"If I’m lost, why do you keep watching me like I might still be useful?"
She didn't answer. Instead, shestepped closer and laid something on the bed, a white gown, pale and ceremonial, embroidered with runesand symbolsI didn't recognise. It shimmered faintly, as if it were meant to be worn at sometwisted wedding.
"You'll wear this,"Seraphinasaid, eyes fixed on the dress, then shifting to me.
I stopped humming just long enough to meet her gaze. I saw her for what she was. The enabler, the torturer, the one who told Donte he would be loved just to lure him into her web. What had she done to him. She was the one that was sick in the head. I felt a surge of fury that threatened to drown out the humming.
"You can take your hideous gown away," I said.
"That's not what I'm wearing today."
Before she could reply, Imoved towardsthe wardrobeandopened it. Ipulled out a midnight-blue dress with a snood I could hide beneath when I wanted to block all of them out.
Then, for the finishing touch, I reached beneath the bed and dragged out my old, scuffed black boots, the ones with the worn soles and fraying laces that neverseemed to sitquite right.The boots I had imagined stomping across their marble halls in and then stomping on their skulls with.
These boots reminded me I didn’t need to dress up for them, didn’t need to bow or play their celestial games. They symbolised my connection to home, to my beautiful cottage, and not to thislarge, creepy fucking house. They were mine, the last piece of me they hadn’t managed to twist.
"That's it,"a voice whispered, soft and close.
"Let them all see what they've made."
I didn't flinch. I barely noticed the voices anymore they had been with me too long. They no longer felt likewhispers that freaked me out.
"This," I said, brushing the skirt down with my palms, "is what I'm wearing today. The dress Donte bought for me," I said his name to see if I got a reaction.
Then I saw the gold necklace with the star wheel.
“Put it on,”the voice murmured. More a command than a suggestion. I had found it in the Chamber of Souls. It was wrong in a way I knew was right for this outfit. I smiled slightly, just at the corner of my mouth, enough to make Seraphina tilt her head and narrow her eyes at me.
They thought I was going mad. Maybe I was. So, I decided to dress for it, in a gown and boots that were fit for their little theatre.
Let them think I was losing it. I liked the contradiction. It felt like a private joke, one only I was in on.
Seraphina didn't argue. She just watched me with those still, unreadable eyes,as if I were a puzzle missing too many pieces to be worth solving. Or maybe I imagined it. I was imagining a lot these days.
I'd long since stopped trusting her, stopped trusting any of them. They thought I couldn’t see the manipulation beneath their grace. I saw who all of them were now. She called me gone. Yet she was the one who had spent centuries cutting the soul out of the brothers until they were nothing but handsome broken hunters. I was the mad one, how contradictory. Maybe I was losing my mind, but at least I still had a heart.
THIRTY ONE
THE RETURN
We made our way down to the basement. We walked through a door I hadn't noticed before; it was tucked behind a tapestry. This door led to dark tunnels, which made me feel uneasy, but I refused to give Seraphina the satisfaction of seeing my discomfort.
The stone was darker and felt older than the rest of Sternwacht. The walls curved oddly, with angles that didn’t align with the manor above.
I took a breath, but these walls felt suffocating, with their thick air, which had a musty smell of candle smoke and age.
Seraphina said nothing as she led me forward, moving like someone who had walked these corridors many times and knew exactly which turns to take.
I watched her from behind, noticing how her pale white hair caught the low torchlight on the walls and the steady rhythm of her footsteps as she walked ahead.
I was counting my steps: one step, two steps, three steps, four. Then I began mapping every step and every bend along the way.
I was already formulating an escape plan.
"Why are we down here?" I asked, starting to feel the gravity of the situation.
"You will know soon enough," she replied, continuing without revealing our destination.
