A hundred and fifty years ago, the stately manor was built on the Hillside. We never called it anything but the Hillside –nothing in this town was ever named anything, except the town itself –Castle Rock. My grandparents watched the construction as kids, gazing at the builders and workers as they pulled the stones to the site. It was a lengthy process, but the manor finally stood in all its glory after seven years. The people in town called it the Machiavelli House.

Of course, they didn’t come up with that name –like I said, no one actually had the imagination to name something except for how it was already called. The Machiavellis began moving in –first the elder son, Siwon, the raven-haired, brooding young man who claimed the rest of his family were on a cruise and took the long way from Ireland. Next came the younger son, Sehun –a lean, blond boy of eighteen who had an unfortunate relationship with someone in the past. Then finally, the rest: Taemin, the Bulgarian cousin who had striking raven-black hair who had run away from home to avoid inheriting a title, and the parents Gabriel and Antoinette who looked more like siblings with their flaxen hair and green eyes.

Nobody liked the Machiavellis much –they were reclusive and snobby, without even counting in the rumours that started to circulate around Castle Rock about their excessively peculiar lifestyle. Nobody paid them heed until the day they disappeared.

A hundred and fifty years ago, the mystery started.

And it could have remained a mystery –until I met one of them.