They were coming this way.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I pressed myself against the door, trying to hear better. The footsteps stopped. Right outside. No—not outside my door.
Outside Penny's.
The scrape of ash against wood was soft, almost gentle, like a mother's hand smoothing a child's hair. But I knew what it meant. We all did.
"No." The word ripped from my throat before I could stop it. "No, no, no—"
Through the vent, I heard Penny's sharp intake of breath, the moment of frozen disbelief before reality crashed down. Then she screamed.
It wasn't a human sound. It was animal terror, raw and primal, the kind of scream that tears vocal cords and shatters hearts. I dropped to my knees, pressing my face to the vent, trying to see her, trying to reach through the impossible narrow space.
"Penny! Penny, listen to me—" But what could I say? What comfort existed for a child about to die?
Her cell door slammed open. I caught glimpses through the vent—black robes, obsidian masks that reflected her terror in fractured pieces. Penny fought them. This girl who'd been too scared to eat, too broken to hope, fought like something wild. She clawed at their masks, bit their hands, kicked with strength born of desperation.
"Please!" She was sobbing now, words tumbling over each other. "Please, I'll do anything, I'll be good, I won't cry anymore, please, my mother needs me, please—"
One of the Anointed Ones backhanded her. The crack echoed in the stone corridor, and Penny's pleas cut off into a dazed whimper. They dragged her past my door, and I pressed myself against it, fingers scrabbling at the gaps like I could somehow claw through solid wood.
"Penny! PENNY!"
Her eyes found mine through the tiny window slot in my door—wide, terrified, already going vacant with shock. Then she was gone, her bare feet dragging across stone, leaving silence so complete it felt like death itself.
I stayed pressed against the door until my legs went numb, until the sound of my own breathing became unbearable. Somewhere in the temple's bowels, Penny was being prepared. Washed. Dressed in ceremonial robes. Fed herbs that would make her pliant.
I knew the routine. We all did. The Anointed Ones made sure we knew exactly what awaited us.
But Penny's cell was empty now.
The thought hit me like cold water. For the past week, I'd noticed a crack in the wall between our cells, hidden behind where Penny kept her water bucket. Old water damage,centuries of dripping that had worn the mortar weak. I couldn't reach it properly from my side, but from both sides . . .
I scrambled to the vent, peering through. Penny's door hung ajar—the Anointed Ones hadn't bothered to lock it. Why would they? Dead girls didn't need locked doors.
And I knew from past experience that on ritual days, the guards wouldn’t return. My heart pounded in my chest.
My fingers found the sharp stone I'd been hiding, pried from my pallet's frame three days ago. It had cut my palm when I'd worked it loose, but I'd kept it anyway, some instinct telling me I'd need it. The crack was barely visible from my side, just a hairline fracture, but I could feel where it went soft under pressure.
I started chipping at it, using the vent to guide my angle. The stone was old here, older than the rest of the temple, and it crumbled differently—like compressed ash rather than solid rock. Each strike sent tiny cascades of ancient mortar to the floor. My fingers cramped. The sharp stone bit into my palm, reopening the cut from before. Blood made everything slippery, but I kept going.
An hour passed. Maybe two. The crack widened from a line to a gap I could fit my smallest finger through. I could feel air from Penny's cell, still carrying the ghost of her fear-sweat and tears.
The work was agonizing. Every muscle in my arm screamed from the awkward angle. Stone fragments embedded themselves under my fingernails. My blood painted the wall in rust-brown streaks. But the crack kept growing. The width of two fingers. Three. I could see into Penny's cell now—her thin pallet still bearing the impression of her body, the corner where she'd kept the rag doll she'd made from her dress hem.
As the sun began to set, painting my cell in shades of orange and red, I heard it begin.
Chanting.
Deep voices in unison, speaking words that predated any language I knew. The sound rose from somewhere far below, vibrating through the stone itself until I could feel it in my bones. My teeth ached with it. The symbols on the walls seemed to pulse in response, writhing more actively than ever before.
I pressed myself to the window, standing on my toes to see out. The courtyard was empty, but beyond it, from what I knew was the temple's heart, came a glow. Sickly green-black light that pulsed like a living thing, like a heartbeat made of shadow and poison. It cast everything in nauseating relief, making the world look infected.
The chanting grew louder.
I knew what was happening.
I bit down on my fist to keep from screaming for Penny, tasting my own blood. The crack in the wall was almost wide enough now. Almost. I went back to work with desperate fury, no longer caring about the pain in my hands or the blood that made everything treacherous.
