A crack in a door, and my heart hiccuped. Warm light leaked through—honey-gold, soft, wrong—and it laid itself across the stone like it had every right. Briar-sap followed, sweet enough to make my jaw ache. Under it: iron. Penny-on-the-tongue. My mouth flooded anyway. Kevin Nguyen stood half in the doorway, half blocking it, shoulders loose like he was trying to look bored. His fingers wouldn’t stop twitching at his side, empty-hand restless. A notebook would’ve given him somewhere to put all that energy. He didn’t have one. Delphine Thibodaux lounged against the opposite wall, boots crossed, face composed into something pretty and untrustworthy. Bea Pemberton hovered near the threshold with her hands tucked into her sleeves, as if she could hide them from whatever waited inside. Rafe Nash took the rear, silent; even the corridor seemed to keep its distance from him. Nobody wanted to say it. I did. “We need the threshold registry.” Bea’s chin lifted. “You have already been told—” “Yeah, I heard.” The words came out too sharp, like metal scraping metal. I swallowed, and the back of my throat tasted like I’d bitten my cheek. “I’m not leaving without names.” Del’s smile stayed on her mouth and nowhere else. “Cher, you keep sayin’ that word like it’ll save you.” “It’s a list.” I kept my eyes on the seam of light. Not on Del. Not on the way my own pulse kept jumping. “It’s proof. It’s how we get people home.” Rafe’s gaze slid past me, down the corridor. He didn’t move, but the air around him tightened anyway. “Time is thin.” Kevin blew out a slow breath. “Okay. So—okay.” His eyes flicked to Bea. “What’s the shortest path to it? Not a philosophy answer. A door answer.” Bea held herself straight as a blade. “There is no ‘shortest path’ to a protected ledger. It is living text. It resists theft. It rejects the uninvited.” “Cool,” I muttered. My cut palm pulsed, a reminder. “Then we invite ourselves.” Bea met my gaze and something flickered. Not pity. Something like recognition—and something like guilt, the kind that stains and won’t scrub out. “Invitation,” she said, quiet, “requires authority.” Del’s boot scuffed the stone. “Or it borrows somebody else’s authority. Folks with crowns get listened to.” My stomach cinched at the name we didn’t say. Thorne Ashworth-Blackwood didn’t need to be here for the corridor to feel smaller. “We’re not asking him,” I snapped. Rafe didn’t blink. “He is the Crown. The ledger answers the Crown.” “He’s also the one who keeps taking people.” My tongue pressed hard to my teeth, fighting the copper swell. “I’m not handing him a shopping list of humans he can keep.” Kevin’s eyes darted to my mouth like he’d noticed the blood-taste tell, then away. He didn’t call me out. Not in front of them. Del’s voice slid in, syrup-sweet and sharp underneath. “You ain’t wrong. But you ain’t right, neither. You wanna steal a thing that bites back, and you wanna do it without the one set of hands it won’t bite.” I flexed my fingers. The skin where the thorn had punctured me earlier stayed tender, like the court kept the wound on a slow simmer for fun. “Plan,” I said, because checklist brain was safer than feeling. “We go in. We copy what we can. Names, dates, where they were taken. We find patterns. Then we find when the thresholds open. Then we build a route that gets me back to New York and gets them out.” Bea’s gaze dropped to my hand. “Copying is not straightforward. The text can… move.” Kevin let out a small, shaky laugh that died before it finished. “Like a corrupted file that keeps rewriting itself. Great. Love that for us.” Del’s head tilted, listening to something I couldn’t hear yet. “Y’all smell that?” I breathed in. Briar-sap. Iron. And something sweeter—bruised fruit, waxy and thick. Kevin’s leg started bouncing, fast enough to tug at my attention like a fuse burning down. Del pushed off the wall. “We’re splittin’. Some folks wanna run. Some folks wanna dig.” “I’m not running alone.” Kevin’s head snapped toward me. “No one’s saying alone.” Rafe’s voice stayed even. “Leaving now is clean.” “Clean for who?” The question scraped out of me. “For me? For you?” Bea flinched. Kevin’s gaze dipped, like he’d taken a hit he didn’t want to show. I sucked air in through my nose, slow, tried to count it. The curse under my skin didn’t care about my breathing tricks. It pulsed anyway, impatient. Bea’s words came in clipped pieces. “If you go for the registry, you will be noticed.” “We’re already noticed.” My jaw ached from clenching. “I’ve been bait since the second I got dragged through that threshold.” Del’s voice softened—honey with a blade inside. “Bait don’t get to choose the hook, cher.” I stared at her until her smile faltered. “Watch me.” Kevin stepped closer, careful, like I spooked easy. “Sofi. If the registry is bait, it’s the kind that snaps your fingers off. We need—like—a realistic plan.” I dug under my sleeve and pulled out a strip of linen I’d been hoarding like contraband. “I wrap my hand. I don’t drip. I don’t leave a trail.” Rafe’s eyes tracked the linen. “Blood is not the only trail.” Bea’s voice dropped, quieter—scared quiet. “Do you understand what you are asking the court to give you?” “I’m asking for the truth.” Del snorted. “Baby, truth costs extra in here.” The copper taste surged, sharp enough to sting behind my eyes. My throat tightened as if invisible fingers had curled there. One cold breath slid down my lungs. Then warmth again. Like the manor was breathing with me, matching me, mocking me. Kevin’s hand hovered near my elbow. He let it drop without touching. He’d never crossed that line. Not once. Bea’s gaze fixed on my mouth. “You are bleeding.” “I’m fine.” The lie stuck to my teeth. Rafe’s stare didn’t budge. “You are not.” “Doesn’t matter.” I lifted the linen like a flag. “We’re doing this.” Del clicked her tongue. “So that’s it? No vote? No talk?” Kevin’s shoulders rose and fell. “We are talking. It’s just—Sofi’s the only one who can… do whatever the registry wants from her.” My stomach rolled. The curse perked at that, pleased, like a dog hearing its name. Bea’s lips thinned. “There is a price.” “I know.” My voice came out low, raw at the edges. “Everything here has a price.” Rafe shifted—barely, but it was the first crack in his stillness. “Then decide what you will pay.” I looked at them one by one: Kevin’s anxious focus, Del’s practiced half-truths, Bea hiding her hands, Rafe like a locked door. Not a team. Four strangers in the same cage, trying not to draw blood from each other. “I’m paying,” I said. “Not you. Not them.” My throat tightened again, warning shot. “Not the other humans.” Del’s brows lifted. “Brave. Stupid. Same thing in this place.” Kevin’s voice went careful. “Sofi. You can’t pay with your body forever.” I didn’t answer. Because I could. Because I had. Bea stepped aside and opened the door wider. Light spilled over her shoes, stark against the dark hall. “If you are determined,” she murmured, “do not speak your aim once you are inside.” Rafe’s hand brushed the hilt at his side. “Move.” I went first. If a trap wanted a throat, it could take mine. The room beyond didn’t look like a library. No neat shelves. No quiet dust. Architecture tried to pretend it wasn’t alive and failed. Vines looped along the walls in lazy coils, glossy with thorns. The place smelled like sap and old paper, sweet rot and dried ink. Candle flames crouched in iron sconces, and the light stopped short of the corners like it was afraid. At the center, on a dark wooden plinth, sat the registry. Thorned lettering bound its cover—shifting, sliding, refusing the eye. The cover twitched. Not wind. Intention. Dry-leaf rustling filled the room before anyone touched a thing. Kevin stopped dead beside me. His lips parted. For one second he looked like a kid in a museum after closing—thrilled and terrified in the same breath. “That’s… that’s not paper.” “No,” Bea replied. “It is covenant.” Del wandered to the side like she didn’t care, but her gaze didn’t leave the ledger. “She bites?” “She rejects,” Bea corrected. “It is not malicious. It is obedient.” Obedient landed wrong in my chest. Like a chain settling into place. Blood rose in my mouth again. I rubbed my tongue against my teeth and stared at the plinth, the spine, the way the thorn-letters slid aside whenever I tried to focus on them. I reached out. The air thickened, pushing back against my fingers. Not pain. Not yet. A warning without words. The prickle under my nails sharpened, like the room had teeth and it was considering using them. Kevin’s voice dropped. “Sofi—” “I know.” I kept my hand hovering. “Bea. What does it need?” Her gaze flicked to my wrist—my bracelet, the court’s little joke of an accessory. “It needs a witness with standing.” “I’m a witness,” I said. “They made me one.” “Not to this,” Bea cut in. “Not to the routes.” Del’s voice slid between us. “But she could be. If she makes a vow.” My gut twisted. Vow sounded too close to bargain, too close to something that stuck. Kevin watched my face like he could catch me before I fell. “Define vow.” “A constrained promise,” Bea said. “A limited offering.” I glanced at the ledger. “Fine. Limited.” Bea’s tone sharpened, like she was reciting something older than all of us. “Your oath. Your mortal oath. The one you cling to.” Air cinched around my throat. The curse leaned in, listening. “My oath isn’t for trade.” Del’s eyes glittered. “Everything’s for trade, cher. You just pretend it ain’t.” Kevin stepped closer to the plinth, still not touching it, tracking the shifting script with his eyes. “Think of it as… reframing,” he offered, voice quickening like he’d found a foothold. “You’re not selling your oath. You’re using its language. Like… using a key in a different lock.” Bea didn’t look at him. She didn’t look away from me. “Speak it carefully.” Rafe, by the door, watched the hallway like it might blink. “Speak or leave.” My chest tightened. My fingers curled in the air. The curse pressed—not for violence, not for rage. For compliance. For the satisfying click of something bound. I lifted my hand over the ledger. “I will give a vow,” I said. “Limited. Measurable.” The thorn-letters stilled. Listening. Bea’s voice dropped, nearly reverent. “State your terms.” “Names,” I said. “Locations. Dates of capture. And the pathing to the nearest stable threshold that leads to New York City.” Kevin’s breath snagged on “New York City.” I didn’t soften it. Not here. Del’s smile widened, impressed despite herself. “Specific. I like it.” The ledger rustled. Dry leaves. The cover shifted as if it wanted to open—then snapped shut. The air bit my fingertips. A clean refusal. Bea’s gaze narrowed. “It rejects.” “Why?” The word tore out of me. “It requires a mark,” Bea said. Kevin’s voice went smaller. “A mark like… what kind of mark?” Del answered like she’d been waiting for her cue. “Blood, baby.” My stomach dropped. Blood didn’t scare me. Blood here did. Blood here meant ownership dressed up in ceremony. Bea swallowed. “A blood-binding. On a messenger. The ledger will not release its pathing to a mortal mind without a tether it can track.” Kevin’s mouth tightened. “So it’s spyware.” Del let out a single beat of humor, then it vanished. “Call it what you want. It’s a leash that smiles.” Rafe didn’t care what we called it. “Do it or stop.” My palm throbbed as if the thorn puncture remembered the room. Warm blood on my thumb would be easy. Too easy. The curse surged, a hot shove behind my ribs, like it wanted to grab my wrist and press it down. I caught my own wrist with my other hand. “No one’s making me.” Kevin’s gaze locked on mine. “Sofi. If you do it, they can track you. They can track—everything. The route. Us.” “I know.” My voice cracked and I swallowed the sound. “But if we don’t, we leave without names. And then what? We just… survive.” Del leaned in, whisper-low. “Sometimes survivin’ is the only right thing you can do.” “Not for them.” The words tasted like metal and grief. Humans behind doors. Humans reduced to entries. Bea’s eyes flicked to the ledger, then away. “You can constrain the mark. Define its use.” Kevin blinked fast. “Can you?” “You can attempt,” Bea said, clipped, procedural. “It will not be perfect.” Rafe’s head angled toward the corridor. “Watchers will come.” Del clicked her tongue. “And when they come, baby, they’ll come hungry.” My throat tightened, punished for hesitation. The copper taste returned, thick and mean. I stared at the ledger, then Kevin, then my own hand. “Bring the messenger.” Del’s brows rose. “You got one?” “There are court couriers,” Bea said. “Small. Quick. Animal-like.” Rafe’s eyes narrowed. “I can summon.” “No.” The word shot out too fast. “Not you. Not with your authority.” Rafe’s expression stayed blank. “Then how?” Del’s smile sharpened. “I can.” Kevin’s head whipped toward her. “Why would you help us?” Del shrugged, languid as a cat. “Because I like watchin’ the Crown squirm.” Her gaze slid to me. “And because you owe me, Sofia Reyes.” She tasted my full name. My skin prickled. “Don’t.” Her eyes glittered, but she let it go. “Fine. Sofi.” Bea’s voice tightened into warning. “If you mark a messenger, it becomes a living receipt.” Kevin’s hand twitched at his side. “There might be another way.” “There isn’t,” Rafe said. No softness. No room. “Choose.” My jaw locked. The vines along the wall seemed to lean in. “I choose,” I said. The ledger’s cover quivered like it approved. Del slipped out the door, quick and silent. The room felt emptier the second she left, like heat stepping away and leaving smoke behind. Kevin leaned in toward the plinth, voice low. “If you do this, we need redundancy. If the route’s in your head and they take it—” “They won’t.” The certainty surprised him. It surprised me too. Bea’s gaze flicked to the ceiling. “Do not assume you can keep what the court wishes to remove.” “Then we don’t keep it in my head,” I snapped. “We copy it.” “Ink does not hold here unless sanctioned,” Bea said. Kevin’s fingers flexed. “Then scratch it. Etch it. Something physical.” My hand went to the linen again. “We can knot it. Like a rope code.” Bea stared at me like I’d spit on the floor of a church. Rafe’s head turned slightly. “Movement.” Del returned with something tucked under her arm, wrapped in her cloak like contraband. Not a rabbit. Not quite. Too sleek. Too sharp. Dark fur, thin limbs, coal-wet eyes that didn’t blink enough. It didn’t struggle. It watched. Del held it out. “Here, cher. Don’t get attached.” The creature’s ribs moved fast, little bellows under fur. Warm. Alive. My throat tightened with something that wasn’t fear. Kevin’s voice went soft. “It’s alive.” “No kidding,” I muttered. Bea stepped closer, and for the first time she let her hands show. Paper-colored gloves. She didn’t touch the creature. “You must mark it. With intent. With limit.” My stomach rolled. I thought of my oath—do no harm—and my tongue went numb around it. Then I pictured doors that never opened, names already being erased. I pressed my thumb to the old puncture on my palm. The wound gave easily, like it had been waiting. Blood welled bright and warm. Kevin sucked in a breath. “Sofi—” “I know,” I whispered. Del’s face went flat, pretty mask gone. “You better be sure, baby.” I wiped my bloody thumb into the fur between the creature’s shoulder blades. The stain vanished as it soaked in, hidden. The creature shivered once. Then it went still, like something had clicked shut around its spine. The ledger reacted immediately. Thorn-letters unfurled into a new pattern that made my teeth ache. The book opened on its own. Pages whispered like dry leaves. Ink moved—crawling, arranging itself into columns, into arrows, into a map that refused to sit still. Bea leaned in, voice quick. “Do not read aloud.” Kevin already had cloth in his hand—how he still had it, I didn’t know. He shoved it at me. “Knot code. Now.” Rafe’s gaze swept the room. “Fast.” I leaned over the ledger. The words slid away from comprehension, but not entirely. Enough stuck long enough to grab. Names pulsed in the ink like embers under ash. Dates stacked, ugly and final. My hands shook. I forced them still long enough to tie the first knot. “One knot,” I breathed. “One name.” Kevin mirrored me, fingers flying too fast, too precise. “Two knots. Location. Three knots. Date.” Bea’s voice cut in. “Do not invent a system that can be misread.” “Bea.” My teeth ground. “We’re not in your perfect world.” Her eyes flashed. Then she swallowed it, hard. “Then be consistent.” Del hovered near the door. “Y’all hear that?” I did. Not footsteps. Pressure. The air thickening like a storm about to break. Rafe’s head turned toward the corridor. “Watchers.” The ledger’s pages flipped faster, like it wanted to be done with us. My thumb throbbed where the blood had gone into fur. The tether hummed faintly up my arm, a thin awareness that didn’t belong to me. Kevin’s voice tightened. “Sofi. We’re running out of time.” “I’m not done.” Another knot. Another name. I wanted all of them. A sting pricked under my fingernails—thorns threatening. Bea’s voice dropped to that scared quiet again. “It will close. It will decide you have taken enough.” “Like hell.” I tied faster. Breath rasped out of me in hard pulls. Kevin’s hand brushed mine, accidental. Skin on skin. A spark of normal. My body jumped like it had been starving. His eyes met mine, wide in the candlelight. “You okay?” “Yeah.” Lie number two. Del clicked her tongue. “Y’all flirt later.” “I’m not—” Kevin started, then cut himself off. The ledger snapped shut so hard the plinth rattled. Silence hit. Then the vines along the wall shivered, like the room had swallowed. Bea exhaled through her nose. “It has given what it will.” My fists closed around the knotted cloth. The linen bit into my cut. Warm blood seeped into the fibers. Rafe was already at the door. “Leave.” Del tucked the messenger back under her cloak. It didn’t relax. It stayed rigid, like it could feel the mark on its back. Like it knew it had been claimed. Disgust turned my stomach. The curse in my veins purred anyway. We spilled into the corridor. The door behind us closed with a soft, satisfied click. Outside felt colder, like we’d stepped out of a pocket of stolen heat. Kevin walked close beside me—too close for safety, not close enough to touch. His gaze kept dropping to my hand, the blood, the linen. “You need to clean that,” he murmured. “Later.” “No.” Bea’s voice cut in, sharp. “Now. Blood speaks loudly here.” Del’s voice floated back. “And it travels.” Rafe looked up the hall. “Service passage. Hearth-flue. Faster.” We moved. The manor tried to herd us—wider halls, places that felt watched. Rafe kept us in narrow passages where the stone pressed in and the air tasted like dust and old smoke. Under Del’s cloak, the messenger’s breathing rattled fast and panicked. The tether hummed along my arm, an invisible line tugging at my awareness. I hated how familiar it felt. We slipped into a service passage, low-ceilinged and warm. Heat seeped through the stone from a hearth-flue behind the wall. The smell of toasted bread drifted through—faint, cruel, too close to home. My stomach tightened. Bodega mornings. Leni shoving a bacon, egg, and cheese into my hands. Burnt coffee. The thought stabbed, then slid away, greased and pushed out of reach like the court didn’t want me holding it. I leaned against the wall anyway and breathed the warmth in like oxygen. My shoulders dropped without permission. Standing suddenly took too much work, so I let myself sink to the stone floor. The messenger wriggled out of Del’s cloak and went straight to me. Like the mark had rewritten its instincts. It nosed my knee, then climbed into my lap with a soft huff and curled tight. Warm fur. Solid weight. Its breathing steadied against my thighs, a small rhythm I could steal. Kevin crouched beside me, close enough that his sleeve brushed my arm. He held out a small tin—salve, antiseptic, something. His hands looked like they were handling glass. “Let me.” “I can do it.” I reached for the tin. My fingers shook. Kevin didn’t comment. He just took my hand, gentle. No grip. No yank. He guided my palm open like he was asking permission with every movement. The linen scraped when he peeled it back. Sting flashed, bright enough to make my eyes water. “God,” I whispered. “This is like paperwork. But evil.” A quick breath from him—almost a laugh—then his face sobered. “Everything here is paperwork. It’s just… alive.” Bea stood a few steps away, half-turned toward the corridor like she could pretend she wasn’t listening. Del leaned on the opposite wall, arms crossed, but her gaze kept flicking to the creature in my lap with something like regret she didn’t want anyone to see. Kevin dabbed salve onto my cut. Cool, then a slow burn. “That mark,” he murmured. “It’s gonna leave a trace.” “I know.” “You didn’t even hesitate,” he said, quieter. I swallowed. The bread smell twisted my gut. “I did.” My voice scraped. “I just… didn’t have the luxury.” His thumb brushed the edge of my palm, barely there. “You’re not a machine.” “No.” The word broke as it left my mouth. I stared down at the creature—warm, trusting, curled into me like I hadn’t just made it trackable. “But I just turned into one.” Kevin’s jaw tightened. His eyes stayed on my hand because looking at my face would’ve made it harder. “We got names, Sofi. That matters.” “Not if they use my blood to hunt those names down first.” He didn’t argue. He couldn’t. The silence landed heavy. Del’s voice drifted in, softer than usual. “You can’t save folks without gettin’ dirty, baby.” Bea flinched at baby. Maybe at the truth under it. Kevin wrapped fresh linen around my palm, careful. The bandage bit, steady and grounding. “Okay,” he said. “We make this count. We get the information out.” “And the creature?” I asked. Del’s smile came back brittle. “You already chose.” The messenger shifted, pressing its warm spine into my stomach like it wanted to disappear into me. My throat tightened. Under my skin, the curse whispered for more—more binding, more control—like feeding it only made it hungrier. Kevin’s gaze lifted to mine. There was fear. Something else too, something that made my chest ache. “You did the right thing,” he said, barely audible. “Don’t.” “What?” His voice cracked. “Don’t make it clean.” My nails dug into my own thigh through cloth. “It’s not clean. It’s wrong.” His mouth tightened. He leaned in anyway—slow, careful, asking without words. The space between us shrank to breath and heat. His knee touched mine. The messenger’s fur warmed my thighs like a shield. My lips parted. A chime vibrated through the stone—faint, then sharp enough to buzz my teeth. Ward-chimes. They rang inside my skull. Kevin froze, forehead almost touching mine. His eyes flicked to the corridor, then back to me, apology sitting heavy and unfinished. Rafe’s voice cut in, flat. “Up. Now.” Warmth snapped into cold reality. The almost-kiss dissolved. I tightened my arms around the messenger, then set it down gently. It clung for one heartbeat, unwilling. Then it hopped off, ears flattening. Bea’s voice went taut. “The wards have noticed the binding.” Del’s eyes narrowed. “Told you it traveled.” Rafe stepped into the passage, gaze fixed down the hall. “They are closing routes.” Kevin’s hands hovered near my bandaged palm, then dropped. “We have to send the copy. Now.” I grabbed the knotted cloth and shoved it into my waistband under the borrowed tunic. The knots pressed into my skin, irritating and real. Proof. “Del,” I said. “Can your little friend run?” Del’s smile vanished. “She can run.” The messenger lifted her head. Coal eyes locked on me. The mark between her shoulders looked like nothing at all. Hidden. Harmless-looking. The tether hummed in my bones anyway. “Listen,” I whispered, though I didn’t know if she understood words. “You go. You get out. Don’t stop for anybody.” Del’s voice sharpened. “You can’t order her like that.” I looked up at her. “Watch me.” Del’s eyes flashed, offended—and under it, afraid. “Cher, you keep talkin’ like you’re the Crown.” “I’m not,” I said. “But I’m the one bleeding.” Rafe’s gaze snapped toward me. “Move.” We slipped out into a narrower corridor. The air turned cold immediately. Candle flames along the wall bent toward an unseen draft, all leaning the same direction like they’d been instructed. The manor wasn’t just watching. It was guiding. Another ward-chime rolled through my teeth, deeper this time. My jaw clenched against it. Kevin leaned close, voice low. “They know the moment you marked it. Like the system pinged.” “Yeah,” I said. “And now we’re the alert.” Del crouched and set the messenger on the floor. Claws clicked on stone. She hesitated, glancing up at me like she wanted permission. The tether tugged. Not physical. Something inside me pulled toward her, possessive. Wrong. I forced my hand open. “Go.” She shot forward, a streak of dark fur vanishing into a shadowed side passage. The tether tightened in response. A thin burning line formed under my skin, starting at my thumb and climbing my forearm. I gasped. The taste of ash flooded my mouth, sudden and dry, like someone had dumped cold soot on my tongue. Kevin’s voice snapped. “Sofi—what is that?” “Don’t stop,” I rasped. “Keep moving.” Rafe led, fast and sure. The corridors fought us anyway. A turn that should’ve opened to stairs became a blank wall, smooth as skin. A hallway widened into a gallery that reeked of perfume and old flowers—too public, too exposed. Bea’s breath went quick, controlled. “The architecture is rerouting.” Del’s voice dropped. “They’re penning us.” The image hit and stuck. The manor didn’t just shift; it narrowed choices until you picked the one it wanted. You could see freedom for a second—then it snapped away. Kevin’s fingers brushed my elbow, urging. “We can’t outrun a building.” “Then we outthink it.” My throat tightened like it was laughing at me. Rafe stopped at an intersection, listening. No footsteps yet. No voices. Just a soft rhythm in the air, like something breathing behind the walls. My skin prickled. He spoke without looking back. “They come from the left.” Del’s gaze flicked right. “Then we go right.” Bea lifted her gloved hand, palm out. “Right is sealed.” Kevin swallowed. “How do you know?” “Because the air does not move,” Bea said. He stared at her hand, then nodded once, accepting it without argument. Rafe pointed straight. “Service ladders. There.” We ran. Stone turned slick under my boots, like it wanted me flat on my back. I caught myself on the wall, fingers scraping over vine-carved grooves. The prickle under my nails flared. Hairline cracks in the stone split—and thorns rose, actual thorns, like the manor had decided to grow teeth. A pressure pulsed through my bones. Not sound. Not thought. Return. My body jerked—one involuntary step backward. My stomach lurched. The command didn’t come through my ears. It came through my blood. Kevin caught my sleeve. “Sofi—hey. Hey.” My teeth clenched hard enough to hurt. “Don’t—pull—” He released instantly, hands up. “Sorry. Talk to me. What’s happening?” Return pressed again. My feet wanted to obey. My knees bent as if the floor angled back toward the registry room. Muscles fought themselves, shaking. Bea’s composure cracked. Horror flashed across her face. “The ward is answering your mark.” Del’s voice went tight. “Baby, you tethered yourself.” I shook my head, sharp. “No. I tethered the messenger.” Rafe’s gaze flicked to my arm. “Blood travels both directions.” Kevin went pale. “So they can… command you.” Cold sweat prickled at my hairline. The bandage itched like it wanted to crawl off my skin. “I can fight it.” Return. My spine arched as if something had hooked under my ribs. Breath hitched. For one brutal second the command pressed down like a ceiling, and my lungs shrank beneath it. Bea grabbed my other arm—firm, not restraining. “Sofia Reyes,” she said, clipped and deliberate. “If you are to resist, you must define your resistance.” A laugh punched out of me, ugly and breathless. “Define—are you kidding me?” Her eyes flashed. “Yes. Words are cages. Use them.” Kevin stepped close, voice shaking. “Sofi, look at me. Focus on something that’s yours. Something not theirs.” My mind snatched at New York and came up with slippery nothing. Leni’s face blurred. Sirens faded. The court had already taken bites out of my memories like they were fruit. Pain was mine, though. I clenched my bandaged hand until it sparked. “I am not returning,” I forced out. “Not until I have what I came for.” The manor shuddered. Thorns along the wall flexed. Return hit again and my knees buckled. Rafe moved, catching my shoulder—anchoring, not yanking. “You cannot argue with a ward.” “Watch me.” The words scraped out with blood and stubbornness. Kevin’s hands hovered near my face like he wanted to pull me back into myself. He didn’t touch. He waited for permission even now. “Okay,” he said, tight. “Then we change the equation.” Del’s eyes narrowed. “We ain’t got time for equations, Nguyen.” “We do,” Kevin shot back. “Because this is like—a trace route. If the tether is the connection, and the ward is the command signal…” Bea’s gaze sharpened. “You propose a reroute.” He swallowed. “I propose we break the leash.” Del barked a laugh. “With what? Wishes?” Rafe cut in. “No time.” A chime vibrated through my teeth again, closer. The sound carried like footsteps without feet. The manor itself felt like hands closing. My arm burned as the tether tightened, hot as a fresh IV line gone wrong. I couldn’t let them catch the messenger. I couldn’t let the names die with me. A choice slammed into me—hard, immediate. Tighten the binding, force the creature to run, make her mine. Enslave her the way the court enslaved me. Or loosen it, free her, and watch her get intercepted. A third path opened, ugly and sharp. “I can take it,” I said. Kevin blinked. “Take what?” “The tether.” My voice came out rough, steady anyway. “I can pull it off her. Onto me.” Bea went pale. “That is not—” “It’s possible,” Del cut in, eyes bright and sharp. “It’s just… costly.” Rafe’s gaze locked on mine. “Do not do what you cannot finish.” Kevin’s voice shook. “Sofi. If you do that, you’re the beacon.” “I’m already the beacon.” The snap in my voice echoed off stone. I lowered it immediately, like the walls didn’t deserve my anger. “If I’m the lure, the messenger gets away with the copy.” Del’s eyes narrowed. “You’d make yourself prey.” I met her stare. “I’ve been prey since day one.” Return pulsed. My body rocked backward. I planted my feet like I could root into stone. “Tell me how,” I snapped to Bea, to Del, to anyone. “Fast.” Bea’s voice came out thin. “You must speak the transfer. It will require blood.” “Of course it does.” The words tasted like soot. Kevin’s fists clenched at his sides. “Sofi, I—” He stopped, swallowed. “If you do this, can you still—choose?” The question slid between my ribs and twisted. I couldn’t answer honestly. Not with the ward already in my bones. I looked at him anyway. “I’m choosing now.” Del stepped closer, voice low and fierce. “Baby, if you take that tether, you gotta run. You cannot stand here bein’ noble.” “I know.” I tore the linen bandage off my palm with my teeth. Adhesive tugged; sting flared clean and bright. Blood welled fresh. Bea flinched. “Don’t spill more than necessary,” she warned. “Yeah?” I spat the bandage into my hand. “Tell that to the court.” I pressed my bloody palm to my forearm, right over the burning line. Heat flared hard enough to blur my vision. Ash thickened in my mouth until I gagged. Words mattered. Fine. “I revoke the mark from the messenger,” I forced out, teeth clenched. “I take its trace onto myself. Let the ward answer me.” The manor went still. Even the candle flames froze. Then the tether snapped into place with a vicious pull—not away from me, into me, like a hook sinking deeper. Pain surged up my arm. The burning line climbed toward my elbow, toward my shoulder. A gasp tore out of me. For one heartbeat, the curse rewarded me. Hot power flooded my limbs, wrong and bright. The thorns along the wall withdrew a fraction, like the manor recognized one of its own. Disgust rolled through my gut. I swallowed it down. Kevin’s face went white. “Sofi—” “No time.” My voice rasped. “Go.” Rafe’s attention snapped to Del. “Which way did the messenger take?” Del pointed. “Left passage. Shadowed one.” Rafe nodded once. “Nguyen. Pemberton. Go with her. Get the copy out.” Bea blinked. “Captain—” “Move.” Rafe didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. Kevin’s eyes stayed glued to mine. His throat worked. “I’m not leaving you.” “You are.” It came out too hard. I shoved the softness down because softness got people killed here. “If we leave without the names, none of this mattered. Go.” Del grabbed Kevin’s sleeve and yanked. “Cher, she ain’t askin’.” Kevin jerked, then went still, jaw tight enough to show muscle. “Sofi.” His voice broke. “Don’t—don’t let them take your choice.” I couldn’t promise. Bea stepped in close, voice quiet and fierce. “Sofia Reyes. If the ward commands, create an internal counter-command. A phrase. Simple. Yours.” My breath came harsh. The manor pressed around us, listening. “What?” “A sentence that binds you to purpose,” Bea said. Purpose. Names. Home. Bring them home. “I bring them home,” I said, voice shaking. Bea dipped her chin. “Again.” “I bring them home.” My spine steadied a fraction. Return slammed into me like a shove. My knees bent. My body wanted to pivot. “I bring them home,” I said again, louder, teeth bared. The pressure wavered—just slightly—like I’d jammed a stick into the gears. Rafe gripped my shoulder for one beat, then released. “Run.” Kevin stumbled backward as Del dragged him, still staring at me like he could memorize my face against forgetting. His mouth opened. Nothing came out. Then he turned and ran with them, swallowed by shadow. I became the bright point in the hallway. Trackable. Offered. Rafe moved with me, flanking, never close enough to control. “You will not be restrained,” he said, like it mattered to him. “Thanks.” The word tasted like ash. Ward-chimes thrummed again, close now. Candle flames bent toward us. Toward me. The manor pointed. Return. My body jerked, one foot sliding back. Muscles locked against themselves. A cage inside my skin. “I bring them home,” I hissed. Ahead, the corridor narrowed. Thorns unfurled from cracks, slow and eager, reaching for cloth and hair and skin. Rafe’s voice stayed calm. “They are coming.” Footsteps finally—controlled, measured, faceless. The sound carried like a promise. My arm burned where the tether ran, and pain made the bill clear: the messenger was gone with the copy, but my blood now threaded through the manor’s wards like wire. Return pulsed again. My knees buckled as if the word had weight. My hands clenched, shaking. The curse hummed in my bones like it owned me. Rafe caught my elbow—steadying without holding me still. “Choose,” he said. One question. Bone-deep. I dragged air in. Soot coated my tongue. “I bring them home,” I whispered. The footsteps closed in. The corridor tightened. The manor leaned. My traitor body started to turn, inch by inch, toward the pull of that single word. Return.