The safehouse was quiet, deceptively so. Shadows cast by wards flickered with life, seen and unseen, twitching along walls like living fingers. Maryanne closed the diary and set it aside, the faint glow of its wards pulsing like a heartbeat.
"We need to go to the house," she said. "There might be clues in the old apartment we missed."
Marietta's eyebrows knit. "You mean... right into the covenant's territory?"
Maryanne didn't answer. She gathered their supplies. Every instinct screamed danger, but the answers were waiting where they'd been before, in the heart of their enemy's playground.
The streets were empty, fog rolling over cracked asphalt as if hiding secrets in plain sight. When they reached the old house, Maryanne led the way inside. Shadows cast by wards flickered again, stretching along the walls like grasping fingers, alive with whispers of things just beyond perception.
Inside, the diary lay open on the table. Before Maryanne could start, a soft, polite knock echoed through the room.
"Maryanne," a calm voice drifted through the door. "I know you're in there. I come in peace. Relatively speaking."
Anne Faith grabbed a poker from the fireplace. "How did he find us?"
Dan's eyes glinted at the door. "The Crowned-Deep. I can track anyone touched by the covenant's power."
Maryanne moved to the door, bone blade ready. Through the peephole, Dan stood casually, hands empty. He looked... almost normal. Almost human. A flicker of appreciation lingered in his gaze as it settled on Maryanne.
She opened the door but kept the threshold between them. "What do you want?"
Dan's smile seemed genuine. "To talk about tomorrow night. About choices that still remain."
"May I come in? The wards won't let me pass uninvited, and it's cold out here."
"Mom, don't—" Marietta began, but Maryanne stepped aside, scratching a line through a ward. "Five minutes."
He stepped inside, movements graceful, human. His predatory edge was gone—or at least masked. Maryanne didn't raise her weapon immediately. Something about him drew the eye, even if the mind screamed caution.
Dan nodded politely to each of them, gaze lingering on Maryanne, as he eased inside.
As soon as he crossed the threshold The temperature in the room plummeted. Maryanne stepped between Dan and her daughters, hand moving to the silver pendant around her neck. "Enough games. Say what you came to say."
Dan moved to the table, fingers hovering over the warded pages of the diary. "Tomorrow night, the covenant completes the second of seven rituals. Each one weakens the barriers between worlds." His eyes locked on Maryanne. "You could stop it. You have the bloodline, the power, the knowledge. But the cost..."
"Always a cost," Maryanne said quietly.
"Yes." Dan stepped closer, close enough for Maryanne to see flecks of gold in his blue eyes, to smell cologne on his skin. "The question is whether you're willing to pay it."
Despite herself, she felt drawn to him—not romantically, but with the fascination of staring into her past.
"The Crowned-Deep is vast beyond reach," Dan said softly. "Its evil will twist you into something you can't believe. But here's the secret—we're already twisted. All of us. The only choice is whether we twist toward darkness or find our own shape in the shadows."
Dan straightened his coat, preparing to leave. "The old church at Sorrow Creek. Midnight tomorrow. Come if you dare. Come if you want to save yourselves..." Anne Faith's eyes narrowed immediately. "You sounded like a loser before. Now you're all nice just because our mom's here?"
Dan's composed mask cracked. A flicker of mania passed in his eyes.
Marietta snorted laughing jokingly, "The skeletons in your closet... And you're proud, that's sick stuff."
Dan's face went still. Then he laughed—sharp, manic. "Remember," he said, voice dropping darkly, "swine has to eat."
Dan adjusts himself, his predatory instinct nearly takes over. Almost like he's been starved for centuries, waiting for his moment to strike.
"If skin peels, does god hear it?"
He paused, looking back at Maryanne. "You feel it, don't you? The pull between us. It's not attraction—it's recognition. We're both monsters who chose to be something else. The difference is, I stopped pretending I could be good."
Maryanne's families eyes lingered on him as he slipped away like a sly devil.
Then he was gone, leaving only the scent of deep water and the echo of drowned songs.