Chapter 5 The Feast of Worms

They called it a seizure. Said he had fallen from his horse during the inspection of the port. But Victor Lemoyne knew better.

The whispers had started that morning-slithering in with the fog that rolled off the bayou. He couldn't breathe without feeling like something crawled under his skin. He had not eaten in two days. Every bite tasted like ash.

He saw her.

In every window. Every puddle.

Isadora.

She would not speak. She would only watch.

Victor had once been her friend-her closest, perhaps. They were children together, climbing rooftops, chasing stray cats and saints. He kissed her once beneath a cypress tree and called it fate.

But when the flames came, and the soldiers asked who harbored witches, he didn't even stutter.

He pointed.

And now he was prey.

Victor sat in his study, fingernails dirtied from scratching his own arms raw. The walls creaked with breath. His house had begun to rot around him, slowly, as though it, too, were ashamed.

The servants refused to enter. His wife had taken the children and fled across the river. She left no note. Just silence.

And tonight, the mirror in the hallway wept.

Actual tears-black, thick, and warm.

He knew what this was.

A reckoning.

The worms came after midnight.

First, from the gaps between the floorboards-tiny things, white and twitching. Then in droves. He stomped them, burned them, screamed at them. They only multiplied.

They whispered in voices he remembered.

His father.

His priest.

Isadora's mother.

He fled through the hall, crashing into furniture, breaking a lamp on his way to the cellar. The worms followed. Some now large enough to wrap around his ankles. Their mouths were teeth. Human teeth.

He locked himself inside the wine room.

Darkness.

Silence.

Only his breathing remained.

Until a soft knock came.

Once.

Twice.

Then silence.

He pressed his ear to the door.

And heard her.

"You told them where to find me."

Her voice was colder than the grave.

"You pointed with a smile."

"I'm sorry!" he gasped. "I was-scared. We were children!"

"Children do not summon flames."

He sobbed. "Please, Isadora. Please."

The door didn't open. It melted.

Black rot dissolved it like acid. Through the opening, she stepped in.

Barefoot. Bloodless. Not smiling.

She said nothing as he collapsed to his knees, clutching her hem like a child.

"You were my friend," he wept.

"And you sold me for safety."

"I-I didn't think they'd-"

"They burned my family alive, Victor."

The worms began to crawl up the walls now. Forming shapes-faces. Screaming.

One looked like her father.

She leaned in, eyes glimmering like oil in lamplight.

"I've made a place for you."

He whimpered. "Please-don't kill me."

"Oh, I won't," she whispered.

She touched his forehead.

And he began to split.

Not skin. Not flesh. But soul.

A high, keening wail filled the cellar as something peeled out of him. A transparent double-screaming, identical, and shaking. His true self, pulled from the meat like a rotten string of silk.

The body collapsed. But the soul remained, hanging, twitching.

The worms surrounded it.

And feasted.

Victor Lemoyne died that night.

But his screams echoed for hours after the body turned cold.

---

At Harrow House, Isadora sat in the garden. A dead rose bloomed black in her hand. She watched as the moon dipped behind storm clouds and a second shadow passed overhead-shaped like a winged man with no face.

The Ghede Na Rouje was awake now. Not fully risen, not yet-but aware. Stretching. Scenting.

It spoke to her more often.

Not always with words.

Sometimes with visions.

A baby crying in a cradle of bones.

A forest where every tree had a noose.

A city with no mouths, only eyes.

She was no longer just its vessel.

She was becoming its bride.

Inside the house, the mirrors were filling. Not with reflections, but occupants. Every soul taken. Every life shattered. They did not fade-they remained, writhing, whispering, reaching. The house was no longer just alive.

It was a prison.

And a church.

And she was its god.

But revenge was not complete.

There were others.

She opened the book again, now bound in stitched skin. Names glowed like embers.

Father Renoux.

Marshal Bex.

Sister Colette.

Mayor Dulac.

They had tasted power at her family's funeral pyre.

Now they would taste ash.

And before the end, she would bring the whole city to its knees.

One scream at a time.