It didn’t take long to tie up all the loose ends of a life I’m not sure I’ll come back to.
And now I’m here.
Across the street from a bank that’s also a doorway to the House of Gold.
I check my phone one last time. 11:59. Two more minutes to stand here, pretending I have a choice. Pretending I could turn around and walk away and live with the consequences.
But I can’t.
Luna’s face flashes through my mind, laughing over coffee, excited about her classes, safe in her normal world. That’s what this is for. That’s why I’m doing this.
I cross the street.
The revolving door is heavy, old, brass and glass that need cleaning. It takes effort to push through, and when I step into the bank lobby, the temperature drops at least ten degrees. Air conditioning, probably. But it feels like more than that. Feels like crossing a threshold, like the air itself knows I don’t belong here.
The lobby is exactly what you’d expect from a bank this old: marble floors, high ceilings with ornate molding, teller windows with brass bars. Everything is beige and boring and designed to make you feel small and insignificant. A few customers are scattered around—a woman filling out a deposit slip, an older man arguing quietly with a teller, a businessman checking his phone while he waits in line.
None of them look at me.
I head toward the back, where a sign points to “Safe Deposit Boxes” with an arrow. My boots click on the marble, too loud in the hushed space. A security guard by the door tracks me with his eyes but doesn’t move. Just watches. Observes.
Does he know what this place really is?
The hallway to the vaults is narrow and poorly lit. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting a sickly yellow light onlinoleum floors and beige walls. There are doors on either side, each labeled with a number. Vault one. Vault two. Vault three.
I walk past them, counting. Looking for seven.
The hallway seems longer than it should be. Not impossibly long, not stretching or shifting or doing anything obviously magical. Just...long. Like a hallway in a dream where you keep walking but never quite get where you’re going.
Or maybe that’s just nerves.
Vault seven is at the end of the hall, on the left. The door is solid steel, painted the same institutional beige as everything else. There’s a keypad next to it, blinking red. Locked.
I check my phone. 12:00.
I stand there, staring at the door, and let myself feel everything I’ve been pushing down for the last few days. The fear. The anger. The grief for the life I’m leaving behind, for a grandmother who dumped this on me, for a sister I might not see again for a year.
I let it wash over me, through me, and then I lock it down. Push it into the box where I keep all the things I can’t afford to feel.
I need to be sharp for this. Strong. Unbreakable.
Even if I’m terrified.
12:01.
The keypad blinks green. A soft click echoes in the quiet hallway.
The door swings open on silent hinges.
Beyond it, there’s darkness. Not the normal darkness of an unlit room, but complete, absolute absence of light. Like looking into a void.
I take a breath. Let it out slowly.
Then, I step through.
The transition is immediate and disorienting.
One moment I’m in a narrow bank hallway, fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Next, I’m standing in a space that my brain can’t quite process.
