The next day, I was a wreck.

  I had slept all afternoon.

  Woken up for dinner.

  Then crawled straight back into bed.

  Even now, as I stared at the ceiling, I didn’t feel like moving.

  The guest room in Sebastian’s house wasn’t as cold as the hospital, but it was chilly enough for me to rex.

  Dolores had mentioned a bath yesterday.

  I ignored her.

  Elena’s arms hurt. Her face hurt.

  Not even water was allowed to touch her.

  I sat up slowly, still dazed.

  The hallway was too loud.

  Voices. Cttering. The endless shuffle of people moving things around.

  Why were there so many people in this house?

  I felt annoyed.

  Then, angry.

  Caruncle was thinking about Lopez.

  And not just him.

  His own family.

  I clenched Elena’s fingers, opening and closing them over and over, feeling them bend and stretch.

  I could still remember.

  The sensation of the basement.

  The darkness, the cold, the weight of silence.

  Caruncle was afraid.

  I could feel his fear drilling into my skull.

  He didn’t want to move forward.

  Didn’t want to go anywhere.

  He was ready to crawl into a tomb and sleep forever.

  And that made me even angrier.

  The noise outside, the chatter, the moving furniture, the fact that this wasn’t even our home—

  It all pressed in, suffocating.

  “Miss Elena! Time for breakfast!”

  Dolores.

  Standing in the doorway.

  I eyed her expectantly.

  No tray in her hands.

  I raised Elena’s arms, silently asking where the food was.

  Dolores chuckled. “Oh, did you think I was bringing it to you? No, no, no! In this house, everyone eats together.

  She grinned. “Besides, you’ve been in bed long enough! Time to get moving, miss!”

  Oh no.

  I had found someone even more annoying than Mortimer.

  Caruncle sat at the long dining table, surrounded by maids and house staff.

  There were at least ten of them.

  Dolores included.

  I checked out immediately.

  Letting Caruncle run on autopilot, chewing his dry bread like a ghost pretending to be alive.

  "She's beautiful!"

  A young maid whispered. Probably eighteen.

  I tried to tune it out.

  Tried to focus.

  I wasn’t going anywhere.

  Do you know why?

  If you were stuck on a lonely isnd, and your only company was a cat—

  Even if it was the ugliest cat in existence—

  You’d still love it.

  And if someone kicked, pissed, and farted on your cat—

  You’d want to kill them.

  Right?

  Right?

  That was how I felt about Caruncle.

  And everyone who hurt him was going to pay.

  "Doesn't she talk?"

  Another maid. Older. Gray hair, barely any wrinkles.

  "Oh no, she's mute, sadly," Dolores answered.

  Caruncle stared at the table.

  Chewing.

  I could still see his fingers.

  Not Elena’s.

  His.

  I remembered how they looked after all those years.

  The dark basement.

  The countless nights spent crying until his throat was raw, silent, dead.

  He cried until his eyes burned, like something was drilling into his skull.

  And I remembered it all.

  "She looks very shy, Miss."

  "Oh, let her be! She's probably half asleep!"

  "Half asleep?"

  "Well, I don’t know! My father eats half asleep sometimes when my mom calls him for dinner!"

  They were going to pay.

  No—

  Tenfold.

  A hundredfold.

  I was going to—

  …What was I thinking about again?

  "Look, look! She's blushing!"

  Wait.

  What?

  I blinked.

  The maids were giggling.

  "Miss, we know you can hear us! Why won't you look at us?"

  Oh.

  Caruncle was losing his mind.

  I could feel it.

  The fluttering in Elena’s stomach. The overwhelming heat in her chest.

  The emotions were pulling at me, unraveling my focus, scattering my thoughts.

  Elena’s hands were trembling.

  I could palpate the deep, frantic quivering in Caruncle’s heart.

  He was about to explode.

  He looked up.

  Gasp.

  The entire table froze.

  Ten pairs of eyes locked onto her.

  For a moment, nobody breathed.

  Then—

  "Oh! Look at her eyes!"

  "She’s so stunning, oh my God!"

  "Miss, you are so pretty!"

  Caruncle, absolutely overwhelmed, did the only thing he could think of.

  He smiled.

  ***

  The next few days blurred together.

  Mostly, I just y in bed, weak and frustrated, alternating between ugly crying and fantasizing about breaking Lopez’s neck.

  Nobody needs to hear about that.

  One useful thing I did?

  I asked Sebastian for a full report on the people we used to know.

  He obliged. No questions asked.

  The carriage rumbled over the cobblestone streets, its wheels grinding against uneven stone.

  I never got used to that sensation.

  Outside, the thick fog clung to the city like rot, swallowing up the cracked facades of once-grand buildings. Gas mps flickered weakly, their glow stretched into long, distorted shadows.

  The figures moving through the mist were silent, draped in tattered coats. Forgotten souls.

  It was… kinda sad, really.

  The carriage stopped.

  I turned away from the window.

  Sebastian climbed inside, breathless, looking like he’d been running.

  “Miss Elena.” His voice was tired.

  He held out a thick folder.

  “This is the report you requested.”

  I took it.

  Didn’t open it.

  Just gave him a long, tired stare.

  Sebastian sighed and opened it himself.

  The pages rustled in the quiet.

  “Valentin Periwinkle,” he began, “has become a wyer and political advisor.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  Sebastian kept reading. “He’s positioned himself as a force of influence. No record of him leading any revolutions in recent years, as you asked, but he’s managed to carve out a role for himself.”

  He frowned. “The detective’s notes say he’s using his Basilian ancestry to gain political traction, even though he was born Lucianan. Not fully accepted, but pying the game well.”

  I felt Elena’s lips curl into a smile.

  There was no warmth in it.

  Sebastian gnced up. “His profession suits him, miss. He could be useful. His influence in w means he could push for reforms—like the anti-svery legistion you were looking into.”

  I’d mentioned it to him before.

  It was the only real path forward if I wanted to box Lopez in.

  But the process would be slow. Painfully slow.

  The carriage jolted over a rough patch of stone.

  I didn’t look away from Sebastian.

  He flipped to the next page.

  “Percival…” Sebastian trailed off.

  He cleared his throat. “Merchant. Financial investor. Seems to have his hands in everything, including—” He hesitated. “Shadier ventures.”

  I rolled Elena’s eyes.

  Sebastian made a face like I’d just spped him with a fish.

  My lips twitched into a smile.

  Outside, we passed a crumbling monument.

  A statue of a soldier. I had no idea who he was.

  Didn’t care.

  Sebastian turned another page.

  “Zuriel.”

  A pause.

  “Still an aristocrat. Still a ndowner.”

  He flipped to the next name without bothering to eborate.

  I didn’t ask.

  The carriage turned sharply down a narrow street.

  The buildings here were made of adobe, all painted the same ugly brown.

  Why not use different colors?

  It was all so dull.

  I gnced back at Sebastian.

  He was staring at me.

  Like an idiot.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He cleared his throat and hurriedly flipped to the next page.

  “Evelyn has become an artist, miss.”

  I tilted my head.

  “What kind of artist?”

  “All kinds, apparently. Painting, sculpting, writing. She’s well known, but I haven’t actually seen any of her work. We could look into it, if you’re interested.”

  I wasn’t.

  But maybe I should be.

  I just nodded.

  Sebastian moved to the final name.

  “Felicity…”

  He sighed.

  “Not much to report.”

  He gnced at the notes. “She’s been living off her family’s wealth. Indulging in everything—food, drink, luxury. Parents are pressuring her to marry.”

  He tapped the page. “Not as easy to gather information on her. She keeps her affairs private.”

  I rested my chin on my hand, thinking.

  The carriage rolled on, the city pressing in with its familiar weight.

  So many people had moved forward.

  Yet I was still here.

  Still digging through old names and past lives, hoping to find something—anything—that mattered.

  My fingers tightened slightly on the folder.

  Outside, the buildings grew taller, denser, fading into the mist.

  The past was still waiting for me.

  And I wasn’t done with it yet.

  The carriage slowed as it reached a square.

  The fog had thickened, swallowing the buildings into ghostly silhouettes.

  I took a deep breath.

  Sebastian closed the folder. His face unreadable.

  “Do you personally know any of these people?”

  I didn’t nod.

  Didn’t shake my head.

  Didn’t answer at all.

  I just turned back to the city.

  To the cracked streets, the broken windows, the faces half-lost in the mist.

  What was bothering me wasn’t just them.

  It was everything.

  Nothing else had happened since I left.

  Caruncle had been one piece of the puzzle for independence, sure—

  But he was still just one piece.

  So why had everything stopped?

  Where was the revolution? The change?

  Had everyone just gone to sleep?

  Had they gotten comfortable? Lazy?

  The world we knew—

  The one we bled for—

  Was gone.

  Just like that.

  Poof.

  The carriage rolled forward, deeper into the city’s hollow heart.

  Its wheels cttered against the stone.

  A quiet, irregur rhythm.

  Those damn stones.

  Jagged. Uneven.

  Ruining what should have been a smooth ride.

  I yanked the folder from Sebastian’s hands.

  He let me.

  Didn’t say a word.

  I flipped through the pages myself.

  I needed to go step by step, or I was going to lose my mind.

  Lopez.

  I had to focus on Lopez first.

  But what could I even do?

  I knew a lot of things about this world, but not enough.

  Caruncle remembered the libraries, the books, the ws—

  But not much.

  Not enough.

  Seventeen years.

  No—nineteen.

  Nineteen years since he’d st been free.

  “Caruncle, this is fucked. We are fucked.”

  The words weren’t spoken, but they sat heavily in my head.

  I could barely remember his life.

  The further back I reached, the dizzier it got.

  Like trying to grab sand in a storm.

  Depressing.

  I didn’t know much about possession.

  But what I did know was that Caruncle—

  Half-asleep in the back of my mind—

  Seemed to think my actions were his.

  Maybe I’d figure it out ter.

  Maybe I’d write a Possession 101 someday.

  Long story short, though?

  Leaving the country was not an option.

  Caruncle was too much of a coward.

  Too afraid to repeat his past mistakes.

  Fine.

  We’d stay.

  But I was going to do something about that mopey, broken mess he’d become.

  Lopez.

  Lopez.

  Dear Lopez.

  What could I even do to him?

  Before Caruncle, Lopez had been sentenced to death.

  People thought he was a barbarian.

  The Circle of Mystics had been wiped out.

  But I couldn’t remember why.

  Caruncle hadn’t done his job.

  And now?

  Now our intel was rotting.

  The amount of effort it would take to get back to where we were supposed to be—

  Unreal.

  Back when they first met, Caruncle had asked Sebastian to gather arsenic and mercury.

  To kill Lopez.

  How?

  No clue.

  Maybe dump it in his tea.

  Maybe some other brilliant pn.

  Didn’t matter.

  It wasn’t going to cut it for me.

  We had to work smarter.

  Not harder.

  I stared at the folder.

  Everyone who had sold Caruncle had been doing well.

  Too well.

  A knot tightened in my stomach.

  I didn’t want them to talk to me.

  Didn’t want them to coexist with me.

  They were everything I despised.

  Power-hungry.

  Money-worshiping.

  Taking ownership of human souls like they were trading cattle.

  The more I read, the angrier I got.

  I hoped I would never—

  Not once—

  Be forced to beg them for anything.

  Not a pce to belong.

  Not a gss of water.

  Not a fucking thing.

  I hoped I would never have to base my worth on their rules, their twisted sense of power.

  I hoped I would never let myself be fooled again by the illusion that there was such a thing as a home.

  They were pathetic.

  They knew it.

  They just hid behind bureaucracy, shaking each other’s hands in secret, whispering their filthy deals, pretending they were better than the monsters they condemned.

  They weren’t the government.

  They weren’t the w.

  They weren’t anything.

  Just worthless, spineless creatures, picking the most back-assward excuse to destroy anyone they didn’t like.

  And all for what?

  To make it feel justified?

  To make it seem like they were the good guys?

  They knew the truth.

  This was never about the "good of the family."

  It was about control.

  Power.

  And themselves.

  Caruncle had cried for years.

  And they never cared.

  Not once.

  They vilinized him because he inconvenienced them.

  Because he made them uncomfortable.

  Because he existed.

  They were no better than Satan.

  Or Jazmin.

  They just pretended to be.

  They just wrote it down on paper, stamped it with a fucking seal, and called it righteous.

  It made me sick.

  They were going to pay.

  “Miss Elena?”

  Sebastian’s voice cut through my thoughts.

  “Are you alright? You’ve been frowning for a while.”

  I blinked.

  Covered my face with my hand.

  Thought, very clearly:

  "Leave me alone, you absolute goon."