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What house? they asked back.

When he turned to show off his proud handiwork, it was all caught aflame.

As Marko writhed beneath her, she pressed down harder, absorbing the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat, drawing strength from his terror. His breath came in gasps. Finally, his eyes snapped open, widening in horror as they met hers. She smiled as his scream died in his throat, as his lungs collapsed beneath her weight. His death gave her life.

The mora left the room and swept to the one next door. Nikola lay sprawled on the bed, the sheets half thrown off, his bare chest exposed. A memory stirred within her—of resting beside him there, her skin against his. For a fleeting moment, she felt a tinge of sadness for the life she once imagined with him. But then her stomach convulsed as she remembered the child who once grew there. The child he murdered, along with her.

With cold fluidity, she floated on top of him. As she deliberated on the most fitting nightmare to torment him, he suddenly wakened.

“Magdalena?”

The name rippled through her, momentarily weakening her resolve. Magdalena? She tested the sound in her mind. No, that name didn’t suit her anymore—not after what this man had done. Rage thrummed a fiery beat where her heart once was.

“You killed her,” she said.

In the darkness, she could see his face pale. “No—I didn’t mean to. I—I panicked. It was a mistake. Dobrila was coming and . . . and—” His voice faltered.

She remembered now, Dobrila calling out to him in the workshop, moments before he murdered her.

“Does she know what you did?”

His silence answered for him. “Are you going to kill me?” he asked softly. Almost resigned, like he knew that was his fate, why she had come to him in this new, monstrous form.

The mora pondered the question. It was what she had intended when she first entered the room. But something gripped her now, spurred by the sound of her old name. She was not Magdalena anymore, but she could still give her justice.

“Depends,” she answered. “Will you tell everyone the truth? That you . . . lay with her?” The mora could not bring herself to say the word love, and this only stoked her anger further. “That you killed her and your child?”

Nikola’s expression strained. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He peered around the room, at the comfort and wealth surrounding him. She understood. He feared losing the house, his prestige. The realization emboldened her. He could never live as Magdalena had, scorned and alone. He was weak and pathetic, small as a mouse.

An idea took root, dark and twisted. She wouldn’t end his life—that would be too simple. She would make him feel the isolation, the despair she had once endured. She would destroy him—not with a blade, as he had done to her, but by tarnishing his good name.

First, she would let him believe he had escaped her. Let him marry Dobrila and carry on in the comfortable life he coveted so dearly. Though it sickened the mora to think it, perhaps he would even grow to love his wife. In fact, it would be better if he did.

For then, when he least expected it, she would take Dobrila from him. She would shatter his heart, as he had shattered hers.

And she would do it again, and again, allowing the house and the family to endure, but only under her shadow. Lavender House would no longer be known for romance or love, but for heartbreak; its residents feared and reviled. Forever tormented by the sins of their forefathers. And if they ever tried to look away, she would force them to see. If they called her a nightmare, then so be it, but inside she knew this: She was merely a woman claiming her power.

It was the cruelest revenge she could imagine. It was perfect.

“No,” she finally said. “I will not kill you.” With that, she smiled, casting his mind into darkness.

And so, the mora lived on for generations, haunting Lavender House like a shadow that never fully faded. She prowled its edges, watching as the family tried in vain to repel her. Nailing an iron horseshoe above the front door, summoning priest after priest, stuffing the keyholes to block her entry, even hanging iron around the necks of their dogs. But she was always a step ahead, with the Devil at her side.

She fed sometimes off others on the island, preying on those who spread gossip and lies about her former life. For when Nikola and his descendants couldn’t defeat her, they fought back with slander. In return, she embraced the role of the monster they created; vengeance became her religion, the nightmares she delivered a sacred ritual.

But then Marija left. Though it pleased her to see the woman so scared, a lick of uncertainty gnawed at the mora. Was this the end of her reign? she wondered. Brought about not by her hands—but by a weak-willed woman running away.

Over time, the mora withered, growing frailer with each passing day. She still fed off the people of the island, enough to stay alive. But without a new heart to break, the mora dwindled to nothing more than a whisper of feet creeping down the hall, a pesky spider weaving her web in a forgotten corner of Lavender House.

Until one day, on a bright, summer afternoon, the mora heard a rumble outside. The House shivered in anticipation. Something was happening, something important. Curiosity seized the mora as she flew to the window and peeled back the curtain.

A young woman stepped off a golf cart, a man following close behind. The woman bore a faint resemblance to Marija, though her hair was shorter, her gaze innocent. The mora’s hunger roared to life as she listened to Karmela greet her granddaughter, Petra.

She couldn’t resist preying on her. The girl’s naivete filled her with glee. But she sensed Petra wouldn’t be in the home long. Heartbreak would be a harder hand to deal.