The crypt should have been silent.
But Ivy’s voice, twisted and unrecognizable, filled the chamber like smoke that choked the air before the fire.
Beckett moved first.
He stepped in front of Magnolia, blade drawn, shielding her with his body even though his hands trembled at his sides. Ivy or whatever had taken root inside her tilted her head and smiled.
Her eyes were still Ivy’s shape, still Ivy’s color blue-gray, almond-shaped but beneath the surface, sothing else flickered. Black veins pulsed from the corners of her eyes like spiderwebs, branching into her cheekbones and temple.
"Ivy," Magnolia said, keeping her voice low, "if you’re still in there fight it."
"There is no Ivy," the voice said. Not hers. Not even human.
It was layered, like two voices overlapping: Ivy’s familiar tone, and beneath it, sothing cold and masculine and ancient.
Beckett raised his blade. "Step back or I won’t hesitate."
"You hesitate every day," the thing said, eyes flicking to him. "You hide behind prophecy and blades, but your soul reeks of doubt."
Beckett’s jaw flexed. "Keep talking."
Magnolia whispered, "No. Don’t provoke it."
But it was too late.
The thing inside Ivy moved.
One blink and she was gone from the crypt entrance vanished like mist. Magnolia turned sharply, senses flaring, wolf rising within her.
Behind them.
She was behind them.
Beckett spun and slashed.
Steel t flesh but just barely.
Ivy or the thing in her body recoiled, laughing, blood dripping down her arm. "Silver. Clever. But it won’t kill what was never born."
Magnolia stepped between them, palms out, voice low. "What do you want?"
"To complete what was started," it said. "To open the gate fully. To unbind Camille."
Magnolia’s heart slamd against her ribs. "You’re the one that marked her."
"No. She marked herself. In her dreams. In her fear. She opened the door, and I walked through."
"You’re lying."
"You saw the pact. Written in her blood. You think that was done to her? She signed it. Willingly. To forget. To sleep."
"That’s not possible."
"Everything is possible when pain is greater than reason."
Beckett’s voice was hoarse. "Why now? Why co after Magnolia?"
The thing stepped forward, one bare foot at a ti. "Because she’s the bond. The other half. She is the moon’s echo. The only thing left between us and ascension."
Magnolia’s wolf snarled.
"You won’t take her," Beckett said. "You won’t get either of them."
"I already have," it whispered.
Ivy’s body shuddered.
Then collapsed.
The possession was gone. Just like that.
Beckett lunged forward and caught her before her head struck stone.
"Ivy?" he whispered, shaking her. "Ivy!"
She groaned, lashes fluttering, eyes wide with panic. "What... what happened? Beckett? Why are you ?"
She looked at Magnolia.
Then at the blood on her hands.
"Oh gods," she whispered. "I felt it. I couldn’t stop it. He he showed things, places, faces I didn’t know "
"You were possessed," Magnolia said calmly, though her heart was still hamring.
"I didn’t want Camille he showed her. She was standing in fire. Her arms were open. And she said my na like she knew ."
Beckett lowered her gently. "You need to rest."
"No!" Ivy clutched his shirt. "He’s coming through her. And when he does, it won’t stop with her. It’ll take everything. This whole pack. The bloodlines. The bond."
Magnolia stood frozen.
Everything she’d feared. Everything she’d tried to deny was real.
Ashriel was no longer whispering.
He was speaking.
And worse he was listening.
By nightfall, Ivy was locked under guard in the northern infirmary. Not in a cage. But surrounded by silver wards and watched by two guards at all tis.
She didn’t protest.
She barely spoke at all.
Whatever had possessed her had left more than a mark. It had left a hollow space behind her eyes. One that made everyone uneasy.
Rhett sat in the war room when Magnolia returned, blood still on her sleeves, her jaw set like stone.
He didn’t ask what happened.
He just stood and opened a drawer from his desk.
Inside it was a file.
He handed it to her.
"Sterling’s ledger," he said. "I hacked the encryption this morning. It was hidden under a decoy file labeled ’Property Reassignnt.’"
She opened it.
And froze.
Sterling had been funding a research facility just outside St. Louis. The files showed expenditures to private labs. Psychic research. Blood experints. Tracking data.
Dates. Nas.
And Camille’s was at the top.
"He moved her there when she was ten," Rhett said. "Told she was sent to a ’boarding academy.’ I believed him."
Magnolia’s voice cracked. "She was alone. For years."
Rhett didn’t respond.
He couldn’t.
Then Magnolia flipped the page.
There on the last file was her na.
Her old na.
Magnolia Blake.
The attached photo was from when she was sixteen. A scan of her school ID. A report next to it: Wolf dormant. Bloodline unstable. Potential bond echo: high.
She stared at it in disbelief.
"He was watching you, too," Rhett said quietly.
Magnolia dropped the file.
Her stomach twisted. Her throat burned.
"I want to burn it all," she whispered. "The estate. The lies. The legacy."
"We will," Rhett said. "But not yet."
He took her hand.
For the first ti, she didn’t pull away.
"I’m sorry," he said. "For everything."
She looked at him. "Why now?"
"Because this ti, I don’t want to lose you."
A long silence passed.
Then she asked, "Can you trust ?"
He didn’t hesitate. "Yes."
"Then I need to go back to the river. Where it all began."
"No," he said instantly.
"I have to."
"There are things in that forest "
"I’ve seen them."
"I’ll go instead."
"You can’t."
"Why?"
"Because it’s not calling you," she said.
"It’s calling ."
By midnight, Magnolia stood alone beneath the black trees, the river barely visible in the moonlight. The sa river that had swallowed Camille once. The sa river that whispered her na in her dreams.
She stepped closer.
The water didn’t rush.
It waited.
And when she reached the edge, her reflection looked back.
But it wasn’t hers.
It was Camille’s.
And she was smiling
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