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“I accept,” I whisper. “I am who you believe me to be, and I will do what must be done.”

Suddenly, it feels like the tile is drinking my blood, my magic, my everything. The room convulses, and the ghosts evaporate in a single, blinding wave of moonlight. Once that happens, the floor reforms itself into another fucking path—a stairway, this time, leading down into perfect, silent darkness.

I get up, shaky but alive, and look around. The others are blinking, dazed, but safe. The mark on my hand is no longer burning; it feels like it has become a part of me that will only cement further as we make our way out of this damned thing.

Heading down the stairs, I don’t look back.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you don’t survive the past by staring at it helplessly.

The new room is another planetarium for the damned.

Obsidian walls arch overhead in a smooth, perfect dome, every inch inlaid with a thin veneer of silver so the whole thing shimmers with a light that isn’t light. Above, the dome glows with a hundred fake stars, and the soft, steady hum in the air is so low it’s almost subsonic, more felt in the teeth than heard.

Khol steps in behind me, picking at the skin that seems to be flaking off him in odd patches. “No doors,” he says, scanning the walls. “No windows. The only way out is across.”

He’s right. The entrance seals behind us as soon as we’re inside. The only exit is a straight shot through a spiral of lit-up bullshit again, but I’m not stupid enough to believe it’ll be the same as before. Turning to him, I arch a brow. “What the hell is going on with you and that ghost arm?”

Wrinkling his nose, he shrugs. “We shed every so often and it seems like my spirit friend activated mine. Normally, we have to go soak it off, but lucky me! I’m just peeling and leaving a trail of sloughed-off skin as we go.”

My expression is horrified, and the basilisk laughs. “Gross. You’d better do that in the damn pool if it happens at home. Leaving pieces of yourself all over the house is not okay, buddy.”

Khol winks and leans forward to peck my lips. “I promise I won’t make a mess at home, Sassy. This should be done by the time we get out, I think. The pieces are huge, and I noticed some falling out of my pant legs, too. We just had too much going on to make a fuss about it.”

Dezi kneels and runs his fingers over the floor, getting our attention back on the task at hand. “It’s the lunar calendar again. You can probably follow the cycle in order to ensure our safe passage. Otherwise, something bad will happen, I’m certain.”

“Room goes boom?” Revelin asks, his voice flat with irritation. He’s not even pretending to be amused at this point. “Or, like, do we crumble to dust? I’m getting sick of these games. No wonder everyone hates this damn court.”

“Whatever it is, it won’t be pleasant,” Dezi says with a sigh of resignation. “Midnight Court is more vicious than the others, apparently.”

“Oh, don’t count out Reaping,” Rev mutters. “I’ve heard horror stories about them as well.”

Ignoring their bickering, I scan the room, trying to find a pattern. The phases loop around the spiral in a way that makes my brain itch. Sometimes they move forward, sometimes back, sometimes they skip entirely.

Tiernan leans in close. “Do you see the way?”

Astoundingly, I suddenly see the way as if it’s been there all along.

There’s writing on the dome, just above the center. At first, it was a blur, but now that my eyes have adjusted, the letters have sharpened into view.

The moon devours, but the night remembers.

Revelin whistles, soft and low. “Gotta hand it to them, they’re consistent as fuck with branding.”

At the spiral’s center, the perfect circle is split down the middle: one half black as a pit, and the other blinding silver. The mark on my hand itches like a phantom limb, making me grunt in annoyance. It keeps going back and forth; that will drive me insane if it happens for the rest of my supposedly long existence.

I step onto the full moon first because it matches the mark currently decorating my palm. The tile goes cold under my foot, and a line of blue light runs from it to the next moon tile. I take another step, and then another, and another as they guide me. Our path isn’t linear, but it’s not as bad as the previous one.

I call over my shoulder. “Step only where I do. No improvising or testing this shit. Got it?”

Khol grunts an assent as he follows. Tier and Revelin move behind him, then Dezi at the end, watching everything surrounding us suspiciously as usual. I keep my eyes on the sequence, trusting the weird logic in my head more than anything else. Rev said my magic might meld with me in different ways, and I think right now it’s working with my brain.

Halfway across, my mark goes flat and empty. The spiral we’re walking loops as I try to keep moving, but it never crosses itself. My legs tremble, and my breath fogs in the air; anxiety at the mark not helping making me scared as fuck.

Not that I’m going to tell anyone. That would be humiliating.

Dezi breaks the silence to announce, “You’re doing well, witchling. Don’t doubt yourself.”

I snort. “I feel like a hamster on a wheel. I hate being controlled by these dick waffles.”