Passage of Shadows: The Victorian Gothic Collection, #3

By Chasity Bowlin

Don't miss the exciting conclusion to The Victorian Gothic Collection…

The plots, schemes and machinations at Cysgod Lys, from both mortal and immortal sources, are coming to a head. But as the ancient evil maneuvers to fully become a part of the living world and Frances struggles to extricate herself from a situation of her own making, Eldren and Adelaide, with the help of Lord Mortimer and Madame Leola, are hatching schemes of their own. Buoyed by new confidence in her previously latent abilities, Adelaide has a plan that may finally offer them peace, freedom, and a chance for true happiness together. 

Fighting something that has no true form, something that can take the shape of anything and anyone, something that potentially sees and knows everything, is next to impossible and the closer they get to the final battle, the higher the stakes get. But Adelaide is determined, because she isn't just fighting to win…she's fighting for love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chasity Bowlin
• Release date: Oct 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393810988

Book preview

Prologue

Diamonds sparkled beneath the brilliantly glittering chandeliers. The elegant figures of some of the most admired and envied women in the world were draped in gowns of the finest silk and the most luxurious velvets. Music swelled from the finely tuned instruments of the orchestra and champagne flowed freely. It was a party like so many other parties amongst the creme de la creme of New York society. She could hear her mother’s voice, but it was as if from a great distance. Adelaide whirled, looking about the room for familiar faces, but found none. Everyone appeared off somehow. They looked similar to people she had known in her life, but not quite right. The faces were indistinct, shifting, ever changing. The laughter and music grew louder and louder, the sound soaring to the point of being deafening.

In the middle of that crowded ballroom, Adelaide clapped her hands over her ears and tried to drown out the noise. Many pointed and laughed even louder, others still whispered behind their gloved hands as they pointed with their bejeweled fans. All of them scoffed and taunted, however.

---

She’s not like us, you know.

She’s like her mother.

They warned him not to marry her.

I heard her family practiced the old ways.

They’re both odd! So very, very odd.

She’ll never make a match. Not with that figure and her mother’s oddness about her.

They should never have encouraged her to be a reformer.

Look how dark her hair and eyes are. Do you suppose she’s a gypsy as they say?

He’ll have to buy her a husband in Europe. No one in New York will have her.

Maybe he can get her a title to make up for all of her strangeness?

Just another dollar princess to be shipped off!

---

The whispers came one right after another. While the shifting faces were unrecognizable to her, the words were those she had heard again and again during her time as an outcast on the periphery of the Knickerbocker Set. Adelaide had heard them in one variation or another from her childhood. Never pretty enough, never witty or charming enough. Too plump for some, too short for others, too dark for many of them with her dark hair and dark eyes—ethnic, one woman had whispered. Gypsy others had whispered still, as if it were the dirtiest of words that could ever be said of a woman.

In that horrible moment, totally alone amongst the elite who detested her, Adelaide wanted to shout. But she could only kneel on the floor and hold her hands over her ears to block out the sounds. But then she saw her. Her mother. Distant, floating about the edge of the room, weaving between the other guests. It was almost as if she wanted to be seen, but not necessarily noticed. There was something very furtive and surreptitious about her movements.

Struggling to her feet, Adelaide fled. Following the example of her mother, she did so without any real direction. Up the stairs she climbed, down one twisted hall after another. It seemed almost as if the rabbit warren of Cysgod Lys were imposing itself over the memory of her childhood home. But at last, she found herself outside her mother’s chamber. Throwing the door open, she rushed inside.

Seated at her dressing table, wearing a gown of sea-foam silk and ecru lace, her mother looked exactly as she had the last time Adelaide had been permitted to see her, before her illness had become such that her father refused to let her near her mother. It had ravaged her body, robbing her of the beauty that had been such a point of pride. As always, the suspicion reared its ugly head that perhaps Miriam had somehow had a hand in hastening her mother’s death. But it wasn’t time to think of Miriam and her wickedness. There was something about that moment, an overwhelming sense of just how fleeting it was. It was an opportunity that she could not and would not squander.

Mother, Adelaide cried out softly. I’ve missed you so!

Be quiet, child, her mother said softly. And before Adelaide could question what she was doing, her mother rose and grasped her hands, tugging her toward the small sitting room just off her bedchamber. It had always been off limits to her, forbidden. A magical, mystical retreat—a place where her mother had spent so much time sequestered that Adelaide had resented that space as a child.

I can’t go in there. It isn’t allowed, Adelaide said.

It wasn’t allowed. But you are not a child, now. And you must, her mother insisted. It’s the only way. You must know the truth… the truth that I hid from you for so very long.

Adelaide opened her mouth but her mother shushed her, the sound so like what she’d heard as a girl that she could only obey it. The sitting room door opened and she was pulled inside. There were no chairs, only brightly colored cushions littering the intricately woven carpet. It was all vivid hues and lush fabrics. There was something feminine and exotic about the space with its low tables and carved trunks with brass hardware that surrounded the room.

What is all of this? Adelaide asked, glancing around at items that she couldn’t name but that were decidedly mystical in nature. She could feel the power of them, she thought.

Things from my travels when I was a girl, her mother said. I spent a great deal of time in India with my father.

But these things do not look Indian, Adelaide said.

They are not… not all of them. Some of them are from my mother’s people. She was a gypsy. Some would say she was more than a gypsy. Some would call her a witch.

It was a rumor that had dogged them all of their lives and one that had always been staunchly denied. We have gypsy blood?

We do. Or at least you and I do. It’s that very blood which led you back to the land from whence we first came… to the very place where our blood was first cursed, her mother said ominously.

Igrida. The word escaped her lips in a whisper of dread.

Her mother’s eyes widened with terror. Shh. You mustn’t speak her name here. In this place, even in your dreams, you are protected here, but she is very powerful. Remember that, Adelaide. If you ever need this place, if you ever need to know you are safe, you have only to think of this place and your heart will lead you here!

Adelaide’s heart was pounding. She could feel sweat beading on her skin. It was as if she was being pulled from her dream, pulled from the safety of that chamber. Yes, mother… Can you tell me how to defeat her?

You know how, my darling. You’ve already puzzled that out yourself….clever as you are. Do not speak of it here. Just in case. But see your plan through and free yourself and your husband from her hold.

Adelaide glanced up then. You know him? You know Eldren?

My dear, I will always be near you… I will always watch over you as best I can. But my power within her sphere is limited. If you seek me, do so at the ocean where it is safe from her. She grows impatient, Adelaide. You must wake and face her, her mother warned.

Abruptly, Adelaide’s eyes opened. She was no longer in the home of her childhood, no longer in the safe cocoon of her mother’s secret room. She was in her own bed, her husband sleeping beside her. And above her, loomed a dark and ominous shadow. Even as the scream threatened, burgeoning in her throat, the dark figure raised long and bony hands, blackness dripping from those elongated fingertips thick and dark as pitch. It splashed upon Adelaide’s forehead and the scream broke free. The sound of it split the darkness and echoed off the stone walls of Cysgod Lys. She’d woken from a dream to a living nightmare.

1

For most men, it was not a daily occurrence to be awakened by his wife screaming like a banshee in the night. But most men did not live at Cysgod Lys and were not faced with the kinds of otherworldly horrors they dealt with on a daily basis. Eldren sighed. Had it really been only two short months since he’d convinced himself he could ignore the oddities of his ancestral home?

Are you certain it wasn’t simply a dream? A vision that spilled over from your sleep? Madame Leola asked with concern. It was clear she was worried for Adelaide and for the toll this most recent attack had taken on her.

I saw it, Madame Leola, Eldren said. And I do not possess any of your unusual abilities to peer into another’s dreams or commune with the spirit world!

Her, Adelaide corrected him. You saw her standing over me.

I cannot attest to the sex of the entity, only that I have never seen anything so wretchedly foul in my life, Eldren admitted. Thin, with unnaturally elongated limbs and all of it coated in a black, oozing muck that had reeked to the heavens—he’d been horrified by it. "Can you explain to me how she has advanced from being a mere shadow to being this, Madame Leola?" It was as if she was no longer simply manipulating the physical world but was now a part of it.

"It is