Skye woke to dawn pressing softly through heavy drapes. For a moment, she did not move. Her body felt wrong, heavy and sore, as if time had dragged every bone out of place and then pushed it back again. Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked slowly. Each sound landed too loudly in the quiet room, counting down to something she was not ready for. Beneath the ticking came a faint whisper inside the walls. Not words. Not exactly. More like the house breathing in its sleep.

She blinked until the room came into focus. It was not Time Ltd. It was not home. She was lying in a grand Edwardian bedroom with carved furniture, a dark wooden wardrobe, and a fireplace where orange light flickered over the walls. Then the smell hit her. Lavender first, then old fabric, smoke from the fire, and underneath it all that sharp, cold trace of metal. Skye’s stomach tightened. She knew that smell. This room felt older and heavier, but the feeling was the same. Someone else had already decided the rules before she had even opened her eyes.

She looked towards the two women already moving around the room. They still wore the same neat maid uniforms, plain enough to mark their place but elegant enough to belong in a wealthy house. The elder of the two, whose starched apron rustled like dried leaves with every step, was Mrs Higgins. Her face was built of sharp lines and pale skin, her hair pulled back into a knot so tight it drew the corners of her dark eyes upwards. She moved with a terrible, economical precision, as though every motion had been calculated three decades ago and never needed revising.

The younger woman, Clara, possessed a rounder face that ought to have looked soft, but her small mouth was pressed into a pale, horizontal line that admitted no light. She handled the copper fire irons without a single clink, laying fresh ash wood onto the embers with hand movements that were almost unnervingly steady.

That was what unsettled Skye most. The silence between them was not the easy quiet of people who worked well together; it was a heavy, deliberate hush. They were not simply preparing the room or helping her dress. They were watching her. Measuring her. Waiting for her to get something wrong, or perhaps checking to see if she had already begun to break. Every gesture was a quiet pressure designed to bend her knees, though Skye remained ignorant of why their discipline felt so total. To Mrs Higgins and Clara, the mandate was absolute: the entity could only claim what was freely yielded. Her family’s ancient counter-charm ensured her flesh would hold its vessel locked fast against his entry unless her spirit broke into total, unresisting obedience. She had to submit of her own will, or the bloodline’s seal would hold forever.

Mrs Higgins turned her back to the wardrobe, her hands clasped at her waist. Her apron strings were tied in a stiff, square bow that never twitched. “You are awake late, Lady Bell,” she said. Her voice was flat, dry as chaff, completely stripped of whatever regional cadence she might once have possessed before Time Ltd picked her up from some burning London tenement in 1888. “Lord Bell has already inspected the stables and read his correspondence. He does not care for idle breakfasts.”

Clara did not look up from the hearth, but her fingers paused on the brass handle of the poker. “The water in the bath is cooling, ma’am,” she murmured. Her voice was thinner than the elder maid’s, high and light, but with the same unnatural, flattened cadence.

Back at Time Ltd, live feeds from the past were almost impossible. They could only get contact from certain fixed points, through carefully built equipment, and even then it was patchy. Most missions were tracked through reports, scheduled check-ins, and whatever paperwork made it back. Digital systems were useless here. The past did not care about signal bars, passwords, or convenient video calls.

So why did it feel like someone was watching anyway?

Every so often, one of the maids glanced towards the darkest corner of the room. Not a full look. Just a flicker of the eyes, quick enough that Skye could almost pretend she had imagined it. Once, the younger maid gave the smallest nod, as if someone had spoken to her from the shadows.

Skye pulled the covers a little higher and told herself not to be dramatic. Time travel was bound to mess with her head. Probably. Hopefully.

Mrs Higgins stepped closer to the edge of the four-poster bed. She did not offer a hand to help, nor did she bow her head. She merely stood over Skye like an invigilator waiting for a candidate to flip over an exam paper. “A bath has been prepared, Lady Bell. Clara will assist you out of the linen. We must have you in the red silk before eight clock.”

Lady Bell. The name landed strangely in Skye’s head. She pushed herself upright, gripping the sheets as the room tipped slightly. The deep red silk of her dress rustled against the sheets. The red emerald necklace sat cold at her throat. Small ruby pins held her brown curls in place. The corset bit into her ribs with every breath.

“Sorry,” she said, trying to sound calm and failing. “Did you just call me Lady Bell?”

Clara stood up from the hearth and folded a linen towel with slow, perfect movements, smoothing every crease with the flat of her palm. “Yes, madam,” she said, her grey eyes resting on Skye’s chest, right where the skin felt raw beneath the shift. “That is your name here. That is the name on the brass plate at the gate. That is the name on the ledger in the scullery.”

“It is the only name this house recognises,” Mrs Higgins added, her tone dry and clipped. She crossed to the washstand and poured cold water from a painted porcelain jug into the basin with a steady, unhurried stream. “We do not use names from elsewhere. Elsewhere is closed to us, Lady Bell. You would do well to remember that before you open your mouth in front of the lower staff.”

Skye swallowed. Her throat felt dry. “What year is it?”

Mrs Higgins paused for less than a second, her hand resting on the heavy silver rim of the water jug, but Skye noticed the slight tightening of her knuckles. “It is 1905, Lady Bell. You are at home with your husband, Lord Bell.” She said his name carefully, almost proudly, her lips smoothing over the title as if it carried a dark weight, and the room seemed to tighten around it. Somewhere deep in the walls, the whispering stopped.

Clara stepped up to the other side of the bed, her movements so quiet that her boots barely creaked on the floorboards. She held out a dressing gown of heavy, quilted velvet that smelled faintly of camphor and burnt sugar. “We pulled you out of the fires, madam,” Clara murmured, so softly that Skye had to strain to hear her above the crackle of the hearth. “Mrs Higgins and I. We know what happens to women who forget where they are placed.”

“Clara,” Mrs Higgins snapped without looking round. “Hold the sleeves.”

“Yes, Mrs Higgins,” Clara replied instantly, her posture stiffening. She held the gown open like a trap.

Skye’s heart began to beat faster. This was real. The bed was real. The corset biting into her ribs was real. Janet’s warning came back to her, sharp and cold. Then another memory followed it, smaller but worse: the tiny gold scroll and the words carved into it. As I bleed through the ages, I am ready. Ready for what? For her arrival? For 1905? For Mr Z waiting somewhere in this house under the name Lord Bell? The thought made her stomach twist.

Skye lowered her voice, swinging her legs over the side of the tall mattress. Her bare feet dangled an inch above the cold floorboards before finding the rug. “Why are you acting like you don’t know me? We came through the same intake at Time Ltd. You were in the dressing room in Walsall—you helped me with the petticoats three days ago. Surely we don’t have to pretend when no one else is in the room.”

Mrs Higgins turned slowly. The morning light caught the grey strands in her dark hair, turning them into thin wire. “We have never been in Walsall, Lady Bell,” she said flatly. “I was born in Stepney in the reign of the late Queen, and Clara was taken from a cellar in Leeds. Time Ltd gave us a roof that does not leak and bread that does not mold. In return, we keep this house running according to his lordship’s requirements.”

“And his lordship’s requirements are very specific,” Clara added, her small hands smoothing the shoulders of the velvet gown as Skye allowed herself to be pulled into it. Clara’s fingers lingered near Skye’s neck, brushing the cold skin behind her ear with a touch that felt more like a measurement than an gesture of assistance. “He does not like noise. He does not like ladies who ask after things that occurred before breakfast.”

The maids exchanged a glance. It was quick, sharp, and full of a terrible, practiced understanding that made Skye’s blood run cold. The fire gave a soft crack behind them, a knot of pine popping open, and for one strange moment the room seemed colder instead of warmer. Mrs Higgins’s eyes flicked towards the dark corner near the wardrobe again, where the shadows hung heavy despite the firelight. Her smile returned too slowly, a thin, paper-like thing stretched over yellowed teeth. “Of course, Lady Bell. We would not want to keep Lord Bell waiting. He is particular about the morning meal. Clara, fetch the lip-salve and the hairpins.”

“At once, Mrs Higgins,” Clara said, scurrying to the dressing table with a quick, unnatural shuffle that kept her hems perfectly still against the floor.

Before Skye could answer or pull back, Clara stepped forward and took her left arm while Mrs Higgins positioned herself at her right elbow. Clara’s grip was surprisingly cold, her fingers pressing into the fabric of the coat with a firm, relentless pressure that left no room for hesitation. Skye looked at the door, then at the tall windows overlooking the misty grounds, but everything about the room suddenly felt designed to keep her inside it: the heavy brocade curtains, the locked wardrobe, the narrow spaces between mahogany furniture, and the two maids standing exactly where she would need to turn to escape.

“Head up, ma’am,” Mrs Higgins murmured into her ear, her breath smelling faint of peppermint and stale tea. “A lady of this house does not look at her feet when she walks down the hall. The servants notice.”

“They count every breath,” Clara whispered from the other side, her gaze fixed straight ahead as they steered Skye through the dark oak doorway. “They watch to see if you stumble. If you stumble, Lord Bell must correct you, and none of us wish for his lordship to correct anyone before noon.”

They guided her down the grand corridor, their footsteps making a synchronized, rhythmic tapping sound on the polished parquet floor that sounded like small hammers.

Portraits lined the staircase walls, their painted faces pale and heavy-lidded in the morning light that filtered through the high stained-glass window. Skye tried not to look at them, but she could feel the weight of their dark oil eyes following her movement. Halfway down, one heavy gilded frame let out a tiny creak. She turned her head quickly, but Mrs Higgins’s hand tightened instantly on her forearm, her knuckles hard as horn.

“Eyes forward, Lady Bell,” the elder maid commanded softly, her voice leaving no room for argument. “The former occupants of this house do not concern you. They are precisely where they belong.”

“Under the floor or in the canvas,” Clara added with that same chilling, blank lightness. Her eyes did not stray from the steps ahead. “Mrs Higgins pulled the dust-cloths off them herself when we arrived. Some of the paint was still wet, wasn’t it, Mrs Higgins?”

“That will do, Clara,” Mrs Higgins said sharply. “Mind the stair carpet.”

Skye glanced sideways despite the warning. In the thick layer of grey dust gathered along the bottom lip of a portrait showing a woman with dark, hollow eyes, someone had recently traced a single word with one fingertip: mine.

The kitchen hit her like a wall of wet heat. Noise came at her in blurred, chaotic layers — pots clattering somewhere in the gloom, heavy footsteps on flags, the sudden hiss of grease on iron. The air was thick and greasy, carrying the smell of warm dough tangled up with coal smoke, hot tin, and the sharp, chemical sting of lye soap that scorched the back of her throat. Skye stood in the centre of it, her head swimming as shapes moved around her without making sense. The maids watched her with matching expressions of polite impatience. No one asked if she was hungry. No one asked if she was frightened. Then the older maid gave her a small push towards the wall.

“Wait there, Lady Bell,” Mrs Higgins said, taking a step back and positioning herself between Skye and the busy worktables like a warder guarding a gate. “And do try not to touch the copperware or the dressers. The household has enough work without fixing your errors as well.”

Clara had already moved toward the pantry door, her posture shifting subtly from attentive lady’s maid to strict overseer as she addressed the lower scullery hands. “Where is the butter, Daisy?” she called out, her voice dropping its soft pitch and taking on a razor-sharp edge that made two younger girls near the sinks jump. “If his lordship finds salt in the butter again, you’ll be out in the lane before the post arrives.”

At the sound of Lady Bell, the kitchen seemed to pause. The pots still steamed, the fire still burned, but every servant in the room lowered their eyes at the same time. Skye stared at them, a chill sliding down her back. It was not respect. It looked more like fear dressed up as obedience.

Near the long wooden table, a young servant girl stood over a lump of dough. She was thin, all sharp wrists and hollow cheeks, with sleeves rolled too high on arms that looked too tired for the morning to have only just begun. Her fingers moved quickly, trying to knead the bread into shape, but the dough kept sticking to her hands.

“Not like that,” Mrs Higgins snapped, turning on her heel and crossing the stone floor in two sharp steps that made her iron-heeled boots ring like hammers on granite. She stood over the girl, her shadow completely blotting out the yellow lamp light falling on the table. “Are you trying to shame this house? Lord Bell expects his bread light, warm, and fit for the table. You are working that flour as if you were kneading horse mash.”

Clara joined her side, reaching down with one long, pale finger to poke hard into the centre of the dough. “It’s heavy,” Clara pronounced flatly, looking up at the terrified servant girl. “It feels like river mud, Mrs Higgins. She hasn’t put enough yeast in, or she’s used the sour water from the tub.”

“Start again,” Mrs Higgins ordered, striking the edge of the wooden dough trough with her palm. The crack sounded like a pistol shot in the small room. “And if it is late, you will answer to his lordship yourself when he comes down to inspect the cellars.”

The girl flinched but did not answer. Her eyes stayed fixed on the dough as if looking anywhere else might make things worse. Skye felt the urge to step forward rise in her chest so suddenly it almost hurt. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She knew that look. The look of someone who had learned that surviving sometimes meant staying very, very still.

Skye stayed by the wall and said nothing. Her hands curled into the fabric of her skirt, hidden where no one could see. She had been sent here to help Squad 21, but the house had already decided what she was: wife, prisoner, ornament, and something marked by a force she still did not understand. If the entity wanted her, why hide inside warnings and whispers? Why send her here, to this house, with Mr Z pretending to be her husband? The question sat in her chest like a stone.

A few minutes later, Clara returned from the outer cloakroom carrying a heavy, dark wool coat trimmed neatly with stiff velvet at the collar. She held it open with wide, rigid arms, standing precisely three feet from Skye, her expression entirely blank once more. “Lady Bell,” she said, her voice dropping back into that dull, mechanical rhythm as if a switch had been flipped inside her chest. “Your coat.”

Behind her, Mrs Higgins stood by the scullery door, her key-ring resting in her hand, the heavy brass keys clinking together with a dull, wet sound. “The morning air will clear your head, ma’am,” the elder maid said, watching Skye with narrowed eyes. “You have a long day ahead of you. The gentlemen from Squad 21 are already hungry.”

Skye hesitated for half a second too long. The maid’s smile tightened. “Arms, madam.”

Skye slipped into the coat, and the maid guided her out through a side door into the cold morning air. The garden behind the house was clipped and perfect, all pale gravel paths, bare rose bushes, and trees standing stiff against the grey sky. Even outside, the mansion seemed to loom over her, too grand and too watchful, with its tall windows reflecting the clouds like dark eyes.

“A wife of your standing does not cook unless she chooses to be charitable at Christmas,” Mrs Higgins said, walking half a pace behind Skye’s left shoulder while Clara tracked them on the right, her skirt hems swishing rhythmically against the gravel. “She does not argue in front of servants. She does not question her husband in company. She enters a room slowly, sits where she is placed, smiles when spoken to, and learns very quickly which silences are safest.” She spoke with the practiced gravity of a trainer breaking an animal to the bit. The maid knew what Skye did not: that no force could tear the spirit free from Skye’s flesh if her will stood firm. Her lineage had forged that inner lock as a final safeguard, ensuring the entity remained powerless until Skye surrendered herself completely, falling to her knees in absolute submission before her lord.

“We learned our silences early,” Clara put in, her voice almost lost to the rustle of the bare rose bushes lining the path. She kept her hands tucked tightly into her apron pockets. “In the old house—the one before this—there was a lady who talked too much to the footmen. She asked them where the letters went when they were posted. She asked why the calendars in the library never showed the next month.”

Skye slowed her pace, the gravel crunching under her thin shoes. “What happened to her?”

Mrs Higgins reached out and took Skye’s elbow again, forcing her to keep moving forward towards the conservatory terrace. “She was replaced, Lady Bell,” the elder maid said simply. “Lord Bell does not keep machinery that grinds its own gears. Now, step up. The dining room doors are being opened.”

Skye glanced back at the kitchen windows. For a second, she thought she saw the thin servant girl looking out at her. Then the girl disappeared from view, pulled back into the heat and noise of the house. Skye hated herself a little for being relieved it was not her at the table with the dough. She hated even more that the relief was there at all.

The maid led her round to the front of the house and up the grand stone steps. Each step felt heavier than the last. Inside, the air changed again, warmer and closer, thick with polish and the faint metallic tang that seemed to live in the walls. They crossed the hall without speaking. Ahead, double doors stood open onto the dining room.

Lord Bell was already on his feet.

He wore the clothes of a wealthy Edwardian gentleman as if they had always belonged to him. Around the long table sat the six men of Squad 21, all of them standing well over six feet tall, aged between twenty-eight and thirty. Handpicked from the most lethal corners of Time Ltd's operative forces, they sat with the coiled, dangerous posture of elite predators forced into tight collars. They all turned towards the doorway, watching her with a dark, hungry intensity. The entity’s stain had settled deep in their blood, twisting their loyalty entirely to Lord Bell and feeding a heavy, shared greed in the room. Their duty was not merely to guard her, but to mold her, to wear down her spirit until she sank to her knees ready to give the entity everything he required. They understood the hidden trap of her blood line—that her body would refuse to release the trapped spirits if her mind remained rebellious—and every cold eye in the room was fixed on bringing about that total yield.

Nearest the window sat Captain Vance, a twenty-nine-year-old tactical killer who had personally executed rogue timelines and survived three complete temporal collapses in the Crimean theater. Beside him was Miller, a sharp twenty-eight-year-old breach-specialist whose massive frame belied his twitchy, lethal speed, his broad hands tapping out ghost signal codes against his teacup. Next to him sat Dr Whitlock, twenty-nine, a former military field medic whose terrifying combat record in historical plague zones was matched only by the cold, analytical detachment in his gaze. Further down sat O’Connell, a towering thirty-year-old extraction veteran built like a brick wall, whose left arm twitched with phantom nerve damage from surviving a temporal rift collapse. Beside him was Finch, twenty-eight, a hardened infiltrator pulled from frontline wet-work who masked his imposing height under a quiet, deadly stillness. At the far end sat Agent Hayes, thirty, the squad’s silent second-in-command, whose towering presence and blank, uncompromising stare had overseen the systematic liquidation of four compromised field teams.

“My lady,” Lord Bell said. His voice was low and direct. He came around the table without hurry.

Skye stopped just inside the room. The maids had already melted back towards the walls. There was nowhere left to put her hands that did not feel wrong.

He reached her. One hand settled at her waist over the deep red silk. The other rose, open, and slid inside the neckline of her dress with the calm certainty of a man who expected no refusal. His fingers pressed against her skin, against the soft give of her breast, intimate and public in the same breath. Then he kissed her on the mouth, firm enough that she felt the claim of it land in front of every man at the table.

Across the linen, Miller’s fingers tightened on his teacup until the porcelain groaned, his eyes fixed on her mouth with a sharp, avaricious gleam. Captain Vance leaned forward, his jaw set, taking in her complete lack of resistance as though assessing how far her pride had eroded. Near the end of the table, O’Connell’s heavy throat worked in a slow swallow, his gaze lingering on the red silk where Lord Bell’s hand had rested, greedy and watchful. None of them looked away. They knew the secret strength her ancestors had buried in her marrow—that without her wholehearted surrender, the release of the bound spirits was impossible and the entity would remain thwarted. They read her quiet compliance as the first fissure in her defenses, their collective hunger sharpening as they waited for the moment she would drop to her knees and serve.

Shock locked her in place. Heat climbed her throat. She did not pull away. She did not speak. Any scene would cost her more than this silence, and she knew it.

When he drew back, his expression had not changed. He guided her to the chair set for her and waited until she sat. Only then did he return to his own place at the head of the table.

Skye kept her back straight. The corset made that easy. Her hands rested in her lap where no one could see them shake. Around her, Captain Vance, Dr Whitlock, and the rest of Squad 21 slowly reached for their cups, but their eyes remained locked on her face, heavy with that dark, shared appetite. They were entirely Lord Bell’s men now, bound to him and to the ancient malice that ruled this house. Her quiet surrender had only proved to them that she was theirs to break.

Mrs Higgins stepped forward from the sideboard, her shoes making no sound against the thick carpet. She carried a silver bowl of hot water and a linen napkin. Without a word, she held the bowl at Lord Bell’s left side. He dipped his fingers into the water, dried them on the linen, and signalled for the meal to begin. Beside Skye, Clara lifted a heavy silver soup tureen lid. Steam rose into the air, carrying the scent of boiled calf’s head, cloves, and heavy sherry.

The silence around the table was not the silence of strangers; it was the tense, calculated stillness of a military unit waiting for an order. Captain Vance sat directly across from Skye. He moved his spoon with precise, angular motions, the silver making a tiny, predictable click against the porcelain bowl every three seconds. His grey eyes never left Skye’s face. When he spoke, his voice was unnaturally smooth, free of any regional accent, much like the maids.

“The morning post was light, my lord,” Vance said, staring at Skye’s throat where her red emerald necklace rested against her pale skin. “Nothing from London. Only the usual ledgers from the local land agent and a note from the rector regarding the parish tithes.”

Lord Bell did not look up from his broth. He held his spoon with long, immaculate fingers. “The rector is overly concerned with earthly numbers. He will wait.” He broke a piece of crusty white bread in half. The sound of the crust tearing was loud in the small space between them. “How are the horses, Vance? I expect the carriage to be ready by two.”

“The bays are fresh, my lord,” Vance replied. He took another deliberate sip of soup. “Miller inspected the tack this morning. Everything is in order.”

Skye kept her hands resting in her lap, her fingers coiled around the napkin until her knuckles turned white. To Vance’s left, Miller—the massive breach-specialist—was eating with a quiet, terrifying efficiency. He did not look at his food. His twitchy, restless eyes darted constantly between Lord Bell, Skye, and the high curtained windows that looked out over the misty gravel driveway. Every time he lowered his spoon, his right thumb tapped out a frantic, silent rhythm on the mahogany table edge—a ghost signal code from his days in the Time Ltd breach units.

“You are not eating, Lady Bell,” Dr Whitlock observed softly from his chair near the centre of the table. He was a small, wire-framed man with pale, washed-out eyes that looked as though they had seen too many corpses in historical plague zones. He lowered his spoon and tilted his head, watching her with the detachment of an anatomist evaluating a specimen. “The consommé is warm. It will help settle your nerves after the journey.”

Skye forced her shoulders to drop half an inch. She swallowed against the dry tightness in her throat. “I am not particularly hungry, Dr Whitlock,” she said, her voice sounding thin and unfamiliar in the grand room.

Mrs Higgins, standing by the sideboard with her hands folded over her starched apron, stepped forward half a pace. Her sharp, pale face tightened. “A lady of the house does not refuse her morning broth,” the housekeeper said flatly, her flat London accent cutting through the steam. “Lord Bell expects his household to maintain their strength. There is much work to be done before nightfall.”

Lord Bell raised his eyes from his plate. They were dark, flat, and completely devoid of warmth. He did not look angry; he looked like a man examining a piece of clockwork that had momentarily failed to tick. “Eat your soup, my dear,” he said calmly. It was not a request. The tone was light, but the weight behind it was absolute.

Skye reached for her spoon. Her hand shook slightly, the silver utensil clinking against the edge of the fine bone china. The soup was thick and salty, tasting heavily of marrow and old spices. As she swallowed the first spoon, she felt the eyes of all six men on her. O’Connell, the massive extraction veteran, leaned his heavy forearms on the table, his left hand twitching occasionally from the nerve damage he had brought back from a temporal rift. He watched her swallow with a slow, greedy satisfaction, as if counting every mouthful she took.

Clara stepped in to clear the soup bowls, her small hands moving with rapid, mechanical efficiency. She was replaced by two younger kitchen maids who entered carrying heavy silver covers. They set down plates of mutton chops, roasted kidneys, boiled potatoes, and stewed cucumbers. The smell of hot grease and vinegar filled the dining room, smothering the sweet fragrance of the lavender soap Skye had used earlier.

“The men are prepared for the perimeter sweep, my lord,” Agent Hayes said from the end of the table. He was the silent second-in-command, a towering man with a thick neck and a face that looked as though it had been carved out of dry oak. He spoke rarely, but when he did, the other agents fell silent. “We have secured the northern boundary along the railway line. No unrecorded arrivals have been detected since dawn.”

“Good,” Lord Bell said, slicing into a mutton chop. A thin stream of reddish juice ran across the white porcelain plate. “We cannot afford disruptions. The local authorities are curious enough about the strange lights near the old quarry. We do not need them wandering onto the estate.”

“The villagers are simple people,” Finch murmured softly. He was the quiet infiltrator sitting beside O’Connell. He had not touched his mutton; instead, he was carefully peeling a hard-boiled egg with a small, sharp silver knife he had produced from his waistcoat pocket. “They believe the house is haunted by the old Earl’s daughter. They do not cross the boundary stream after dark.”

“They are wise,” Dr Whitlock said with a faint, cold smile that did not reach his eyes. “Superstition is a useful fence. It keeps the ignorant where they belong.” He turned his gaze back to Skye. “Does the quiet of the country agree with you, Lady Bell? It is quite different from... the office environment you were accustomed to.”

Skye felt a sharp cold drop in her stomach. It was the first direct reference to Time Ltd anyone had made since she had sat down. She looked at Whitlock, then at Lord Bell. None of the other men looked surprised. They knew. Every single man at this table knew exactly who she was, where she had come from, and why she had been brought here.

“I am still adjusting,” Skye said carefully, picking up her fork. She poked at a boiled potato, breaking it into small, greyish pieces. “The house is... very large. And very quiet.”

“It is as quiet as it needs to be,” Lord Bell said. He laid his knife down with a soft click. “A house should be a closed system. Outside forces only introduce decay. Do you not agree, Vance?”

“Entirely, my lord,” Vance said instantly. He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, his grey eyes fixed on Skye’s face. “In our line of work, an open boundary is an invitation to disaster. One small leak, one unmonitored entry point, and the whole structure collapses. We have spent months ensuring this location remains perfectly sealed.”

“And the entity?” Skye asked before she could stop herself. The word slipped past her lips before she could catch it, and a strange coldness settled in her chest—she didn’t even know why she had mentioned the entity, nor did she truly know what it was or where it had come from. The word hung in the air like a cloud of ash. The room seemed to grow instantly colder. The faint clatter of silver against china ceased entirely. Mrs Higgins stopped short near the sideboard, her hand hovering over a silver coffee pot.

Lord Bell did not flinch. He wiped his mouth with a linen napkin, folding it slowly into a precise square before placing it beside his plate. “You speak of things that do not concern a lady at breakfast, Skye,” he said softly. It was the first time he had used her real name since she had woken up. Hearing it from his lips felt like a violation, far worse than his touch on her chest moments earlier.

“It concerns me if I am stuck in this house,” Skye said, forcing her voice to remain steady despite the hard pounding of her heart against her corset. “It concerns me if Squad 21 is acting as your personal guard instead of reporting back to headquarters.”

Captain Vance let out a short, dry laugh that sounded like dry leaves scraping across flagstones. “Headquarters is a long way off, Lady Bell. Several decades off, if one is being precise. And Mr Thompson’s orders were quite clear before we departed: we take our directives directly from Lord Bell. No exceptions.”

“Mr Thompson is not here,” Skye said, looking around the table at the six silent, imposing figures. “And neither is Time Ltd. You are all living in a century that isn't yours, obeying a man who—”

“That is enough,” Lord Bell said. His voice was not raised, but the tone was like iron striking granite. He did not look at her; he simply looked at Miller, who immediately stood up from his chair. The massive agent’s movement was so fast and fluid that his chair barely scraped the carpet.

“You forget yourself, Lady Bell,” Lord Bell said softly. Before Skye could draw breath, he rose from his chair in one smooth motion and struck her across the face with the back of his open hand. The crack of palm against skin echoed off the dark panelling. Her head snapped violently to the side, a white-hot agony bursting behind her eyes as her cheek split. Warm blood welled immediately, pooling over her lip and spilling out the corner of her mouth to drip onto her pale throat. Before she could sink to the floor, his hand shot out, his fingers clamping hard around her windpipe. He hauled her off her feet by her neck, crushing her throat until her vision swam and her lungs screamed for air. Holding her suspended, he dragged her mouth to his, forcing his tongue past her bloodied lips in a deep, suffocating kiss that tasted of iron and hot tea. Then he hurled her downward. She hit the parquet floor hard, the impact knocking the remaining breath from her ribs, her knees cracking against the wood as pain radiated through her limbs.

Lord Bell picked up his cup of tea, not bestowing another glance down at her where she lay gasping on the floor, her throat throbbing with dark bruises. “Take her to her room,” he commanded coldly. Mrs Higgins was at Skye’s side instantly, reaching down to haul her roughly upright by her upper arms, her fingers bruising through the silk. Clara seized her other side, pinning her elbows. Skye looked up at the six men around the table. None of them offered a word of protest. Captain Vance took a quiet sip of his tea; Dr Whitlock continued to watch her with his cold, analytical stare; and Miller stood like a guard at the end of the table, his eyes fixed on the doorway.

Skye offered no resistance as the two maids dragged her away from the table and pulled her out into the dark hallway, her legs barely finding their footing beneath her heavy skirts. As they hauled her past Lord Bell, he did not look up from his cup, but she felt the cold, lingering weight of his presence like a physical shadow trailing behind her. The heavy double doors snapped shut behind them with a final, hollow thud that echoed through the quiet mansion.

“Foolish girl,” Mrs Higgins hissed under her breath as they forced Skye up the grand staircase, her fingers pinching through the fabric of Skye’s sleeve until the flesh bruised. “A gentleman of his standing, and you speak to him like an equal. You were warned before we stepped foot in the dining room. You were told what was expected.”

“She thinks she is still in her little office,” Clara added, her high, thin voice trembling with a mixture of cold anger and lingering fear. She kept her grip tight on Skye’s other elbow, hauling her up the steps when Skye’s knees buckled. “She thinks the rules from elsewhere apply here. She will learn. Lord Bell will teach her, or we will.”

They shoved her through the heavy door of the grand bedroom and threw her onto the edge of the mattress. Before Skye could clear the blood from her lip, Mrs Higgins was already unbuttoning the red silk dress with harsh, punishing tugs, yanking the cloth down over her shoulders as if stripping a corpse. Clara stood at her feet, unlacing her boots with sharp, jerky motions that rattled the metal eyelets.

“Look at this dress,” Mrs Higgins spat, throwing the ruined silk over a chair. “Stained with blood before noon. You will stay in this room, Lady Bell, until your skin heals and your mind remembers who holds the reins. You will put on the grey linen, and you will sit by the window until you are summoned.”

“And you will keep your tongue quiet,” Clara whispered, leaning close as she dragged the heavy linen gown over Skye’s head, smothering her for a brief, suffocating moment in the dark fabric. “Next time, his lordship will not stop at a slap.”

The key turned in the heavy lock with a dry, sharp click that echoed inside Skye’s chest like a latch dropping into place.

Silence filled the room instantly, thick and oppressive. Skye sat on the edge of the mattress, her hands resting flat on the grey linen fabric of her skirt. Her cheek throbbed with a dull, rhythmic heat where his ring had caught her skin, and the taste of salt and copper lingered in the back of her throat. She stared at the polished floorboards near the foot of the bed, watching a thin beam of grey sunlight creep across the oak.

If this was the pattern—the calculated cruelty, the quiet enforcement, the absolute submission expected before every meal—then the house would not need to break her bones. It would simply wear her down until Skye Till was only a memory she used to keep. The fear was not just of the physical pain; it was the quiet, terrifying certainty that if every morning began with this precise, cold machinery, she would eventually stop resisting. She would learn to hold out her arms for the coat, to bow her head at the mention of his name, and to yield until there was nothing left inside her but the title they had pinned to her collar.

For the first few hours, she sat stiffly on the edge of the mattress, her eyes fixed on the grain of the door. Every distant footstep on the landing made her skin prickle. She braced herself for the lock to turn, expecting Mrs Higgins with a basin or Clara with a tray of tea, or even Lord Bell coming to finish what he had started. But no one came.

The silence stretched from hours into days. Three suns rose and set beyond the heavy drapes, casting thin, grey bars of light across the carpet before fading into blackness. No food was brought to the room. No jug of fresh water was left on the washstand. The chamber pot in the corner, left unemptied, began to fill the stale air with a harsh, sour stench that turned her stomach every time she drew a breath. The embers in the fireplace gradually died down to white ash, and the damp chill of the brickwork crept outward until it settled into the walls and bedclothes. Skye curled under the thin grey linen, shivering as the cold bit deep into her joints, her throat so parched that every swallow felt like scraping dry wool against her tongue.

With no voices to answer her own breath, the endless stillness ate at her from within. The knowledge that someone—or something—was watching her from the dark corners remained constant, though the room stayed entirely empty whenever she forced her eyes open. That unseen gaze wore away at her spirit, thread by thread, until the quiet felt heavier than any blow. The slow breaking inside her was so absolute that she knew, with terrifying certainty, she would accept anything—any voice, any touch, any surrender—if only it offered a moment's comfort from the cold.

Then, on the third night, the ticking clock on the mantelpiece simply stopped.

The sudden absence of sound was heavier than any noise. In the absolute pitch of the shuttered room, the air grew so cold her breath bloomed in faint, invisible clouds against her face. Then came the sound inside the wall—not the distant whisper of timber settling, but a wet, deliberate drag right behind the headboard, inches from her ear. Something was moving inside the plaster, slow and heavy, tracing the outline of her bed. Skye froze, her heart hammering against her ribs so violently she squeezed her eyes shut, afraid to draw a single breath lest the creature in the dark hear her lungs move.

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