The room was too quiet. It buzzed almost, filling her ears.
“I’m not crazy,” she said aloud, just to hear a sound.
Her voice came back to her, small and steady.
She exhaled, long and shaky. She wanted to throw something, her pencil, the lamp, the entire desk, anything to relieve the pressure building under her skin. Instead, she picked up another sheet of paper. Drew again. The lines came more erratic this time, the waves twisting into spirals, the spirals into something like an eye.
She stared down at it for a long moment, throat tight. Then she laughed, low and bitter.
“Brilliant. Perfectly sane, drawing eyes in the dark.”
She shoved the paper aside, accidentally knocking over a candle. It rolled against the stone, flame guttering, then steadied. The smell of wax filled the air.
Dominic’s voice still echoed in her head, the way he’d said her name, low and careful, as if afraid she’d break. He’d thought she was fragile, unpredictable, too wrapped up in things she didn’t understand.
“To hell with him,” she murmured, marking another line on the paper with sudden force. The pencil tip snapped.
She froze, staring at the broken graphite. The sound had been sharp in the silence, sharp enough that for a moment, she thought it hadn’t come from her hand at all.
Then, from above, came another sound.
A faint creak.
Layla stilled.
The ceiling was thick wood, old and prone to settling, but this was different, longer, deliberate. Someone moving.
“Please just be the wind,” she whispered.
The floorboards creaked. A weight paused at the top of the basement steps.
Layla’s mouth went dry. Maddie wasn’t here. When the hybrid attack happened, Layla had gently suggested she go visit some college friends in California. She wasn’t due back for another two weeks. The shop was closed, locked up tight.
And whoever it was moved far too lightly to be a human.
She swallowed. If it were Dominic, she was as good as dead. If it were Theodore, probably the same. If it were a guard on an errand, she could lie badly and buy herself a few hours to try and escape before someone told the Alpha his Luna hoarded outlawed books and practiced witchcraft.
The latch on the basement door lifted without complaint, and the door opened onto the narrow stairs. No light shone down. She looked around, desperate for somewhere to run, somewhere to hide, but there was nowhere. She was trapped.
A figure took the first step, and then the second, deliberate and silent.
Julian.
He descended slowly, carefully, candles throwing his face into shadow. He did not speak. Instead, his gaze moved over the table, the cords, the shelves of books, the pots of herbs. He looked over Layla last, ink on her fingers, ash on her hem, chalk smudged on her cheek. The basement felt smaller with him in it, the air pulled taut, the stone listening harder.
She had never been more afraid.
“Julian,” she said, and hated the way his name left her mouth like a prayer and a warning at once.
He stopped at the lowest step and, with the faintest incline of his head, acknowledged the room, the books, the truth already crowding the space between them.
“Good evening, Layla,” he said, voice quiet as a blade’s shadow, “busy night?”
Julian didn’t move closer. He didn’t need to. The dim light from the candles suddenly seemed bright as the sun, every corner of the basement suddenly too visible. A perfect crime scene.
Layla’s throat was dry, but she forced herself to speak. “It’s late. If you’re looking for a report, I—”
“I’m not.”
