Magnolia Beauregard had summoned her dead butler three times, and three times he had blown away like smoke. She stood in the swamp at dusk, her gown pale and flickering, her hands cold with the effort. Once she had ruled a great house full of servants. Now she was a lich, and she wanted them back. Not as memories. As spirits bound to her forever, kneeling in an eternal court. But a court needs a throne, and she had none. She tried a fourth time. She spoke the old name into the reeds. A gray shape rose from the water, took the shape of a stooped man, then thinned and scattered on the breeze. She snarled and clenched her fists. "You have nowhere to land," she said aloud. "That is the trouble." A spirit needed an anchor. Something rooted to the ground, something that remembered her. She turned in a slow circle and searched the fen. Then she saw it. Half-hidden behind a curtain of moss stood a ruined house. Its columns leaned. Its roof had fallen in. Green shutters hung by single nails. She drifted closer and knew it at once. It was her home. Willowmere, sunk and rotting, but still standing. Magnolia laughed, low and sharp. A house forgets nothing. She climbed the broken porch and passed through the front door. Inside, a marble basin sat in the ruined hall, wrapped in moss, its carved edges still proud. She remembered guests washing their hands there. The house had a heart, and this was it. She pressed both hands to the cold stone. She poured her will into it. "Hold them," she whispered. "Hold what I bring you." The basin drank her power. Light spread up the walls. The rotted boards did not repair, but a low hum filled the rooms, steady as a pulse. The house was awake now, and bound to her. She called the butler a fifth time. The gray shape rose again from the swamp and floated to the porch. This time it did not scatter. It stepped inside, bowed its head, and stayed. The anchor held. Magnolia smiled. She had her seat of power at last. But she was not alone. A shape slid through the doorway behind the butler. It was long and low, pale and glowing, an alligator made of light. It carried old sorrow in its eyes. The house had answered her call, and it had woken this one too. The beast turned its head toward her. It had loved this family once. Now it fixed on the belle who had claimed the house, and it did not bow. Magnolia went still. She had wanted spirits who would serve her. Willowmere had given her one who might not.