Page 56 of Shattered & Returned

My magic merged with the shimmering darkness. Strands of light and shadow wove together into a glittering net. The ward wasn’t rejecting me but welcoming me.

No time to marvel at this revelation. The realization struck harder: this protection had never been meant to keepmeout.

I slipped through the door, not expecting to find myself in a scholar’s sanctum rather than living quarters.

My breath caught at its vastness. Three stories of vaulted space arched above me, the ceiling alive with shifting constellations. Floor-to-ceiling windows rose from the dark stone floor, overlooking Obsidian Wilds.

Bookshelves lined the walls with ancient tomes, their leather bindings aged to burnt umber and wine-dark crimson. Between them, glass cases displayed artifacts that hummed with dormant power, scrolls that shimmered, daggers that wept shadow.

The study’s heart held an obsidian desk, its surface pristine except for three items: a brass lamp glowing softly, a yellowed manuscript, and a neat stack of papers. The leather chair sat slightly ajar, as if Ravencrux had merely risen to pour himself a drink and would return at any moment.

I ghosted across the room, praying the secret I sought was here, hidden among the countless books or locked in one of the desk drawers that seemed to whisper to me.

Answering the pull, I headed straight for a vintage desk near the fireplace. Its inlaid black gemstones winked in the dim light. The first drawer opened easily, then the second—nothing but writing implements inside.

The third resisted, humming with dark energy. I knew instinctively what it wanted. In the stories, dark wards always demanded blood, and mine might just be the key. I bit down hard on my finger until the skin split, then pressed the bleeding wound to the lock. It clicked open, recognizing me.

Beneath a magnifying glass lay a stack of photographs. The top image, another me, another not-me, knocked the cold breath from my lungs. A woman with my face stared listlessly ateternity, her throat marred by violent purple fingerprints. She’d been strangled to death.

I lifted the first photograph with trembling fingers. Beneath it lay a yellowed black-and-white newspaper clipping. The woman’s charred remains still bore the ghost of my features. Though the image lacked color, I knew. Another redhead.

My gaze snagged on the date:November 17, 1923.

The caption named her:Lady Nora Shore.

Photo after photo slid through my hands. A dozen faces. A dozen deaths. Each woman wore my likeness, each flame-haired, each frozen forever at the cusp of twenty.

The final image stole what little breath remained—a bidding paddle raised beside my doppelgänger, her wrists already bound for sacrifice.

A red note scrawled across the margin:All perished before their twentieth birthday.

Oh gods, I was going to be sick.

I fought to keep my dinner down. Terror unfurled in my blood, its dark tendrils pulsing with my frantic heartbeats.

Six months. That’s all I had until my twentieth birthday, until my name joined this gallery of the dead. Fury burned through me, acidic and bright. I wouldn’t be another silenced victim. I’d carve justice from stone if I had to.

Yet even with Sebastian’s accusations and the evidence glaring back at me, I forced myself to think clearly. Facts first. The killer was clearly immortal. Aside from the three I knew—Stardust, Ravencrux, Kingsley—who else might walk these halls? Sebastian himself also moved with unnatural grace, his power carefully veiled.

I drew a shuddering breath. The pieces fit too neatly and too conveniently. The unlocked drawer. The ward that welcomed me like an old friend. This wasn’t evidence discovered; it was evidenceplanted.

If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Sebastian or Ravencrux, or both were herding me toward some unseen end. They were enemies, and enemies didn’t work in tandem.

This wasn’t merely a game. It was a taunt. A sinister challenge carved in blood and left in my path.

My fingers shook as they riffled through the photographs again, each face a mirror of my own impending fate. The chill in my bones drilled deeper as I realized the implications. Either I was seeing a killer’s trophy or I was being led to believe an elaborate lie, a frame job.

Ask a better question.The thought sliced through my panic like an ice spike.

I inhaled sharply. The real mystery wasn’twhobutwhy me?How could dozens of dead women across centuries share my exact face?

A sudden scrape at the door shattered the silence. My heart vaulted into my throat. I jammed the photos back into the drawer and lunged for the center desk, sliding beneath it just as the door groaned open and snicked shut.

Paws whispered across stone, approaching my hiding place.

I held my breath, pressing my back against the wood, my pulse a war drum in my ears.

Then, impossibly, six glowing crimson eyes peered at me. Not one head, but three, each studying me with unsettling intelligence. A hellhound. The gatekeeper of the Underworld, standing in Ravencrux’s study as casually as a house pet.

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