Chapter 6 · Echoes in the Contract

The whisper came from behind the black stone.

Noa—

It did not sound like a voice carried through air. It slid beneath her skin, thin as a needle and twice as cold. The wall drank the name before it reached the chamber, but the shape of it remained inside her skull: a syllable with no beginning, a missing piece that made every bone in her body ache.

She pressed one blood-slick hand against the stone.

The wall pulsed.

Ink seeped from the carved names around her fingers. It gathered in the grooves, crawled upward, and rearranged itself into letters she could not read. Somewhere beneath the floor, gears turned with the slow, grinding patience of a buried beast.

Behind her, Evelyn swore.

—Take your hand off it.

Noa tried. Her fingers would not move.

The black stone had become warm. Not hot—alive. It gripped her palm with a pressure that climbed into her wrist, then her elbow. Her wound opened again. Blood ran down her sleeve and vanished into the wall.

Another whisper curled through the chamber.

A name. Her name, perhaps. Or the shape of one.

Noa’s lungs locked.

Evelyn crossed the distance between them in three strides.