I had to get to the lower level before they cut the cellular signal entirely.

My mother had always said the heart of Aster Hall lay beneath the limestone foundations.

During her final weeks, she had spoken in whispers about the Celestia gown.

*“The answer is sewn into the stars, Vivian,”* she had told me, her hand trembling in mine.

*“Look where the silk meets the silver thread.”*

Matteo had recreated those stitches exactly as she designed them.

I pulled up the digital scans of the dress patterns Matteo had sent to my secure email earlier that afternoon.

I zoomed in on the hem of the gown, where the silver embroidery formed a celestial map.

The stars weren’t just decorative.

They were coordinates, plotted against the grid of the estate’s original blueprints.

Three distinct clusters of stars aligned with three specific numbers: forty-two, eleven, and seventy-six.

I shone the flashlight of my phone down at the floorboards of the anteroom.

The floor was made of heavy, square limestone flags, worn smooth by generations of Bennetts.

In the far corner, beneath a rusted iron shelf, one slab was slightly misaligned.