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The blade sank in just below his ribs. I felt the resistance of muscle and tissue before the steel punched through, felt the heat of his blood spilling over my knuckles. His breath left him in a sharp, shocked gasp, and his grip on me loosened.

I twisted the blade and pulled it free.

Blood poured hot and thick over my hands. Malachi staggered back, one hand pressed to the wound, his eyes wide and disbelieving.

“I loved you,” I said.

My voice broke on the words, but I didn't look away.

“I loved you, and you betrayed me for a fucking title.”

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the gravel, blood spreading dark beneath him.

I climbed onto the back of my horse, my hands still slick with his blood, and rode into the dark.

And I didn’t look back.

Now.

The memory shattered and released me. I was back in the Room of Four Masks, gasping for air as the entity’s borrowed face smiled at me.

But my hands were wet.

I looked down.

Blood covered my palms—dark, warm, and real. Not a memory. Not an illusion. The knife was gone, but the sensation remained: the resistance of flesh, the warmth of his blood spilling over my fingers, the way his body had jerked when the blade went in.

I’d really stabbed him—driving the knife into his stomach and left him bleeding on the floor while I ran.

The realization hit me like a physical blow, and I felt something crack open in my chest—not forgiveness, not absolution, but recognition. I’d hurt him. I’d wanted to hurt him. And some part of me had never stopped wanting to hurt him.

“You remember now,” the entity said, her voice soft and almost gentle. “You remember what he did. What he chose. What he cost you.”

I looked at Malachi. He was still hanging from the chains, his chest heaving, blood from the fresh wounds drying on his skin. Behind the copper Devil mask, his gray eyes were locked on mine, and I saw the recognition there—the guilt, the regret, the unbearable weight of a century of knowing what he’d done.

He remembered too.

“You loved him,” the entity continued. “You trusted him. And he betrayed you for power. Now you’re going to repeat the cycle that gave me form. You’re going to bind him, claim him, and prove that you are exactly what Evangeline was.”

“No.”

“Then watch him bleed.”

The chains tightened. Fresh lacerations opened across Malachi’s thighs, his shoulders, his back. Blood poured down his body in thick streams, pooling on the stage below. He threw his head back and let out an animalistic scream.

“Stop it!” I sobbed, clawing at the platform. “You’re killing him—I’ll do anything⁠—”

“Say it clearly.” The entity shifted to me, her gaze cold. “Say you will perform the ritual. Say you will bind yourself to them as Evangeline did. Say you choose this freely.”

Malachi’s eyes found mine through the blood. The regret in his gaze was absolute—not performative remorse, but raw recognition of a man who had just watched me remember everything. The promises. The betrayal. The moment I’d found him with Evangeline.

He saw it all come back. His jaw tightened. He didn’t look away, didn’t flinch, didn’t beg. He just held my gaze with the weight of a century of guilt, and shook his head.

“I’ll do it,” I whispered. “Just let him go.”

The entity smiled and the chains released.

Malachi collapsed onto the stage. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and spreading. His chest heaved with shallow breaths.