The manor doors slammed shut before Nessa could take her next breath.
The sound punched through the entry hall. Locks dropped inside the walls, one after another. Heavy. Final.
Dorian still had Vale by the throat.
“Put him down,” Nessa said.
His fingers tightened.
Vale’s boots scraped over the marble. His face had gone gray, but he was smiling. Blood ran from the corner of his mouth and dripped onto the floor between them.
“Dorian.” Nessa grabbed his wrist. “Put him down before your curse eats you alive.”
Dorian looked at her.
Black veins crawled up the side of his neck. The cut in his shirt had stopped bleeding, but the skin around it had turned dark and cracked. His eyes had gone red at the edges.
“He killed Marin,” Dorian said.
“I know.”
“He stood there while she begged.”
“I know.”
“So move your hand.”
“No.”
For one ugly second, she thought he might turn that rage on her.
Then Vale laughed. It came out wet and thin.
“Look at that,” he rasped. “The bride already knows how to hold the leash.”
Dorian slammed him into the wall.
Dust shook loose from the carved molding. Somewhere above them, glass shattered.
Nessa’s blood mark burned under her sleeve. Not the small cut she’d made to pull the night poison out of Dorian. The old mark. The stolen sigil she’d carried across three cities, hidden beneath layers of skin and lies.
It had started moving.
Not in her arm this time.
Inside her chest.
A sharp tug pulled her toward the back of the house.
Nessa jerked her gaze that way.
The corridor stood open beyond the entry hall. It hadn’t been open a moment ago. She was sure of that. The darkness inside seemed to lean toward her.
Dorian saw her looking.
“What is it?”
“The vault.”
“You’ve never been here.”
“I don’t need a map.”
Another tug hit her ribs. Her knees nearly buckled.
The sigil wanted out.
No. That wasn’t right.
It wanted in.
Nessa pressed one hand over her chest. “Your mother’s vault is calling me.”
Vale’s smile vanished.
Dorian noticed. “You know something.”
Vale swallowed blood. “She knows more than she should.”
Dorian shoved him harder. “Talk.”
“The house has chosen.”
“Talk, or I’ll break every finger before I break your neck.”
“Dorian.” Nessa pulled his wrist again. “We don’t have time.”
His eyes snapped to hers.
She pointed at the dark corridor. “The lock is reacting to me. If we want answers, that’s where they are.”
“And him?”
“Leave him.”
Vale made a weak sound. “You can’t. The doors won’t open until the blood—”
Dorian drove his fist into Vale’s stomach.
Vale folded with a grunt.
“Finish that sentence,” Dorian said.
Vale coughed. “Until the blood heir brings the key.”
Nessa’s mark burned hotter.
Dorian stared at her arm.
The sleeve was dark with blood. Her blood. It had soaked through the fabric when she burned the poison out of him. A thin red line slipped over her knuckles and dropped onto the marble.
The house answered.
A low groan rolled through the floor.
The walls shuddered. Red stains spread across the pale stone beneath their feet, thin at first, then faster. They crawled through the cracks like water searching for a drain.
Marin’s blood had already dried near the stairs.
Now the manor began bleeding fresh.
Dorian released Vale.
The old guard hit the floor and didn’t get up.
“Stay here,” Dorian told him.
Vale’s eyes lifted. “You think the house will let you leave?”
Dorian stepped over him. “I’m not leaving.”
Nessa caught his sleeve. “You can barely stand.”
“I can stand.”
“You’re shaking.”
“That’s the curse.”
“No, that’s you being stupid.”
His mouth twitched. It wasn’t a smile. Not quite.
“You saved me,” he said.
“Don’t make it weird.”
“You burned half the poison through your own blood.”
“And I’m regretting it already.”
“Liar.”
Nessa let go of his sleeve. “Keep talking and I’ll let the house eat you.”
They moved into the corridor.
Every step made the blood under their boots smear across the floor. The smell hit Nessa first—iron, wet stone, and something sweet gone rotten. The portraits lining the walls had been turned toward them.
Every painted Rook watched them pass.
Dorian stopped beneath the first one.
His mother stood in the portrait, dressed in silver, one hand resting on the shoulder of a young Dorian. She looked too alive. Her painted eyes followed Nessa.
Nessa stopped too.
“She looks angry,” she said.
“She always looked angry.”
“At you?”
“At everyone.”
“Must run in the family.”
Dorian glanced at her. “You’re the one threatening to let the house eat me.”
“See? We’re bonding.”
The portrait’s mouth opened.
Nessa grabbed Dorian’s arm.
A whisper slid out of the painted woman’s throat.
“Bring me the key.”
Dorian went still.
His face lost what little color it had left. “Mother?”
The painted woman turned her head toward Nessa.
“Not him,” she whispered. “The girl.”
The portrait split from chin to forehead.
Blood poured down the canvas.
Dorian yanked Nessa back as the frame dropped from the wall. It hit the floor and cracked. The painted eyes rolled toward her.
“Key,” the woman whispered again.
Then the canvas went black.
Nessa’s pulse hammered in her ears.
Dorian’s hand was still around her wrist.
“Let go,” she said.
He didn’t.
“Dorian.”
His fingers loosened. “You heard her.”
“I’m not deaf.”
“She called you the key.”
“Vale did too.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It means somebody in this house knows what I am.”
“What are you?”
Nessa looked at him. “You tell me.”
His jaw tightened.
There it was again. That pause. That tiny delay before every lie.
“You said the sigil was only evidence,” she said. “You said you needed me to open the vault because I was the only person who could break the seal.”
“I do.”
“You forgot to mention the house might call me a key.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Try again.”
His curse snapped across his skin. The black lines climbed higher, reaching his cheek.
Dorian leaned close. “I didn’t know what my mother left behind. I knew she sealed something. I knew the vault needed blood. That’s it.”
“And my blood?”
“I thought it was because of the sigil.”
“You thought?”
“I was guessing.”
“Great. I love being dragged into death traps based on your guesses.”
The pull in her chest grew stronger.
At the end of the corridor, a narrow iron door appeared where there had only been a blank wall. No handle. No hinges. A black circle sat in the center, cut through with seven thin lines.
Nessa knew that shape.
She had seen it burned into the stolen sigil the night she took it.
Her hand started shaking.
Dorian noticed. “What?”
“That mark.”
“You recognize it.”
“I recognize what it does.”
“Which is?”
“It opens things that were never meant to open.”
“Helpful.”
“Shut up.”
The door gave a soft click.
One of the seven lines turned red.
Nessa’s blood mark answered beneath her skin.
Pain ripped up her arm. She gasped and grabbed the wall. Her fingers dug into the stone. The old sigil pushed against her skin like a living thing trying to claw free.
Dorian caught her around the waist.
“Easy.”
“Don’t touch me.”
“You’re falling.”
“I said don’t—”
The door spoke.
Not with a voice from outside.
With hers.
“Dorian Rook.”
He froze.
The sound came from behind the iron. Nessa’s voice. Her exact voice. Same rough edge. Same breath catching at the end.
“Dorian Rook,” it said again. “Bring Nessa Quill.”
Dorian looked down at her.
Nessa stared at the door.
“Tell me that’s normal,” she said.
“It isn’t.”
“Good. We agree on one thing.”
The door continued.
“Bring the blood-marked thief.”
Dorian’s grip tightened around her waist.
Nessa looked at him. “You told the house my name?”
“No.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Then who the hell is inside?”
A knock came from the other side.
Three slow taps.
Nessa’s heart slammed against her ribs.
The mark burned so hard her vision blurred.
Dorian drew the short sword from his belt. His hand shook once, then steadied.
“You stay behind me,” he said.
“That’s adorable.”
“Nessa.”
“Move.”
She stepped toward the door.
Dorian blocked her. “It called for you.”
“Exactly.”
“That’s not a reason to walk into it.”
“It is when the thing inside knows my name.”
“Or it’s bait.”
“Everything around you is bait.”
The door knocked again.
This time, a voice whispered through the iron.
“Ness?”
Her lungs stopped working.
The corridor dropped away beneath her feet.
No one had called her that in years.
No one except her brother.
She took one step forward.
Dorian caught her hand. “Who is that?”
Nessa couldn’t answer.
“Nessa.”
The voice came again, softer now.
“Ness, please. I can’t hold it shut.”
Her brother.
Tavin.
The last time she’d seen him, he had been bleeding in an alley behind the old sigil market. He’d shoved the stolen mark into her palm and told her to run. Then the guild enforcers had dragged him into the smoke.
She had searched every prison, every morgue, every black-market clinic in Veyra City.
Nothing.
Not a body. Not a message.
Now he was behind the vault door.
Dorian’s voice cut through the shock. “You said your brother was missing.”
“He is.”
“That sounds like him.”
“I know what he sounds like.”
“Then you know this could be a trap.”
“I know.”
“Nessa, don’t.”
She pulled her hand free.
The door’s red line flared.
Blood burst from the cut on her palm. It didn’t drip down. It lifted, thin strands twisting through the air toward the lock.
Dorian grabbed her shoulders. “Stop.”
“I’m not doing it.”
The mark dragged her closer.
Her boots scraped across the marble. The blood reached the iron circle and slid into the first line.
The entire house screamed.
Windows exploded somewhere behind them. The ceiling cracked. Blood spilled from the walls in thick red streams, running down the portraits and over the floor.
Dorian pulled Nessa back.
The door pulled harder.
Her shoulder nearly tore from its socket.
“Cut the connection!” Dorian shouted.
“I’m trying!”
“Try faster!”
“Great advice!”
The black veins on his neck spread beneath his jaw. His curse was reacting to the house. The air around him smelled like burned metal.
He wrapped both arms around Nessa and hauled her backward.
For one second, the pull stopped.
Then the voice behind the door cried out.
“Ness! He brought me here!”
Nessa went cold.
Dorian’s arms locked around her.
“Who?” she shouted.
Her brother answered.
“The heir.”
Dorian’s face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Nessa saw it.
She saw the tiny drop of his eyes, the way his grip went still around her ribs.
“You know where he is,” she said.
Dorian didn’t answer.
“You know my brother.”
“I know the name.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
The door shook under another impact.
Tavin screamed from behind it.
“Dorian, don’t let her open it!”
Nessa spun in Dorian’s arms and shoved him back. “What the hell is happening?”
His sword lowered a fraction.
“I told you,” he said. “I don’t know.”
“You knew him.”
“I knew of him.”
“From where?”
Dorian’s mouth opened.
The lock split.
A narrow crack appeared down the center of the iron door. Red light leaked through it, bright enough to paint Dorian’s face in blood.
A hand pressed against the crack from the other side.
The skin looked gray. The fingers were too thin. Blood ran from the nails.
Nessa took one step back.
The hand lifted.
A mark covered the palm.
Her mark.
Same seven lines. Same broken circle. Same cut through the center that she’d carved into her own skin when she stole the sigil.
But this one had been burned into the hand years ago.
Dorian whispered, “That’s not your brother.”
The hand curled around the edge of the opening.
Nessa’s blood mark answered with a violent pulse.
The vault door cracked wider.
Something on the other side began pulling itself through.