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I understood. The mark had been using the Ward network to coordinate them. Not controlling their minds, maybe. But feeding them targeting information.

Then the window shattered.

Claws punched through the broken shutter, black and wet-looking, each talon hooked like it had been made to open armor. I moved. No Magic. No fire. Just steel, training, and a century of refusing to die.

My sword took the first claw at the joint. The creature screamed. I pivoted, drove my shoulder into the half-open shutter, and used the frame to trap the limb while I cut again. The blade bit. Black blood sizzled and smoked across the floorboards.

Maisie made a furious sound behind me. “Move your giant heroic ass.”

I looked back in time to see her hurl a handful of iron salt straight into the creature’s face. The beast shrieked and recoiled.

“Salt?” I demanded.

“I panicked!”

Then she stabbed the bastard with the binding knife.

Not elegantly. Not like an assassin. She stabbed like an angry bartender trying to kill a spider with a steak knife and the personal support of every wronged woman in history.

The knife’s runes flared. The creature convulsed, ripped itself free, and vanished backward into the night.

I stared at her. Then finally got out the words, “…Effective panic.”

“Thank you. I will be accepting compliments, snacks, and a less murdery cabin.”

We held the cabin without giving Hell what it wanted. I used steel and timing. Maisie used iron salt, profanity, and whatever terrifying common sense lived beneath the chaos. The emergency Wards tackled the rest, old, blue light flashing whenever a creature struck wrong and found no easy path through.

The Ward reader on the table settled from frantic red to low, uneasy amber. The Hellmark quieted by degrees. Outside, the creatures retreated into the dark.

For now.

I looked at Maisie.

Black blood streaked one cheek. Her hair had escaped every attempt at order. She held the binding knife in a white-knuckled grip like she might stab the night itself if it got mouthy.

Still standing. Something in me broke open.

Mammon had spent a century teaching me that anything I cared for could become a liability. A leash. A weapon. Hell did not need to destroy what mattered. It only needed to find it.

Tonight, Hell had looked at Maisie.

“It knows you because of me.”

“No.”

“Maisie…”

“It knows me because I chose to interfere.” Her voice did not shake. That was worse than if it had. “You don’t get to turn my choice into your guilt just because you’re scared.”

I hated that answer.

Not because it was wrong. Because it left me no righteous place to hide. I could not protect her by erasing her. I could not absolve myself by deciding for her. I had asked what she needed, and now she was making me live with the answer.

“I know what Mammon does to things he decides belong to him.”

The cabin seemed to shrink around the words. A century of chains. Orders. Pain used as punctuation. Ownership dressed up as power.

“I won’t watch him put one of those on you.”