Chapter 25 · The Voice in the Walls

The floor's still cracking. I can hear it under my boots, little pops and splinters spreading out from where I'm standing. Drake's got his hand on my shoulder, not pulling me back but not letting go either.

"Ella." His voice is low. "What did you just do?"

I don't answer because I don't know how to say it without sounding insane. I pulled something into me. Something that was sealed under this place for four hundred years, something my mother died trying to keep locked down. And now it's inside me, coiled around my ribs like a second heartbeat.

The whispering's louder now. Not words. Just this low hum that vibrates through my teeth.

"We need to move." Lucas is already backing toward the door, his crossbow up. "Before this whole place comes down."

"No." I shake Drake off and step forward. The cracks follow me, spiderwebbing across the tile. "It's not trying to collapse. It's trying to open."

Drake swears under his breath. "Open what?"

I point at the center of the room. The floor there is buckling upward, tiles popping loose and sliding away. And underneath—stone.