Chapter 9 Blood at the threshold

The wards broke at dawn.

Harrow House, once a fortress of shadow and fury, began to groan like a dying animal. Floorboards swelled with blood. Walls bulged as if trying to breathe. The mirrors cracked-not from pressure, but from within.

Maman Chantelle stood in the threshold, her bare feet bleeding from the salt line she'd drawn around the house. Her eyes rolled white, lips chanting the forbidden rites-those even the spirits feared.

Inside, Isadora waited.

Not afraid.

Not angry.

Something more dangerous.

Ready.

---

"I warned you," Chantelle said, voice thick with centuries. "You've turned your grief into rot. Your vengeance has no bottom."

"You taught me that pain is power," Isadora replied. "You just never thought I'd use it better than you."

The candlelight guttered.

The air stiffened like a held breath.

The Ghede Na Rouje stirred beneath them, whispering in two voices now-Isadora's and something far older.

"She comes to unmake. She comes to consume."

The spirit had grown bold. Hungry.

And the house fed it.

From the stairs, the souls of the damned clawed toward the ceiling. Dulac's twisted echo still dripped through the walls. Father Renoux, eternally unraveling, writhed inside a stained-glass frame, screaming silently.

And still Isadora stood calm.

"You were the last hope of the line," Chantelle said. "But now, you're just its weapon."

"I am its fire," Isadora whispered. "Its reckoning."

Then she moved.

Fast.

A black blur across the floorboards.

She struck first, fingers blooming with darkness, reaching for the old woman's heart.

But Chantelle had prepared.

The bone blade cut through the air, scraping against Isadora's ribs-not flesh, not bone, but something shifting beneath. Isadora staggered back, snarling.

"Your soul is splitting," Chantelle hissed. "You're becoming it."

"Then you're already too late."

---

The mirrors shattered. Every single one.

And from them spilled the reflections.

Twisted versions of Isadora-smiling, sobbing, screaming.

They circled the room like vultures, their mouths stitched, their eyes glowing. Chantelle tried to cast a circle of fire-but the fire recoiled, afraid.

The Ghede Na Rouje had fully awakened.

And it spoke now through Isadora's voice:

"I am the breath between heartbeats. I am the crack in the mirror. I am every scream that was swallowed. I am the river's secret."

Chantelle gritted her teeth and drove the blade deep into the floor.

The house screamed.

Spirits fled. The dead clawed at the walls, trying to escape.

The Ghede recoiled.

And Isadora fell to her knees, coughing blood.

---

For a moment-a moment-there was silence.

Chantelle knelt beside her, one hand reaching to cradle the girl's face.

"You can still stop it," she whispered. "You haven't crossed all the way."

Isadora blinked. Her breath trembled.

But her smile returned-slow, cruel, unnatural.

And then-she opened her mouth.

Not to speak.

To release.

A shriek erupted from within her, not sound, not air-a soulstorm.

The room exploded in black light.

The house convulsed.

The Ghede tore free.

A figure emerged from her skin-eight feet tall, draped in shadow, antlers of bone, eyes like dying stars. Its fingers were too long. Its mouth too wide.

The true form of the spirit Isadora had fed.

And behind it, Isadora rose-alive.

But hollow.

The Ghede had not taken her life.

It had merged with her.

---

Chantelle wept.

Not for herself.

But for the city.

Because this was not revenge anymore.

This was unmaking.

---

In the French Quarter, people awoke screaming.

The sky had turned violet-black.

Birds flew backward. Dogs spoke in Latin. The dead scratched at graveyard gates.

The river stopped moving.

And every child born that hour would carry a crescent-shaped mark beneath their tongue.

---

Isadora stood at the top of Harrow House, the Ghede behind her, whispering in the wind.

Only two names remained:

Sister Colette. Marshal Bex.

The final architects of her pain.

But more than revenge stirred in her heart now.

She felt it-

the craving.

To undo everything.

To make the world taste what she had.

And she had the power to do it.

Behind her, the house cracked open like an egg, spewing fireflies made of blood. The spirits of the dead watched, waiting.

Not for justice.

But for command.

Isadora raised her hands.

And the sky trembled.