The castle felt different that morning. Heavier somehow, as if the stone walls themselves were bracing for something I wasn’t supposed to see.

  I’d noticed it the moment I woke, the footsteps in the hall, the murmur of voices carrying through the door.

  And then, the order came from Grabber.

  “Stay in your room.”

  Calm, controlled, as always. He didn’t raise his voice, didn’t threaten. Just that steady gaze of his, and the command he expected me to obey. But the look in his eyes told me more than the words did. Something important was happening. Something they didn’t want me near.

  Which meant, of course, that I was going to find a way near it.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, every muscle taut, straining to catch the rhythm of footsteps beyond the door. Grabber’s stride was heavy, purposeful, and it carried down the hall like a warning bell. I held my breath until the sound faded, then forced myself to wait longer still, counting heartbeats, listening for the creak of the floorboards, the scrape of boots, any sign he might double back.

  Only when silence stretched, thick and convincing, did I move.

  As soon as the hall quieted, I pulled the familiar bobby pin from my hair. The lock gave out after only a few breaths, like it already knew resistance was pointless with me. I slipped out, Bagel padding silently at my heels, and followed the hum of voices through the upper corridor.

  The bannister on the second floor gave me the perfect vantage point. Below, the great hall spread wide, light pouring in from high windows, flames snapping in the hearth. And standing there, two men I didn't recognize.

  One looked strikingly like Grabber, with the same playful eyes and broad shoulders, though his confidence seemed practiced than Grabber’s. Beside him stood another man, shorter than the other with darker hair. His hair was darker, his posture much more relaxed.

  Grabber stood with Riven and Thorne, greeting the two men with a clipped clasp of forearms. Their words were slightly muddled from this distance, with some sentences clearer than others as they paced around the room. carried, steady and deliberate.

  “Disturbances in town,” the newcomer was saying, his tone clipped with annoyance. “And whispers further out, in the villages.”

  “What kind of whispers?” Riven asked, his silver eyes narrowed.

  “That an unmarked female has been found.”

  My stomach turned to stone.

  “They don’t believe it, of course,” the one man went on, dismissive. “Most think it’s impossible. Every female has been hunted, found, marked. As it should be.”

  Silence stretched thick between the men, the fire popping in the pause.

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  The visitor’s voice dropped lower, his words pressing into the stillness like a blade. “If you do have her, if she truly exists, you must be certain. Search her entire body for the mark. And if there isn’t one… claim her. Without hesitation.”

  The air left my lungs.

  None of the men refuted him. They went on speaking of duty, of bloodlines, of keeping order. But every word came wrapped in shadows. Hints. Slivers. A truth they circled without naming. Why there were no other women like me, and why I hadn’t seen any supernatural women. Their silence said enough: the rest were gone. Erased. Dead.

  I backed away from the bannister, heart hammering, fingers digging crescents into my palms.

  If they searched me and found nothing…

  If they marked me themselves…

  The thought made my throat tighten. This wasn’t just about survival anymore. Whatever storm I had stumbled into, it was bigger than me, bigger than Bagel. Something was unraveling beneath the surface, and I was trapped in the middle of it.

  I couldn’t stay here listening to this craziness, not with my mind buzzing with whispers, half-heard conversations, and the glimpses of those marked women. I needed to get out, and I needed to find the truth. The urge to peek, to gather scraps of truth wherever I could, had been impossible to ignore.

  So I slipped out from my hiding spot quietly, with Bagel padding after me like a shadow, and moved in the opposite direction of the hum of voices down the corridor. Every creak of the floorboards made my heart skip a beat, every door I passed felt like a possible trap. And yet, even as adrenaline surged through me, I felt a flicker of power, I was moving, observing, gathering pieces of a puzzle no one wanted me to see.

  By the time I slid back into my room, doors latched and bobby pin stowed, my hands were trembling from the rush of it all. I barely had time to settle Bagel onto the bed before footsteps sounded outside.

  Grabber opened my door and walked over to stand near the window, arms crossed, his presence filling the space like he had been part of the walls all along. His gaze tracked me immediately, sharp and unblinking, as if he’d known exactly when I’d return.

  “You stayed put like I asked?” he said finally, his voice quiet, calm. Too calm.

  I forced myself to nod, the lie catching on my tongue like splinters.

  “Yes.”

  His eyes lingered, a shade too intent, studying the set of my shoulders, the uneven catch of my breath. He didn’t move, didn’t blink, and I swore he could hear the way my heart rattled against my ribs.

  “Good,” he said at last. A single word, neutral enough. But something in the way he said it made me doubt he believed me.

  I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, avoiding his gaze. “Is it over? Whatever it was?”

  “Not yet.” His reply came clipped, weighty, like he was choosing every syllable with care. “You don’t need to worry about it. Just… stay where I tell you.”

  There was no threat in his tone, not really. But there was something else, something heavier. A warning, maybe. Or a test.

  He pushed off the wall and moved closer, slow and deliberate, until the air between us tightened. His eyes flicked briefly to my hands, to the faint red crescents I hadn’t realized my nails had left in my palms. Then, he looked up at my face again, with one of his hands reaching up to touch one of my pink cheeks.

  “Strange,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You look like you’ve been running.”

  My throat went dry. “Maybe I am just exhausted from being locked in.”

  That earned me the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth, something between amusement and frustration. His gaze softened for a fraction of a second, then hardened again, unreadable.

  “Careful,” he said finally, stepping past me toward the door. His shoulder brushed mine as he passed, deliberate, like punctuation. “Locks exist for a reason.”

  And then he was gone, leaving me standing in the middle of the room with Bagel pressed warm against my ankle, my pulse pounding and my lie still burning in my throat.

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