Chapter 10 · The Key Writes in Blood

"Ivy Oswin."

The voice came from the door. Not Karl. Something older, something that knew a name she hadn't said out loud in six years.

Ivy grabbed Leon's collar and ran.

"What—" Leon stumbled after her, boots skidding on tile. "What was that?"

"Don't look back." She didn't look back either. The hallway bent wrong behind them, walls folding at angles that shouldn't exist, like the whole building was creasing along a bad seam. "Karl said that door wasn't part of his loop."

"So what, it's got its own agenda now?"

"Something's here that isn't him." Her palm throbbed. She looked down—red seeped through her sleeve where the file had touched her, letters burned into skin, spelling out the name she'd spent six years burying.

"You're bleeding." Leon caught her wrist.

"It's fine."

"That is not fine, that's—"

"I said it's fine." She yanked free. No time. Selina had died twice already. Third loop she'd lasted till 11:47—longest yet—which meant maybe twenty minutes before whatever killed her came around again. And Selina had the barrier key. The only thing that could get them past Karl's wards.

If Ivy found her before she died.