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I can't pull my hand back.
Kane's chest is burning under my palm. The curse mark is moving, black lines crawling like they're trying to spell something. My fingers are stuck to his skin like someone glued them there, and the room is starting to tilt.
"Evelyn." Kane's voice sounds far away. "Let go."
I want to. I'm trying. But the mark is pulling me in, and the bedroom walls are bleeding into something else.
Then I'm not in the penthouse anymore.
I'm standing in a huge room with marble floors and tall windows. Moonlight pours through broken glass. There's blood everywhere. On the floor, on the curtains, smeared across a piano in the corner. A woman is kneeling in the middle of it all, and she's holding a knife.
She's carving something into a boy's chest.
The boy is maybe twelve. Dark hair, pale skin, eyes wide open but not seeing anything. He's not screaming. He's not moving. He's just lying there while she cuts him, and I can hear her humming.
It's a lullaby.
My stomach flips. I know that tune. My mother used to hum it when she worked late in her study, grinding herbs and mixing things I wasn't allowed to touch.
"Stop," I try to say, but no sound comes out.
The woman doesn't stop. She finishes the last line of the mark and sits back, wiping the blade on her sleeve. Then she looks up.
Straight at me.
Her face is blurred, like someone smudged it with a thumb, but I know her. I know the shape of her shoulders, the way she tilts her head when she's checking her work. My mother.
"Evelyn," she says.
My name in her mouth makes my skin go cold.
"You shouldn't be here yet." She stands, holding the knife loosely in one hand. Blood drips onto the marble. "But I suppose it's time you knew."
"Knew what?" My voice works now, but it sounds thin. Scared.
She steps over the boy's body like he's a piece of furniture. "This curse isn't for him. It's for you."
"That doesn't make sense."
"It will." She's close now, close enough that I should be able to see her face, but it's still blurred. Just her eyes are clear. Dark brown, like mine. "I built this mark to wake when you touched it. When you were ready."
"Ready for what?"
"To finish what I started." She reaches out, and her hand goes right through my shoulder. I feel it anyway, cold and sharp, like she's reaching into my chest. "The council took everything from us, Evelyn. Your father, your brother's health, my life's work. They called me a traitor because I wouldn't bow."
I shake my head. "You were a traitor. You sold curse marks to criminals. You—"
"I gave power to people they tried to bury." Her voice gets louder, echoing off the walls. "And I made sure they'd pay for it. This boy—" She glances back at Kane's body. "He's the key. The council's perfect heir, ruined from the inside. And when he opens the red door, the curse will spread to every council bloodline in Vesper City."
My mouth goes dry. "What red door?"
"He'll know it when he sees it." She leans in, and I can feel her breath even though she's not really here. "Don't let him open it, Evelyn. Not until you understand what it costs."
"I don't—"
The vision cracks. The marble floor splits down the middle, and I'm falling, my hand still stuck to Kane's chest. His voice cuts through the noise.
"Evelyn, wake up!"
I slam back into my body so hard I bite my tongue. Blood fills my mouth. I'm on my knees on Kane's bedroom floor, and my hand is finally off his chest. He's crouched in front of me, one hand on my shoulder, the other pressed to his curse mark like he's trying to hold it together.
"What did you see?" His voice is rough, urgent.
I spit blood onto the floor and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. My whole body is shaking. "My mother."
He goes still.
"She was the one who carved that thing into you." I look up at him, and I don't know what my face is doing, but he flinches. "She said the curse was for me. That you're the key."
Kane pulls his hand away from the mark. The black lines have stopped moving, but they're darker now, deeper. Like they sank further into his skin. "What else?"
I try to stand, but my legs aren't working right. He catches my elbow and hauls me up, and I hate that I need the help. "She said when you open the red door, the curse spreads to every council bloodline. She wanted them destroyed."
"The red door." He says it like he's heard it before.
My stomach drops. "You know what she's talking about."
He doesn't answer right away. He's staring at the curse mark, and his jaw is tight. Finally, he looks at me. "There's a door in the old council hall. Been sealed since before I was born. Red paint, iron frame, no handle. My father told me never to go near it."
"Then don't."
"I wasn't planning on it." He lets go of my arm and steps back, putting space between us. "But if your mother tied the curse to that door, someone else knows about it. Someone who wants it open."
"The traitor."
"Yeah." His voice is flat. "The one who killed my parents and carved me up in the first place."
I wrap my arms around myself. The room feels too cold now, and my mother's voice is still echoing in my head. Don't let him open it. Not until you understand what it costs.
"She told me not to let you open it," I say quietly. "She said I need to understand the cost first."
Kane laughs, but there's nothing funny about it. "Your mother cursed me, killed my family, and now she's giving you advice from beyond the grave? That's rich."
"I didn't ask for this!"
"Neither did I!" He spins around, and for a second I think he's going to punch the wall. But he just stands there, breathing hard, fists clenched. "I was twelve, Evelyn. I woke up on the floor of my father's study with his blood on my hands and this thing in my chest. I didn't choose it. I didn't want it."
I don't know what to say to that. I don't know how to fix this. So I just stand there like an idiot while he drags a hand through his hair and tries to pull himself together.
Finally, he turns back to me. His eyes are still glowing faintly, that eerie gold light that means the curse is close to the surface. "If someone's trying to get me to open that door, they're going to use you to do it."
"Me?"
"You're the trigger. Your mother built the curse to respond to you. That means whoever's behind this knows you're here. Knows we're married." He takes a step closer, and I have to tilt my head back to keep looking at him. "They're going to come after you, Evelyn. And they're going to use your brother to make you cooperate."
My blood goes cold. "Micah."
"Yeah." His voice is quiet now, almost gentle. "So we need to move fast. Find the traitor before they find him."
"How?"
Kane's mouth twists into something that might be a smile if it wasn't so grim. "We go to the council hall. Tonight."
"Are you insane? You just said—"
"I said they want me to open the door. I didn't say I was going to." He reaches out and catches my wrist, his thumb pressing against my pulse. "But if your mother left clues in that vision, there might be more where it came from. The hall has records. Old bloodline archives. If she was working with someone on the council, there'll be traces."
I want to argue. I want to tell him this is a terrible idea and we should call Nora or run or do literally anything else. But he's right. We don't have time. And if someone's planning to use Micah against me, I need to know who they are before they make their move.
"Fine," I say. "But if we see a red door, we turn around and leave."
"Deal." He lets go of my wrist and heads for the closet. "Get changed. Council hall's in the old district. We'll need to blend in."
I watch him pull out a black jacket and a knife harness, and I realize two things at once.
One: I just agreed to break into the most heavily guarded building in Vesper City with a man who might be turning into a monster.
Two: My mother's voice is still in my head, whispering the last thing she said before the vision broke.
Don't let him open the red door.
I look at Kane. He's strapping the harness across his chest, and his hand is shaking. Just a little. Just enough for me to notice.
"Kane," I say.
He looks up.
"If we find the door—if something happens—"
"I won't open it."
"Promise me."
His jaw tightens. For a second, I think he's going to tell me he can't promise that. But then he nods. "I promise."
I want to believe him. I really do.
But when I blink, I see my mother's blurred face, her hand reaching into my chest. I see the boy on the floor, bleeding and silent.
And I know, somewhere deep in my gut, that Kane's already made his choice.
He just doesn't know it yet.
I head for the closet and grab the first jacket I can find. My hands are still shaking. I shove them into the pockets and follow Kane toward the door, and I don't look back at the bedroom.
But I can feel it. The curse mark, burning through the walls. Pulling us both toward something we can't take back.
The red door is waiting.
And Kane's hand is already reaching for mine.