Chapter 40 · The Name She Chose

The first thing Evelyn heard was water.

It dripped through the broken ceiling of the Sanctum in slow, patient beats. Drop. Drop. Drop. Each one struck the black stone beside her head and burst into silver beads.

The second thing she heard was her own breathing.

The third was a voice beneath the ruin.

“You chose wrong.”

Evelyn opened her eyes.

A shard of glass lay half-buried in the dust three feet away. Something moved inside it—not a reflection, not quite. A pale oval face surfaced beneath the glass, its eyes shining like polished mercury.

Evelyn pushed herself upright. Pain flashed through her ribs, but the old contract marks on her skin were gone. Where the Sanctum’s silver lines had once crawled beneath her flesh, there was only raw skin and blood.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The eyes in the shard widened.

“You know her.”

The voice sounded like stone grinding under a grave.

Evelyn’s fingers curled against the floor. A terrible emptiness opened behind her breastbone. She had been carrying it since she woke beneath the falling core—an absence shaped exactly like a person.

“I know no one.