A laugh moved through the tower.
Not Gideon.
Not the Priestess.
The place itself.
The hallway shifted around me with a low groan, memories pressing closer. My mother’s voice drifted from somewhere behind me now. Alex snapped something at me from another corner of the corridor.
But underneath all of it, quieter than the rest, came a sound I almost missed.
The tapping.
My head jerked up as the rhythm came again, faint and steady somewhere deeper in the tower.
I closed my eyes for one steadying breath and followed the sound.
The corridor reacted instantly. The wallpaper darkened. The lights flickered. Picture frames rattled against the walls hard enough to crack glass as whispers rose around me in overlapping waves.
Mom, please.
Every word reached for something tender inside me, trying to hook itself there and pull, but I kept moving.
Because for the first time since entering the compound, something ahead of me felt real.
The hallway ended at a stone archway covered in vines that had long ago died but refused to fall away. Beyond it was a small circular room lit by moonlight that shouldn’t have been able to reach this deep into the compound.
In the center of the room sat an empty chair, and my stomach dropped.
There was no sign of Celeste, except the faint taps as I stumbled forward and dropped to my knees beside it.
“Celeste,” I whispered.
A piece of fabric had been caught on a splinter of wood beneath the seat. I pulled it free and recognized the soft blue thread from the hem of her jacket.
She’d been here.
The pendant pulsed again, sharper this time, reminding me to hold onto my magic.
My meaning of magic.
Hope spread through me as a sound came from the wall behind the chair.
Short.
Short.
Long.
I stood so fast the room spun around me.
“Celeste?”
The tapping came again.
Short.
Short.
