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Zinnia

“THE NOOSE” BY A PERFECT CIRCLE

The fall ended in filth.

We hit something that wasn't quite solid, organic and pulsing, slick with fluid that smelled like copper and old velvet and something older that made my stomach turn. The surface gave beneath us, then contracted, forcing us upright as if the House itself were rejecting our presence.

Pushing myself to my knees, gasping, I looked around.

A chamber that had no business existing surrounded us. The walls weren’t stone or wood but membrane: translucent, veined, breathing in rhythm with something massive and alive.

Through the tissue I could see shapes suspended in glowing pink fluid. Bodies. Hundreds of them. Some intact, others just fragments, a hand, a face, a torso, pieces of people who’d been consumed and preserved and woven into the House’s architecture.

My white porcelain mask was cracked down the left side, the painted zinnias smeared with blood and black fluid. I pulled it off and let it fall.

Beside me, Malachi landed hard, his copper Devil mask knocked askew. He straightened it with one hand, the burnished horns catching the pink light, and rose to his feet. His bare torso was streaked with blood and soot, the black wrist tape on his left hand torn and hanging loose.

In a crouch, Rook hit the ground, his distressed-brown Hound mask still in place, his massive frame casting shadows that moved independently across the membrane walls. His scarred hands flexed around the notched iron cleaver he’d carried from the Room of Four Masks.

A few yards away, Khaos stumbled to his feet, his split-faced silver Madman mask cracked down the center but still clinging to his face. His iron-bound ledger was gone, lost somewhere in the fall, but his ink-stained hands were steady, and his mismatched eyes were sharp, cataloging every detail of the chamber.

“Everyone alive?” Khaos asked, his voice tight.

“Define alive,” I muttered, pushing myself upright. My ribs ached where I’d landed, and my palms were scraped raw from catching myself on the rough membrane.

“This is the core. Where Evangeline made her first bargain.” Malachi’s voice was rough.

A chair stood in the center of the chamber.

Not bone this time. Stage boards. Old velvet. Something that looked disturbingly like human hair woven into the upholstery. And sitting in the chair, bound with black thread that cut into her wrists, ankles, and throat, was my sister.

Dahlia.

Not the echo who’d led us through the galleries. Not the voice behind the red door. The real woman who’d walked into this building six years ago and never walked out.

Her skin was ash-gray, pulled tight over visible ribs and collarbones. Chemical burns and conduit scars ran up her forearms and wrapped around her neck like jewelry. Her dark hair hung limp and matted, and her clothes were torn, grease-blackened, barely holding together.

But her eyes were open. Lucid. And when she saw me, something in her expression cracked.

“Zinnia.” Her voice was hoarse, barely audible. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Neither should you.” Starting toward her, I felt Malachi catch my arm.

“Wait. Look at the threads.”

Looking, I saw the truth.

The black thread binding Dahlia to the chair wasn’t just restraint. It was alive, pulsing, glowing faintly with hot-pink light, burrowing into her skin like roots into soil. Where the thread entered her flesh, I could see veins of the same pink light spreading beneath the surface, replacing her blood with the House’s essence.

“She’s the anchor,” Khaos said quietly, adjusting his cracked mask. “The living lock. The original contract required someone from Evangeline's bloodline to tether the entity’s form. Dahlia volunteered to keep it from taking you.”

“We need to cut her loose.” Wrenching free from Malachi’s grip, I moved toward the chair.

The Entity’s voice filled the chamber.

“The lock cannot be broken by force. The lock can only be opened by the heir’s consent.”

I froze.