The cards sat untouched.
Red. Green.
Wait. Go.
They lay side by side on the study table, as if waiting for a ritual to begin. Allan hadn't moved them. Cassodie hadn't asked. Esmeralda had stopped entering the room altogether.
The manor had grown colder.
Not physically—Marrie kept the heat steady—but in the way that made breath feel heavier, like the air itself was watching.
Allan had started sleeping with the lights on.
He felt it strongest at night.
The pull.
It wasn't toward the cards. It wasn't toward Melody. It was toward Cassodie.
She had become quieter, if that was even possible. Her movements were slower, her gaze more distant. She didn't seem broken—just… hollowed.
Allan watched her from across rooms, unsure if she was still the same person who had woken beside him seven months ago. The attraction hadn't faded. If anything, it had sharpened. But it wasn't romantic. It wasn't sexual. It was gravitational.
He needed her near. And he hated it.
Allan returned to the library.
He had begun cataloging the strange books—those with no titles, those written in symbols, those that seemed to rearrange their contents when left alone. He kept notes. He drew diagrams. He tried to cross-reference the symbols with anything online, but nothing matched.
He found a page that pulsed when touched.
He found a map of the manor that included rooms he hadn't seen.
He found a name: Melody—written in a margin, circled in red ink.
He showed it to Esmeralda.
She frowned. "Where did you find this?"
"In the west wing."
"That wing was sealed for years."
"Why?"
She hesitated. "Marrie said it was unstable."
"Structurally?"
"No. Emotionally. Whatever that means."
Cassodie began speaking in fragments.
Not nonsense—just incomplete thoughts.
"The garden feels… thinner," she said one morning.
"Thinner?" Allan asked.
"Like it's stretched."
She didn't elaborate.
Later, she said, "I saw myself in the mirror. But it wasn't me."
Allan didn't know how to respond.
She wasn't asking for comfort. She wasn't asking for help. She was reporting.
Like a witness.
Marrie remained cheerful.
She baked. She planned. She spoke about university as if it were a vacation.
Allan tried to ask her about the manor's history.
She waved him off. "It's old. That's all."
"Do you know who lived here before?"
"Some distant relatives. I never met them."
"Did you ever meet Melody?"
She paused. "Who?"
"Melody."
"No. Is she a friend of yours?"
Allan didn't answer.
She came back on the fourth night.
Not through the mirror. Not through the door.
She was already in the room when Allan entered.
Cassodie was seated across from her, expressionless.
Melody grinned. "You're late."
"I didn't know we had a meeting," Allan said.
"You always do."
She gestured to the cards. "Any thoughts?"
Allan sat. "What do they mean?"
"Red means go," Melody said. "Green means wait."
"You said that already."
"I say many things."
Cassodie spoke. "What happens if we choose neither?"
Melody's grin widened. "Then the manor chooses for you."
Allan felt the air shift it was resistance to something maybe her words. She didn't know it well but definitely more than him.
"What is the manor?" he asked.
Melody leaned forward. "A question with teeth teeth that will bite their owner this manor is greater than you can ever comprehend got tha."
Melody pulled a third card from her coat.
It was gray.
She placed it between the red and green.
"This is the test," she said.
Cassodie frowned. "You said the test was over in that nightmare of yours."
Melody shrugged. "I lied."
Allan picked up the gray card.
It was blank.
"What do we do with it?" he asked.
"Sleep with it," Melody said. "If it's still blank in the morning, you're not ready."
"And if it's not?"
"Then you are."
She stood. "I'll be back tomorrow."
Then she vanished.
Allan slept with the gray card under his pillow.
He dreamed of the manor.
But it wasn't the manor.
It was deeper. Older. The walls were made of bone. The windows looked out onto oceans of ash. The rooms rearranged themselves as he walked.
He saw Cassodie in a hallway, her eyes glowing.
He saw Esmeralda in a mirror, her mouth sewn shut.
He saw Marrie baking bread that bled.
He saw Melody dancing in a room full of fire.
He woke gasping he wondered whether it was the card or the manor he now felt the two were indistinguishable.
The card was warm.
And no longer blank.
Cassodie was already awake by the red eyes never asleep.
She held her card in her hand.
Allan showed her his.
The gray card now read:
You are ready. But not ready
Cassodie's card read:
You are fractured. But still whole.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
Esmeralda found Allan in the library.
She looked pale.
"I saw something," she said.
"What?"
"In the mirror. It wasn't me."
Allan nodded. "It's starting."
"What is?"
"I don't know but promise me you won't be crazy like me."
"I don't think you are crazy just confused."
She handed him a photo.
It was old. Faded.
It showed the manor. And a girl.
Melody.
"She lived here," Esmeralda said. "I found this in the west wing."
Allan stared at the photo.
Melody was smiling.
But her eyes were wrong.
That night, Allan and Cassodie returned to the study.
The red and green cards waited.
The gray card pulsed.
Melody appeared.
"Well?" she asked.
Allan looked at Cassodie.
She nodded.
He picked up the red card.
Cassodie picked up the green.
Melody clapped. "Perfect."
"What now?" Allan asked.
Melody smiled.
"The moon turns orange."
A door appeared out of nowhere it glowed green and red before it burst and closed pushing the three back.
"Is that supposed to happen?"
"Hell no! Did I not cast it right no I haven't..." She rambled on as Cassodie stared at the place where the mystical door used to lie