Chapter 52: The Forest of Ghosts in the WallsThe stairs under the tower went down forever.They spiraled tight, the stone slick with black slime, the air getting hotter, thicker, harder to breathe with every step, the only light coming from Lyra and Seraphine’s palms, silver and wavering, casting long, dancing shadows that looked too much like the screaming faces carved into the walls.The door had slammed shut behind them the second the last of the pack stepped over the threshold. No going back. Only down.Lila’s voice had gone silent after that one warning. The only sounds now were the soft crunch of their boots on the stone, the distant, constant drip of water, and the faint, layered whispers that started as soon as they were ten steps down, coming from the walls, from the dark, from inside their own heads.You left me to die.You should’ve saved me.It’s all your fault.Cole’s jaw tightened. He knew that trick. The King had used it. Morwen had used it. Every veil monster fed on g

Chapter 54: The Vow of the FiveThe first tendril of Morrigan’s rage hit Cole like a freight train.He threw himself between the Queen and Hale and Lila an instant before the black, serrated edge of her power sliced through the stone where they’d stood a heartbeat prior. The force of it caught him square in the chest, throwing him twenty feet across the ritual chamber, his ribs cracking on impact with the far wall. Stars exploded behind his eyes. His rifle clattered away, useless, empty.“Cole!” Jules screamed, scrambling to him, pressing her hands to the blood seeping through his shirt, her face white with terror.Morrigan laughed, low and rumbling, the sound shaking dust from the ceiling. The hundred wraiths swirling around her merged into her shadow, swelling her form to twenty feet tall, her silver eyes burning like twin suns, the crown on her head warping into a spiked halo of sharpened bone. The googly eyes Lila had glued there burned to ash, leaving only blackened pits in the s

Chapter 56: The Bay of Burning DocksThe first thing they smelled was smoke.Thick, acrid, stinking of burning wood and melted plastic and rot, rolling over the waves to meet the Widow’s Wail 20 miles out from the Blackrock coast. Tom leaned on the wheel, his jaw tight, squinting at the horizon where a pillar of black towered into the pale dawn sky, so wide it blotted out the sun over the port.“Elias didn’t just take the valley,” he said, spitting tobacco over the rail. “He burned the whole damn supply line first. Smart. Cuts off any help from the cities before anyone even knows what hit ’em.”Lila was perched on the bow, her scuffed soccer cleats dangling over the water, a folding knife Veyra had given her loose in her hand. She hadn’t said a word since the radio cut out. Her knuckles were white around the blade. Mia’s face kept looping in her head—braids tied with neon pink ribbons, laughing when they’d glued googly eyes to the principal’s car, gasping when Lila had shown her the w

Chapter 58: The Hill Above the ValleyThey reached the ridge at midnight.The trucks were parked half a mile back, hidden under thick pine boughs, engines off, no lights. They’d hiked the rest of the way up the steep, wooded slope in the dark, silent, single file, no talking, only hand signals, EJ sticking close to Hale, his small face tight, the silver flash Lila had seen not coming back, like it had never been there at all.They dropped to their bellies at the tree line on the ridge, looking down over the valley, and no one breathed.It was unrecognizable.The homestead, with its big front porch and marigold beds and oak tree, was gone. In its place stood a 20-foot-high black stone fortress, walls sharp and jagged, silver runes glowing along the battlements, Turned patrolling the top, crossbows in their hands. The community center was surrounded by chain-link fence topped with razor wire, pens built along the sides, packed full of the valley’s townsfolk—old Mrs. Henderson, the socce

Chapter 60: The Pyre and the PriceThe heat hit them like a fist to the chest.Flames roared up the pyre’s oak frame, 20 feet high in three seconds, turning the night bright as midday, thick black smoke curling into the sky so dark it blotted out the moon. Mia’s scream cut through the roar, thin and terrified, the silver chains around her wrists clinking as she thrashed, the gasoline fumes stinging every eye in the square.Elias’s grip on Lila’s ankle was like cold iron.He hauled her back down from the pyre frame, slamming her into the charred stage floor hard enough to make her teeth rattle, the silver folding knife skittering out of her hand. The bullet hole in his forehead was already gone, the knife wound in his chest sealed shut, no scar, no blood, just the crisp black suit still perfectly pressed. He smiled, slow and cruel, and tapped the locket around his neck—Sarah’s locket, the one with 3-year-old Lila’s photo inside.“Did you really think two cheap tricks could kill a man w