I gripped my phone tightly and stepped down onto the first ledge.

The air grew colder with every step I took.

The walls down here were rough-hewn rock, weeping with moisture.

At the bottom of the stairs, the space opened into a small, vaulted chamber.

This was the original cellar of the seventeenth-century manor that had stood before Aster Hall was built.

In the center of the room sat a heavy iron chest, secured with a modern electronic keypad.

The keypad was dark, but a small green light flickered in the corner, powered by an independent battery backup.

I approached the chest, my boots crunching on the loose gravel floor.

This keypad didn’t require the celestial coordinates.

I knew this code by heart.

It was my mother’s date of birth, a sequence Harrison had never bothered to learn.

I pressed the six digits into the rubber keypad.

The green light turned solid, and the electronic lock released with a soft beep.

I lifted the heavy lid of the chest.

Inside lay several leather-bound portfolios and a thick, plastic-wrapped ledger.

I pulled out the first portfolio and opened it.