Chapter 5 The Hall of the Damned

The museum's back alley reeked of rotting meat and damp stone. Elian pressed herself against the butcher shop's wall, her pulse hammering in her throat as she stared at the blood welling from her thumb. The cut was small-just a pinprick-but it burned like frostbite.

Mira grabbed her wrist, examining the wound under the flickering streetlamp. "We need to clean this. Now." Her voice shook. "That statue... it wasn't just stone, was it?"

Before Elian could answer, Jason whipped around, his flashlight beam slicing through the mist. "Did you hear that?"

A sound echoed from the museum's broken window-the slow, deliberate scrape of something heavy being dragged across marble floors.

Scrrr-thud.

Scrrr-thud.

Elian's pendant turned ice-cold against her skin.

"Go," she breathed.

They ran.

The hostel door slammed behind them, the sound too loud in the sleeping building. Jason immediately began barricading the door with a chair, his hands trembling.

"Okay. Okay. So we just hallucinated all that, right?" He laughed, high and unsteady. "Bad stew. Shared psychosis. Super logical explanations-"

"Jason." Mira's voice was steel. "Shut up."

Elian sank onto her bed, staring at her bleeding thumb. The blood looked wrong in the lamplight-darker than it should be, almost black where it smeared across her skin.

Mira rummaged through her bag for the first-aid kit. "Tell me exactly what happened in that room."

Elian opened her mouth, but the words tangled in her throat. How could she explain the way the statue's eyes had changed? The way the runes had flared crimson like veins pumping blood? The way something inside her had answered when Raelith-

A knock at the door.

All three froze.

"Elian?" Mrs. Lowell's voice, muffled through the wood. "Are you awake?"

Jason mouthed oh shit as Mira shoved the bloody tissues under the bed. Elian forced her voice steady. "Y-yes?"

The door creaked open. Mrs. Lowell peered in, her graying hair mussed from sleep. "I heard noise. Is everything-" Her gaze landed on Jason. "Mr. Carter. Why are you in the girls' room at..." She checked her watch. "One seventeen AM?"

Mira blurted, "We were having a debate!"

"A debate." Mrs. Lowell's eyebrow arched.

"About... Gothic architecture!" Mira gestured wildly at her guidebook. "The, uh, flying buttresses at the cathedral?"

Mrs. Lowell sighed. "To your own room, Jason. Now. Girls, lights out."

As the door closed behind them, Elian caught Jason's whisper: "Flying buttresses? Really?"

The moment the lock clicked, Mira rounded on Elian. "Your hand."

The bleeding hadn't stopped.

Elian dreamed of teeth.

Sharp ones. Sinking into her throat as hands-cold, so cold-pressed her into silk sheets. She should have fought. Should have screamed. But the pain melted into something hotter, sweeter, until her gasps weren't from fear but-

She woke gasping, her skin feverish, the pendant stuck to her sweat-slicked chest.

Morning light filtered through the curtains. Mira's bed was empty, a note on the pillow: Gone to breakfast. You looked dead asleep.

Elian peeled the pendant away, hissing as it took a layer of skin with it. The silver had left an angry red mark-a perfect crescent moon.

Downstairs, the dining hall buzzed with chatter. Jason, uncharacteristically quiet, pushed a muffin toward her as she sat. Mira leaned in. "You look worse."

Elian touched the raw mark on her chest. "Feel worse."

Mrs. Lowell clapped for attention. "Today's schedule has changed. The museum is... unexpectedly closed." Her gaze lingered on Elian just a beat too long. "Instead, we'll tour the-"

A scream cut her off.

Outside, a crowd had gathered in the square, their voices rising in panic. Elian pushed through just in time to see two policemen carrying a stretcher-and on it, a body covered by a bloodstained sheet. A pale hand lolled out, the fingers ending in ragged stumps.

"Another one," a woman whispered. "Just like the butcher last week."

Jason went very still. "The butcher?"

The local nodded. "Found in his shop with his throat torn out. They say the Night's Children have returned."

Elian's pendant pulsed once, hard enough to bruise.

The hostel bathroom mirror showed the truth Elian couldn't voice.

Dark circles bruised her under-eyes. Her lips were chapped, her skin sallow. And her pupils-

Her pupils were wrong.

The black had bled outward, swallowing the green of her irises until her eyes looked almost...

No.

She blinked rapidly. Just the light. Just exhaustion.

Then why did her reflection smile when she didn't?

The pendant thrummed against her chest, and suddenly, she knew where she needed to go.

The museum's front doors were chained, but the side window they'd broken still gaped open. Elian slipped inside alone, the pendant's pull too insistent to ignore.

The Hall of the Damned waited just as she'd left it-except now, the statue's plinth stood empty. Cracks radiated outward from where it had been, the marble floor split like ice giving way.

And the runes...

The runes still glowed faintly, their crimson light pulsing in time with her pendant.

"You came back."

The voice wasn't in her head this time.

It came from behind her.

Elian turned.

Raelith stood in the shadows, his form wavering like smoke given shape. He was taller than the statue had suggested, his shoulders broad beneath a coat that seemed stitched from darkness itself. His face was pale as moonlit marble, his lips red as the blood still oozing from her thumb.

And his eyes...

Midnight blue. Endless.

Just like in her dreams.

Elian's breath hitched. "You're not real."

His smile showed fangs. "Aren't I?"

Then he stepped into the light-and the world shifted.

Memories that weren't hers flooded her mind:

-a dagger slipping between Raelith's ribs, her own hand (Seraphina's hand) holding the hilt-

-a scream tearing from his throat as the curse took hold-

-centuries of sleep, of hunger, of waiting-

Elian staggered, the visions threatening to swallow her whole.

Raelith caught her wrist, his grip freezing. "You feel it now, don't you?" He pressed her bleeding thumb to his lips. "Our bond."

The moment her blood touched his tongue, the runes erupted.

Crimson light flooded the hall, the symbols burning themselves into Elian's vision. The pendant seared her skin, the pain so intense she screamed-

-and Raelith laughed, the sound rich and dark and alive.

"Mine," he whispered.

Then the museum doors burst open, and Mrs. Lowell's voice cut through the chaos:

"ELIAN CARTER, WHAT IN GOD'S NAME-"

Raelith vanished like smoke in wind.

But the runes kept burning.

And Elian's blood...

Her blood was now his.