia lifted the cup to her lips, the faint strains of that half-finished waltz still echoing in the air like a held breath.

For Stilee the next morning broke clear but cold, the sort of brittle light that made even Hale Manor look briefly human.

By the time the household stirred, he was already dressed—suspenders, shirtsleeves rolled, a coat thrown on half-buttoned. He found Boyd in the courtyard, wiping grease from his hands with an oily rag.

“Your car’s good as new, Mr. Stilinski,” Boyd said, nodding toward the old Ford idling beside the carriage house. “Didn’t think the thing would run again.”

Stiles grinned crookedly. “Neither did Henry Ford, probably. But miracles happen.” He handed the man a cigarette and clapped him on the shoulder. “Keep the change if it explodes.”

Boyd’s only answer was a quiet chuckle.

The Ford coughed and rattled its way down the drive, tires spitting gravel, until the manor vanished behind him in the trees. The road to town was slick from last night’s rain—narrow, winding, lined with skeletal pines that leaned close as if listening. Stiles tapped ash out the window, the smoke curling into the pale morning.

It felt good to be away from that house, even for a little while. Away from its endless halls and whispered music. But distance never meant freedom; he could still feel the manor’s eyes on his back.

The road to Beacon Falls wound through the valley like an old scar—familiar in shape, unfamiliar in feel. Stiles kept one hand on the wheel of his Ford, the other drumming against the window frame, eyes tracing the shifting tree line. He hadn’t meant to come back. Not really. The town had been something he’d folded up years ago and tucked away with the rest of his unfinished business.

He’d grown up just outside of it, the sheriff’s boy—bright, nosy, always underfoot. His father’s badge had meant everyone knew his name, and no one ever said it kindly. After the old man died, the town didn’t have much use for another Stilinski. By seventeen, Stiles was gone—New York-bound, chasing something faster, louder, more forgiving than small-town pity.

Now, ten years later, the air still smelled the same—woodsmoke, rain, and secrets. The sign at the crossroads read BEACON FALLS – EST. 1853, letters half-worn and ghosted with lichen. The place hadn’t changed much. Maybe that was the problem.

He passed the diner, the post office, the barbershop that had probably been cutting the same three heads of hair since the Depression. And then he saw it: The Beacon Falls Gazette.

The narrow brick building leaned slightly with age, the big front window smudged with ink and rumor. Inside, he knew he’d find Bobby Finstock—the only man in town who could spin gossip faster than he could print it.

Finstock had been his first boss once, back when Stiles was sixteen and hungry for pocket money and trouble. He’d run errands for the Gazette, sorted papers, learned that the smell of ink never truly left your hands. Finstock used to say “Kid, newspapers don’t print the truth, they print what people can stand to read.”

Stiles had never forgotten that.

He killed the engine, dust rising in lazy spirals around the tires. For a moment he just sat there, watching the sunlight catch on the Gazette’s brass doorplate, listening to the soft tick of the cooling engine. He hadn’t been home in a decade.

And yet, somehow, the ghosts had waited.

The bell above the door of The Beacon Falls Gazette gave a sharp, metallic jingle as Stiles stepped inside, shaking the drizzle from his coat.

The front room was a narrow slice of small-town America, circa 1925 — a wooden counter worn smooth by decades of elbows, a potbelly stove burning low in the corner, and walls crowded with handbills and fading posters for church socials, boxing matches, and last year’s harvest fair. A corkboard listed everything from “Wanted: farmhand with steady hand” to “Lost: tabby cat, answers to Mabel.”

Stacks of the most recent issue sat by the counter, the masthead proud and slightly crooked:

THE BEACON FALLS GAZETTE — Keeping Honest Folks Honest Since 1889.

Behind the counter, the air grew hazy with the smell of ink and type grease. Beyond a glass partition, Stiles could see the real heart of the operation — the editor’s den. There, amid the low clatter of a printing press, sat Bobby Finstock, editor, printer, and resident gossip-monger, hunched over a typewriter like it owed him money.

The man looked up as Stiles entered, his round spectacles glinting under the single hanging bulb.

“Well, butter my ink rollers,” Finstock drawled, leaning back in his chair. “If it isn’t Spooky Stilinski. Thought you’d gone respectable in New York — startin’ up a ghost column or seducin’ politicians or whatever it is city boys do for sport.”

Stiles grinned, brushing his damp hair back. “Still printing the truth, Rat? Or did you finally switch to fiction and call it journalism?”

“Watch it, kid,” Finstock said, stabbing his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray. “These presses have printed more sins than the parish confessional.”

“And fewer apologies,” Stiles shot back.

That earned a huff of laughter. “You always were too clever for your own damn good. What brings you crawling back to my temple of truth and tobacco fumes?”

“I’m staying up at Hale Manor.”

Finstock froze. The hum of the press seemed to slow, the air tightening between them. “You’re what?”

“You heard me.” Stiles leaned an elbow on the counter. “Seems the Hales have ghosts. I have an interest.”

Finstock exhaled a low whistle and stood, motioning for Stiles to follow him into the back office — a narrow room lined with filing cabinets and back issues yellowed to sepia. A single window overlooked Main Street, half-fogged with condensation.

He rummaged through a drawer and pulled out a crinkled clipping, tossing it onto the desk.

The headline read: MIDNIGHT FIRE CLAIMS FOUR — Hales Lost in Tragic Blaze.

Beneath it, the old photograph showed the manor’s stone shell, blackened against the pale dawn.

“’26,” Finstock said quietly. “They called it a wiring fault. Never smelled right to me. Word was the insurance payout kept the estate standing. And then—” he tapped the page with a nicotine-stained finger “—there was that woman. An Argent. Kate, if memory serves.”

Stiles’s gaze lifted. “Always an Argent in the story, isn’t there?”

“You tell me,” Finstock said, watching him with a wary respect. “Last time you sniffed around ghosts, we ended up with a church bell melting in the square.”

“That was one time,” Stiles said, smirking. “And technically, it was spontaneous combustion.”

“Spontaneous my ass. You play with fire, Stilinski, and it plays back.”

“Maybe I like the heat.”

Finstock gave a low laugh, shaking his head. “Yeah, I remember. You always did.” He pushed the clipping toward Stiles. “Take it. Just don’t go digging too deep. The Hales— they were old blood. Old money. And that house of theirs? It doesn’t forget.”

Stiles folded the article and slipped it into his coat pocket. “Neither do I.”

As he left, the bell above the door jingled again, the sound sharp against the press’s steady rhythm. Outside, the street was quiet, the fog thickening. For a fleeting second, as Stiles glanced toward the hill, he thought he heard faint music — a waltz, carried on the wind.

It died before he could be sure it was real.

By the time Stiles left the Gazette, the sky had soured to the color of pewter. A steady drizzle had turned the roads into ribbons of mud and shine, and his old Ford coughed like a dying mule as it climbed the winding hill toward Hale Manor.

He drove with one hand on the wheel, the other thumbing the folded clipping in his coat pocket. The headline burned through the paper like a ghost of its own. MIDNIGHT FIRE CLAIMS FOUR. He’d read enough to know the rest of the words didn’t matter — only the silence between them did.

Beacon Falls fell away behind him, the town shrinking into mist and chimney smoke. The forest thickened. Pines leaned close, their wet branches whispering against the car roof. The manor appeared through the fog by degrees — first its roofline, then the tower, then the whole brooding hulk of it, crouched against the hillside like something waiting for the rain to stop.

He cut the engine near the gates and let the quiet swallow him. The windows were dark — all but one.

Up on the second floor, a thin light glowed behind sheer curtains. A figure moved there, slow and deliberate. Malia, seated before a mirror, her posture straight, still as porcelain.

Behind her stood Lydia, brushing her hair with the patience of a ritual — every stroke of the brush deliberate, reverent. The movement was oddly mesmerizing — old-fashioned, almost ceremonial. The candlelight gilded their reflections in the mirror: Malia’s pale face, eyes distant, and Lydia’s calm, composed expression above her shoulder.

For a moment, it looked tender — almost sisterly. But then Malia’s head tilted, her gaze fixed on the mirror as if listening to something beneath the sound of the brush. Lydia kept combing, her lips moving faintly, perhaps humming. The rhythm was too steady, too exact — like keeping time to a song only they could hear.

Stiles squinted through the misted windshield. The window fogged, then cleared again, and for one fleeting instant he thought he saw a third reflection — something white and watching between them. Then it was gone.

He exhaled slowly, thumb pressing the newspaper clipping flat in his pocket. “Right,” he muttered, voice barely audible over the rain. “Just a little midnight salon séance. Perfectly normal.”

He shoved open the car door, rain biting cold against his face, and started up the drive toward the waiting dark of Hale Manor.

Stiles shut the door behind him, shaking the rain from his sleeves. The guest room still smelled faintly of smoke and salt. He barely had time to hang his coat before Scott was on him.

“She’s been drugging her,” Scott blurted.

Stiles blinked. “Good morning to you too.”

“I mean it,” Scott said, pacing the rug like a caged dog. “The tea Lydia gave Malia—it wasn’t just valerian or chamomile. I smelled mugwort. And belladonna.”

That got Stiles’s attention. “Belladonna?”

Scott nodded, voice dropping low. “Enough to bind dreams, maybe worse. I went straight to Derek—turns out it wasn’t Lydia who brewed it. It was the Romani housemaid, Quinn. She’s been mixing the stuff for months. Lydia only served it, thought it was the doctor’s tonic.”

Stiles frowned, tossing his gloves onto the dresser. “So the maid makes the poison, the pretty one pours it, and the family drinks it down smiling. I love this place already.”

Scott didn’t smile. “Quinn told Derek it was harmless—‘for the nerves.’ Same excuse she’s been giving since Peter was alive.”

“Of course she did,” Stiles muttered, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. “Nothing says wholesome like a dash of nightshade before bed.” He struck a match, the flare of it lighting the sharp lines of his face. “So, what’s the plan? Sack her, or ask if she’d like to run the midnight séance while she’s at it?”

Scott’s jaw tightened. “You don’t get it, Stiles. Malia’s not dreaming. Something’s using her. The tea isn’t medicine—it’s permission.”

The words hung there, heavy. Outside, thunder rolled low over the hills, rattling the windowpanes.

Stiles exhaled a slow ribbon of smoke. “Permission,” he echoed. “So Lydia’s been serving a drink that opens the door, and Quinn’s the one holding the key.”

Scott gave a terse nod. “Exactly.”

Stiles flicked ash into the empty fireplace, mind already working three moves ahead. “Then we’d better find out who—or what—is walking through.”

He turned toward the window, watching the rain blur the reflection of his own tired face. “And maybe,” he added quietly, “ask Derek why the hell he didn’t tell me any of this sooner.”

The corridor still smelled of rain and damp paper when Stiles stormed through it, his boots striking sharp against the parquet.

He’d barely dropped his coat before anger took over—six months of silence, a night of revelations, and now this. The clipping from the Gazette still weighed in his pocket like proof of something rotten that had been festering too long.

He found Derek in the study.

The curtains were half-drawn against the washed-out morning, and mist pressed against the glass like a curious ghost. Derek stood with Boyd by the hearth, sleeves rolled up, both men bent over a ledger.

Stiles didn’t bother with civility.

Derek looked up first, reading the fury on his face instantly. Whatever he saw there made his jaw tighten.

“Boyd,” he said quietly.

Boyd straightened, glanced between them, and nodded. “Sir.”

He gathered his papers and left without another word, closing the door behind him with polite finality.

The silence that followed was heavy enough to feel physical.

“Belladonna,” Stiles said flatly. “That’s what your miracle tonic’s made of. Mugwort, too. Dream-binding herbs.”

Derek exhaled through his nose, slow and weary. “You’ve spoken to Scott.”

“I have,” Stiles snapped. “And I’ve spoken to the town, too. Funny thing—they still remember the Hale fire better than your family does.” He took a step forward. “Tell me, Derek, were you ever going to mention that your dear housemaid has been dosing your niece like a lab experiment?”

Derek’s voice came low, restrained. “Her name is Quinn. She’s been with my family since before I was born. Peter trusted her. So did my mother.”

“That’s touching,” Stiles said, pacing now, hands restless. “Truly. But maybe trusting the woman who survived the fire with a pouch of nightshade wasn’t the brightest move.”

“She was helping Malia,” Derek said sharply. “The tonic kept her calm. It kept her from—” He cut himself off, the word dying in his throat.

Stiles stopped. “From what, Derek?”

Derek looked away, the mistlight catching the faint lines of exhaustion beneath his eyes. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

Derek’s voice dropped even lower. “She loses control. When the dreams take hold, she—changes. The herbs kept it at bay. I thought it was valerian, not belladonna. I thought I was helping her.”

“By keeping her half-asleep in her own head?” Stiles shot back. “You’re protecting the wrong people, Derek.”

That landed. Derek’s shoulders went rigid. When he turned, his expression was no longer tired—it was cold. “You don’t get to tell me who’s family.”

Stiles stared at him for a long moment, chest rising and falling hard. Then his tone softened, the anger melting into something older, sadder.

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Keeping everyone safe, locked away, as if you can muscle the world into submission.”

He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You think I don’t know you?”

Derek’s silence was wary, bracing.

Stiles reached into his pocket, fingers brushing the folded clipping there, then looked up again, eyes steady. “You forget, we’ve known each other six years. You disappear every full moon. You heal faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. And when you wake from your nightmares—your eyes—” He stopped, the memory sharp as glass. “They flash red. Not human red. Something else.”

Derek went still.

Stiles’s voice was quieter now, almost tender. “I tested it once. A strand of your hair. Just to be sure. Herbs said the same thing my gut already knew.”

A pause. The kind that changes everything.

“I know, Derek,” Stiles said softly. “I know you’re not human.”

The rain tapped against the windows like fingers.

Derek’s composure cracked—only slightly, but enough. He looked at Stiles as if seeing him for the first time.

“How long?” he asked, rough-voiced.

“Long enough,” Stiles said. “And before you start brooding about it—don’t. I didn’t stay because I didn’t notice. I stayed because I did.”

He stepped closer, close enough that the air between them thinned. “I know what you are,” Stiles murmured. “That’s why I stayed.”

Derek’s breath caught, unreadable. Something in his jaw worked, but no words came.

The silence between them pulsed, alive with everything unspoken.

Outside, the mist thickened, swallowing the manor grounds whole. Inside, two men stood in the grey morning, half enemies, half confession, the weight of truth finally between them.

Derek stood there for a long moment after the words sank in — motionless, as if his body couldn’t quite keep up with his mind. Then he stepped back, the movement subtle but unmistakable. His gaze dropped, jaw flexing once before he turned away entirely, retreating toward the window. The rainlight caught in his hair, silvering the edges, and for the first time Stiles could see how tired he looked — not just sleepless, but hollowed out by years of holding too much inside. He braced a hand against the frame, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the glass, where the hills blurred into mist. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly, voice low and rough, the words carrying both warning and shame.

Stiles’s breath caught, the fight draining out of him as fast as it had flared. His eyes turned glossy, voice barely more than a whisper. “Derek… my love.”

But Derek didn’t turn. His reflection in the rain-streaked glass was pale and sharp-edged, a ghost split by water and light. When he finally spoke, the words were quiet — steady, but raw underneath. “Please leave, Stiles.”

And that was when it happened — the faint, unmistakable flicker in the reflection. A red glow, deep and primal, bleeding through the grey morning like a wound reopening. Stiles froze. For a heartbeat, the truth between them was made visible — the thing Derek had spent years burying, now staring back at him through the glass.

Stiles felt it like a flame crawling up his spine—something fierce and stupid and utterly human that had been simmering under the sarcasm for weeks. He bared his teeth suddenly, voice raw and bright with madness.

“I swear to God,” he snarled, “I’ll bring Peter back from the dead and kill him myself.”

The words hit the study like a thrown glass. Derek’s hand trembled at the windowsill; for an instant the man Stiles loved seemed to crumble, and the red in the reflection flared once more like a coal exposed to air.

“He’s already dead, Stiles,” Derek bit out, the words hollow with an old, weary horror. “The fire didn’t take him. It cooked him alive and left the shell in this house for another five years. Whatever was left of the man I knew… it just rotted away from the inside out. We found him in the parlor. Smiling.”

Stiles saw the exact moment the restraint snapped in Derek’s face—not in anger, but in a shuttering grief at the memory—and it fed the heat in his chest. He pivoted on his heel, shoulders rigid, and stormed for the door. His boots struck the floor, and the door banged shut with a clang that put a punctuation mark on his promise.

He didn’t wait for an answer. He didn’t want one. Hate and love made strange twinned things of his thoughts; he could taste both in his mouth. Outside, the manor seemed to lean in, oak and stone listening, as if the house itself had no opinion on murder so long as the story stayed interesting.

Behind the glass, Derek watched the study door close. He did not move after Stiles left—did not call him back, did not shout. For a few breaths he stood there, the rain painting dark tracks down the panes, a man folding himself inward. When he finally turned, his face had a new, hollow calm. He touched the place on his cheek where Stiles’s fingers had rested, then pressed his palm flat against the cold glass, as if he could hold the other man through fog and lead and distance.

Stiles already had the corridor under his feet and the grandstairs under them in a single, angry stride. He didn’t know exactly where he was going—only that motion eased the madness. He pushed past Lydia in the foyer—she lifted a brow and said nothing—and kept going until the manor’s breath felt thin and the air outside the back door bit into his skin.

He stopped only when the dark clouds swallowed him and the lantern-light left one long streak on the gravel. He bent over, hands on his knees, chest rasping like a bellows. The threat he’d issued hung heavy in the drizzle. It was stupid and theatrical and wholly true.

Inside, the house settled. Somewhere a piano murmured faintly, the old waltz threading the rooms like a question. Derek stood by the window a while longer, watching Stiles’s path out into the mist, counting the distance between them as if measurement could buy him time.

Scott found him just as the light was bleeding out of the sky. The rain had eased to a fine mist, the kind that clung to skin and hair like breath, and the garden had turned to a watercolor of greys and greens. Stiles sat beneath the gnarled oak near the edge of the lawn, coat collar turned up, a cigarette burning low between his fingers. The damp had smudged the smoke into ribbons.

For a long moment, Scott just stood there, watching him. The drizzle caught on Stiles’s lashes, and his expression was something Scott hadn’t seen in years — stripped of the fast talk, the bravado, the jokes. Just tired. Hollow in the way grief could be when you didn’t have a name for it.

“You planning on smoking through the night?” Scott asked finally, his voice quiet, almost teasing, as he stepped closer.

Stiles glanced up, a crooked smile flickering and dying just as fast. “Thought I’d try breathing instead. This was the next best thing.”

Scott huffed, half a laugh, half a sigh. He crouched beside him, picking at a wet leaf. “You and Derek had it out?”

“Something like that.” Stiles flicked ash into the grass, watching it vanish. “He glowed, I yelled, I might’ve threatened necromancy. You know, the usual.”

Scott’s brows knit, soft but steady. “You love him.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, barely above a whisper. “That’s the problem.”

The garden around them dripped and whispered. The last of the daylight sank behind the trees, leaving the manor’s windows lit like eyes in the fog.

Scott looked toward them, then back at Stiles. “He’s scared, you know. Always has been. Of what he is. Of what you’d do if you really saw it.”

Stiles gave a humorless laugh. “I’ve seen it, Scott. The red eyes, the half-healed scars, the way the air hums when he’s angry. I stayed anyway.”

Scott nodded, rain dotting his hair. “Then maybe tell him that again. But not like you did this morning.”

Stiles took a long drag, exhaled, and stared up into the wet branches. “Yeah,” he murmured. “Maybe tomorrow. If I can find the right words that don’t sound like a threat.”

Scott stood, offered a hand, and when Stiles didn’t take it, just left it there — a quiet promise. The garden smelled of earth and rain and burnt tobacco, and somewhere up in the house, a single light went out, leaving the manor dark again.

The manor had gone quiet after dark — too quiet. The kind of silence that hummed around the edges of thought. Stiles and Scott had skipped supper, neither in the mood to make polite conversation under the weight of whatever passed for Hale family civility.

They’d holed up in the guest room instead — a dim pool of lamplight, beer pints sweating on the table, the smell of tobacco curling into the old wallpaper. Stiles was halfway through a bitter drag when someone knocked, sharp and impatient.

“Come in,” he muttered.

The door creaked open, and Jackson stepped through — shirt sleeves rolled, hair damp from rain, a covered tray balanced in one hand. Without waiting for an invitation, he set it on the table, pulled out a chair, and dropped into it like a man resigning himself to something distasteful.

He fished a cigarette from behind his ear, struck a match on his thumbnail, and took a long drag before muttering, “You’re the only two people in this house who wouldn’t judge me.”

Stiles arched a brow. “That’s a generous assumption.”

“You think I don’t hear the way they talk downstairs?” he said finally, voice flat. “Lydia pretending not to flinch every time I walk into a room. Even Mr. Hale—he doesn’t mean it, but sometimes I can see it in his eyes. Like I’m still the stable boy who got too close to the fire.”

Silence followed. The rain deepened its rhythm.

Scott looked down at his bottle, thumb tracing the condensation. Stiles’s gaze softened; the bite of his usual sarcasm dulled by something close to pity.

“Jackson,” he said quietly, “in this house, everyone’s too close to the fire.”

Jackson gave a rough little laugh, part scoff, part acknowledgment. Then he stubbed his cigarette out on the edge of his plate, dragged the beer closer, and muttered, “Yeah. Maybe that’s the problem.”

Scott took a sip of beer, watching him carefully. “So what are we not judging you for?”

Jackson hesitated, “For knowing too much,” he said finally. “And for staying anyway.”

The words hung there a moment — raw, unexpected. Stiles reached for the tray, uncovering it to reveal three plates of roast gone lukewarm, a few slices of bread, and a bottle of whiskey someone had clearly decided they wouldn’t miss.

“Well,” Stiles said, pushing a glass toward him, “you’re in good company. Knowing too much and staying anyway is kind of our thing.”

Jackson huffed a dry laugh, clinked his glass against Stiles’s, and muttered, “God help us all, then,” before throwing back a shot.

The three of them sat in the smoke-thick quiet, listening to the rain tick against the windows, the manor breathing slow and uneasy around them.

By the time the second bottle was half gone, the room had settled into a hush made of rain, smoke, and unspoken things. Stiles had learned long ago that silence made men talk, and drink made them careless.

He poured Jackson another finger of whisky, easy and wordless, and leaned back against the wall, feigning disinterest.

“So,” he said at length, “since we’re all too close to the fire—why don’t you tell us what you saw the night it happened?”

Jackson’s mouth twisted. He stared at the glass, thumb worrying the surface. “I told the sheriff everything I remembered,” he muttered.

“Sure,” Stiles said mildly. “Now tell us what you didn’t tell him.”

A flicker of something passed through Jackson’s eyes—wariness, then resignation. He took another swallow, winced at the bitterness, and set the bottle down with care.

“It was late,” he began. “Too late for anyone decent to be awake. The manor was quiet, but not still, you understand? There was this… hum to it, like when a storm’s about to break.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “Then I heard the scream. Cut straight through the walls—sharp, high, not human. I ran toward it, down the west corridor. By the time I reached the hall, the air was thick with smoke and—” He paused, eyes distant. “Kerosene. The whole place reeked of it. You ever smell that much at once? Gets into your teeth.”

Scott’s hand had stilled on his bottle. Stiles said nothing.

“I saw shadows moving in the flames,” Jackson went on, voice low. “Not running—fighting. Someone slammed into the grand piano, hard enough to splinter it. Then another scream, and a figure at the window… a woman, I think. Dress white as salt. The glass blew out, and the fire just… took her.”

He fell silent, gaze unfocused. The lamplight caught the sweat at his temple.

Scott cleared his throat softly. “You never saw who started it?”

Jackson hesitated, then gave a bitter laugh. “Oh, I saw plenty. Just didn’t understand it until later.”

Stiles leaned forward, tone light but sharp at the edges. “And what did you understand later?”

“That Kate Argent had been keeping two Hales warm at once,” Jackson said flatly.

Scott choked on his beer, coughing into his sleeve. “She—what?”

Jackson nodded grimly. “Peter and Derek both. Nasty woman, that one. Used to come around all silk and teeth, pretending she cared for the family’s welfare. Truth was, she liked her secrets hot.”

Stiles’s eyes narrowed. His tone stayed cool, almost lazy. “Then tell me, if Peter was the jealous sort… whom did he kill?”

Jackson gave a hollow little smile. “Wasn’t Kate, if that’s what you’re thinking. She was too smart for that. It was another one—one of Peter’s mistresses. Pretty thing, quiet. When Missus Hale was with child, the girl went running her mouth. Said Peter had been keeping company while his wife swelled with the next child. Word got around.”

He lifted his glass, then set it down untouched. “I don’t remember her name. But I remember what was left. He slashed her throat in the parlor to keep his wife from leaving him. I was the one who scrubbed her blood out of the Persian carpet and the chandelier.”

The words landed like stones.

For a long time, no one spoke. The rain had turned to mist against the windows, and the lamps guttered faintly in their sconces.

Stiles finally leaned forward, elbows on knees, voice low. “And tell me, Jackson—did you ever find out who lit the match that night?”

Jackson met his eyes, something haunted flickering there. “You ask me,” he said, “the fire was already burning long before the match was struck.”

When Jackson finally stumbled out—mumbling something about needing “fresh air that didn’t taste like ghosts”—the room sank into stillness. The lamps burned low, the smoke from their cigarettes drifting upward like pale ribbons of thought.

Stiles unfolded the rain-blurred clipping and laid it flat on the table.

MIDNIGHT FIRE CLAIMS FOUR.

The words looked harmless in print—small, almost polite—but the air seemed to contract around them.

“Talia Hale. Richard Hale. Laura Hale,” Stiles read quietly, his thumb hesitating on the final line, “and… Peter’s wife, Amanda.”

Scott looked up, frowning. “He had a wife?”

“Of course he did, don’t you pay attention?” Stiles said, the words coming out harsher than he intended. “Malia’s his daughter.”

Scott blinked. “You mean—”

“Yeah.” Stiles’s gaze stayed fixed on the clipping. “And if Jackson’s right, he killed one of his mistresses while his wife was pregnant. Romantic, isn’t it? Murder before matrimony, murder after.”

Scott rubbed a hand over his face. “And then the fire…”

“Four bodies,” Stiles muttered. “Four graves. And one man who walked out of the ashes with nothing but guilt and a house full of ghosts.”

He flicked his cigarette into an empty glass, the hiss faint and final. “Makes sense Malia’s caught in it. The sins of the father and all that poetic rot.”

Scott’s voice softened. “You think that’s what this is? Some curse?”

Stiles gave a low laugh that didn’t sound amused. “A curse? No. This is just unfinished business dressed in silk and ash.”

The room fell silent again. Beyond the window, the rain thickened, whispering against the glass. And for a heartbeat—just long enough to draw breath—Stiles thought he saw a flicker of movement reflected there. A woman’s outline. Hair loose. Turning slowly, as though listening.

He blinked, and it was gone. Only his own reflection stared back—tired, grim, and a little too aware that the dead in Hale Manor never stayed quiet for long.