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Everyone knows about the Hollow. It’s the one constant. The one rule. You don’t go there.

I’ve never questioned why. Never thought it was strange that a whole town would build itself around a patch of dead forest and spend centuries warning people away from it. Never wondered what they were really protecting.

Or what was protecting them.

Preston wants to develop it. Tear it down. Build something profitable on land that’s sat untouched for longer than this country has existed.

And the whole town is choosing sides.

Not about property rights or environmental concerns or zoning laws.

About something else. Something older. Something I’m only now beginning to understand.

I stand at that fence in the dying light and realize: five years of living here taught me nothing about where I actually am.

This isn’t just a small coastal town. It’s a sanctuary. A refuge. A place where the rules don’t quite apply and the families who’ve been here for centuries keep secrets that run deeper than bloodlines.

And I’ve been living in the heart of it, blind and grieving, while the real town existed just beneath the surface.

Dan knew. He must have known. The way he talked about the Hollow with careful reverence. The way he never questioned the odd customers or the strange hours some shops kept. The way he called them “refugees” without explaining what they were fleeing from.

He was trying to tell me. And I wasn’t listening.

Now I’m carrying something that belongs to both worlds. Human and Other. Light and Dark. And the people who’ve spent centuries protecting this balance are watching to see what I’ll become.

Mrs. Patterson’s words echo in my head: We take care of our own.

I press my hand against my stomach. Feel the pulse beneath my palm. Strong. Steady. Waiting.

“I’m one of them now,” I whisper to the baby. To myself. To the Hollow watching in the dark. “Aren’t I?”

The baby kicks once, as if in agreement.

I turn away from the fence and walk back toward the bakery. Toward Malak. Toward whatever comes next.

But I’m not walking blind anymore.

I finally see where I am. Who I’m with. What I’m becoming.

And for the first time since this all started, I’m not afraid of it.

CHAPTER 12

Malak

The cardboard over the kitchen window bothers me.

I’ve offered three times to fix it properly. Replace the glass. Seal the frame. But Kaia keeps saying later. Tomorrow. When she has time.

She doesn’t want to explain it. How the window exploded from the inside. How the baby’s pulse shattered glass and cracked ceramic and made every metal object in the room sing the same note.

So the cardboard stays. And the draft comes through. And I pretend not to notice.

Tuesday afternoon crawls. I’m in the storage room counting flour sacks when I feel it.

The shift in the air. The way pressure changes before lightning strikes.

Something wrong just walked through the front door.