MasukThe walk to the car feels longer than it should.Not distance-wise. Just . . . time stretching. As if every step is a bad idea and my body keeps taking them anyway.The parking lot is half-empty. Asphalt still warm under my sandals. Fireworks crack in the distance—somewhere behind the carnival tents—brief bursts of light reflected on car windows. Laughter carries. Music. Life. Normal shit happening while my chest feels like it’s being slowly cinched shut with wire.Dante opens the passenger door for me.Polite. Calm. Deadly.“Careful,” he says, hand hovering near my elbow like he might actually catch me if I fall.I don’t look at him. I slide into the seat and pull the door closed myself. The sound is too loud in the quiet. Too final.He gets in on his side, shuts his door, and starts the engine.The car hums to life. Smooth. Expensive-sounding. Everything about him is controlled—how he adjusts the mirror, how he checks his blind spot, how his hands rest on the steering wheel like it
The line inches forward.Music pounds from somewhere behind us—cheap pop, bass vibrating through the concrete. People laugh too loud. Someone drops a cup and curses. Sugar and oil clog the air, heavy enough that I taste it when I breathe through my mouth.I stand too straight beside Dante.My hands are folded in front of me, fingers laced tight like I’m praying. I don’t pray. I learned young it doesn’t help. But my body doesn’t care what I believe—it’s already bracing.The Ferris wheel turns overhead.Metal groans. Bolts shift. A carriage swings past, the glass fogged from breath and heat and bodies pressed too close. Someone inside shrieks with laughter. The sound crawls up my spine.Dante steps forward when the line moves. He doesn’t look back to check if I’m following.Of course he doesn’t.I go anyway.Every step feels wrong, it’s as though I’m walking into something that’s already decided. The teddy bear digs into my ribs, its stupid plush arm dangling uselessly. I consider dropp
Snow cracks under my boots as I step out of the airport terminal in Moscow. The cold slaps my face instantly, sharp enough to sting my eyes. My fingers tighten around the strap of the worn duffel bag Judith gave me. The air tastes like metal and smoke—everyone rushing past, bundled in dark jackets, hats pulled low, no one looking twice at me.Good. I need that. I need to vanish inside a crowd.The drive to the airport is a blur of headlights and the cold slap of night air through the cracked window. My heart thuds with every twist of the road. My baby sleeps through all of it, warm and unaware against me. Judith keeps glancing at the rearview mirror like something might crawl out of the dark behind us.Maybe it would’ve, if she waited ten minutes more.At the private bay, she hugs me so tight I feel her shaking. Judith never shows fear.But tonight, her voice breaks.“This is the last time, Lilith,” she whispers. “If I don’t go back to Seattle immediately, they’ll tear apart my life t
I wake up to cold.Not metaphorical cold. Actual, empty-sheet cold where his heat should be.My eyes open slowly, like I’m bracing for pain. The stone ceiling is the same. The iron torch brackets on the wall are still there. Dawn light seeps in thin and gray through the narrow window. The room smells faintly of antiseptic and sweat and something metallic I can’t quite scrub out of my nose anymore.I reach to my right before my brain catches up.My hand hits nothing.The sheets are flat. Undisturbed. Cold all the way through.My stomach drops anyway.I sit up too fast and the room tilts for half a second. I wait for the sound of breathing. For movement. For the soft weight of him behind me. There’s nothing. Just the distant echo of guards changing shifts somewhere down the hall and the low hum of the palace waking up.He’s gone.Relief hits first. Sharp and guilty. My shoulders loosen without my permission.Then something worse follows right behind it—this hollow, off-balance feeling i
“Does it scare you?”The words don’t echo. They don’t need to. The room is already tight enough, stone walls pressing in, iron biting into the air. I don’t answer. I don’t turn around. My fingers are still curled into the torn canvas, knuckles white, nails bent backward against the frame.My lungs forget how to work.“Yes,” I say finally, because lying feels stupid when he’s this close. “Everything about this place does.”Silence.Then a sound—fabric shifting. A step backward. Space returns in inches, not relief.“This is where they keep me,” Dante says.I swallow. My throat clicks. “Keep you.”“When it starts.”My jaw tightens. I repeat it before I can stop myself. “When what starts?”“The curse.”The word lands wrong. Too plain. Too small for a room like this.I let go of the painting. The cloth drops back into place, hiding the scratches beneath it like a lie patched too late. I turn slowly, because fast feels dangerous.Dante stands near the wall, one hand braced against the iron
The shape in front of me finally becomes clear enough that I realize it’s not a person—thank god—but the central post. Thick leather straps hang from it like dead limbs. The lantern’s weak glow catches the metal rings and sends a dull glint across the room.My lungs start working again, barely. I drag in a breath that tastes like damp stone and old iron. My robe slides down my arm again, and I yank it up, fingers shaking. The air here is colder than the hallway. It sinks into my skin, settles in my bones.I take one careful step forward.The floor is rough, uneven stone. Some bolts stick up enough that my toes catch them, making me stumble. I grab the wall and steady myself. The lantern on the far wall flickers with a sudden draft from the vent above. It throws shadows across the chains on the walls.Chains.There are more than I realized.Rows of them, some thicker than my wrist, hanging from rings set deep into the stone. The metal looks used. Not old and forgotten—used. Fresh scrat







