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“Why? Did it hurt your feelings?”

“Because now the House knows I cannot hunt you. The contract requires the quarry to acknowledge the Hound. You called me Rook. That means this chase is void. The entity will look for another way to force the claim, and the next way will be worse.”

Zinnia wiped her nose with the back of her dirty hand. “Let it try. I have two days before this ink finishes eating my skin. I am finding Dahlia before that happens.”

“Dahlia does not want to be found.”

“You don’t know what she wants.”

“I was the one who brought her down the stairs six years ago. She walked through the red-X door with her head up, just like you. She thought she was smart enough to negotiate with Evangeline’s ghost. Now she is the lock on the gate. If she lets you take her place, she dies. If she stays where she is, you become the new vessel. There is no version of this where both of you walk out onto the sidewalk.”

Her face went pale in the dim light, but her mouth set in that same stubborn, furious line. “There is always a loophole.”

“Malachi told you that.”

“I figured it out myself.”

I reached up and unbuckled the strap behind my right ear, letting the heavy iron muzzle drop forward to hang against my collarbone. My bare face felt cold in the damp air, the deep scars along my jawline pulling tight as I spoke without the steel in the way.

“Malachi has been calling me by my real name,” I said quietly.

She frowned. “What?”

“Backstage. In the green room when the curtains are down, and the guests are gone. For fifty years he only called me Hound. Everyone in this place uses titles because they keep the House from listening too closely. But over the last three weeks, since your invitation was mailed, he started using Rook again.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he is planning something stupid. He thinks he can break the original contract by turning the sacrifice into a gift. He found an old clause in Evangeline’s ledger. He is trying to force you into a position where you reject the House completely, even if it means he takes the entire weight of the debt onto his own shoulders.”

Zinnia stared at me, her chest rising and falling slowly. “He wants to sacrifice himself?”

“He wants to be free. For Malachi, dying and being free are the same fucking thing. But if he fails, the House will not just kill him. It will use his failure to swallow you, your sister, and every Freak chained in the basement.”

“Then tell me how to stop it.”

“I cannot.” I turned toward the far archway that led deeper into the foundation and pointed into the gloom. “Take the west corridor. It leads past the old boiler room to the archives. Khaos is down there sorting through the nineteen-ten contracts. He has the third version of Dahlia's agreement. If there is a flaw in the language, he is the only one crazy enough to find it.”

Zinnia looked at the dark opening, then back at me, suspicious. “Why are you helping me?"

“I’m not helping you. I’m giving you a head start.”

“Rook—”

“Ten seconds, Zinnia. One.”

She didn’t wait to hear two. She turned on her bare, bloodied heels and bolted through the archway, her footsteps splashing hard and fast through the shallow water before she disappeared into the darkness of the west corridor.

“Three,” I said to the empty room.

Above my head, the masonry groaned. The House had realized the hunt was broken. The iron pipes along the ceiling shuddered violently, spewing jets of hot, foul-smelling steam into the cold air. Cracks spiderwebbed across the plaster of the old storage lockers, and a low, furious rumble from the deep trench beneath the foundation shook the stone floor beneath my boots.

The entity was angry. It didn’t like its toys disobeying the script.

“Five,” I muttered, resting my hand on the hilt of the skinning knife at my belt.

A drop of black, oily moisture dripped from the ceiling joists, hissing as it struck the hot metal of my muzzle.

“Seven.”