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The house was a disaster zone, cordoned off by both the military and the SED. Arriving from across the Veil, surrounded by CVED soldiers who looked not at all human, made the soldiers lining the street hesitate. But no one stopped us.

The partial merge still split the house, wafting over the street with the familiar gray overcast skies and atmospheric haze. One half of the house stood, whole, but across the Veil, looking like a cartoon haunted house. The other half was a pile of decimated debris haphazardly piled off to the mortal side. And strangely enough, it felt like an allegory for my life.

Angel pressed to my side from shoulder to hip, but I wasn’t about to fall apart.

I studied the house, letting my vision shift just enough to see the threads without getting blinded. The merge line cut through the center of the structure in a jagged seam. And there, on the Veil side—the downstairs corner room where my father had kept his private study—a knot snarled through the weave. The kind of knot that would lead us to either more answers or a lot more questions.

“First floor, back right corner,” I told the team.

Wade stepped up beside us, scanning the house with a device Bobby had given him. “Structural integrity is questionable. The merge is holding it together, but it’s like a house of cards. One wrong move...”

“Good thing I’m known for my grace and subtlety,” I said.

“You?” Angel said with a snort.

“Rude,” I grumbled at him.

Remi snorted behind us. “He’s not wrong. You tripped over a zombie in the office this morning.”

“That doesn’t count. I forgot he was there.” Waiting for me to get details on him like an obedient pet. It had actually been a little spooky. But after my dramatic fall and bounce back with a whole “tada” flare, I’d gotten his deets and put him back to rest.

“It absolutely counts.”

“Hmm,” I hummed, not worried about the house falling down on us—though as soon as we crossed the merge and entered a hole punched through the wall into the house, it groaned and creaked like it was about to give at any moment. I carefully added a few lines of stitching to strengthen the structure. “Fixed.”

“Famous last words,” Remi muttered from behind us.

Inside, the house was frozen in time. Dust covered everything. Furniture was overturned. A lamp lay shattered on the floor, its bulb long since burned out. And the air—the air was thick, like breathing through a wet blanket.

I led everyone to the office. The sounds of things scurrying around us made my skin crawl, but I tried not to search the shadows for otherworld rodents.

He’d given us an overview of what he’d been doing. I guess yanking out his greed and crushing his confidence had removed his hesitation to protect the giant ring of corruption he’d found his way into. And he wasn’t the center of the nightmare, just one small rung of power-hungry assholes.

Adrian Holt had access to the larder, though he claimed to have only ever been inside once. That was after Brandon Cassidy had become a puppet to Erlik’s ministrations. Cassidy had come through the door of Holt’s study, demanding he lure me to the house because Erlik wanted me. And Cassidy could only carry so much through the Veil for the shadow demon.

The door to my father’s study was closed.

I hadn’t been in this room since I was a child. Hadn’t wanted to. But now, standing here, with the team at my back and Angel at my side, I realized the room had no power over me anymore. It was just a room. And my father was just a man. A small, pathetic man who’d sold his soul for power he never really had.

“Let me,” Angel said. He stepped in front of me, hand on the knob. I wanted to protest, but I understood. He was protecting me. And I was tired of fighting alone.

He opened the door as I pressed myself to his back.

The study was smaller than I remembered. The desk was still there, the chair, the shelves lined with books that had never been read. But in the corner, where I’d expected a filing cabinet, there was a door.

A door that hadn’t existed in the mortal realm.

It was made of dark wood that seemed to absorb the light, outlined in a pulsing purple glow. The snarled knot within the weave made me flinch. It looked like barbed wire to my sight. But I was grateful in that moment to understand it wasn’t tied to some place in the ether, but a physical location—one we could mark, find, and hopefully excavate.

Would there be anyone in there left to save? I recalled all the jars of dissolved remains and the lights of dead fairies and shuddered.

But that wasn’t the only reason I was here.

Jason.

His remains had never been found. And I needed to know. Needed to put him to rest. Even if Nat had taken his soul to a door, which I hadn’t asked about. If there was something left of him in his world, would he truly have rest?

“You ready?” Angel asked.