The photograph was warm from his hands now, the paper soft at the edges where it had been folded and unfolded a thousand times before he ever touched it. Beck's thumb found the crease that ran through his mother's smile, dividing her face in two, and he traced it slowly, back and forth, the way he used to trace the cracks in the ceiling of whatever motel room they were hiding in, waiting for morning.

Her laughter was frozen there, caught mid-breath, her head thrown back the way it never was anymore. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard that sound. Couldn't remember if it had been before his father, or after. Before the running, or after the first time they'd had to leave everything behind.

The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks up the chimney, and Beck felt the sound in his chest like a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.

Topher's hand was on his shoulder. Had been there this whole time, Beck realized, a warm, grounding weight that he'd stopped noticing the way you stop noticing your own pulse. But now it tightened, fingers pressing into the muscle, and Beck understood it for what it was. A warning. A promise. I'm here. Whatever she says, I'm here.

Beck didn't look at him. Couldn't. If he looked at Topher now, he would fall apart, and he needed to hold himself together for this. Whatever this was.

Aurora sat across the desk, her hands folded in front of her, her grey eyes fixed on him with an intensity that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. She was waiting. He could feel it, the patience of a woman who had learned to wait a long time ago, who had learned that silence was a weapon and she was very, very good at wielding it.

The lamp pooled light over the desk between them, catching the edge of the photograph in his hands, and Beck watched the way the light moved across his mother's face. The way it caught the joy in her eyes, the youth in her cheeks. She'd been younger than him in this picture. Younger than him and already in love with a woman who sat across from him now with ice in her veins.

His thumb stopped mid-trace.

The question was there, on his lips, the words forming in his throat, and he could feel the weight of them, could feel how they would change everything once they were spoken. The room was holding its breath. The fire had gone quiet, the radiator had stopped clicking, and even the dust motes in the lamplight seemed to hang suspended, waiting.

Beck lifted his eyes to Aurora's.

"What did he take from her?"

The words came out quieter than he'd expected, rough at the edges, and he watched them land. Watched her face change. Not much. A flicker. A tightening at the corner of her mouth that might have been pain or might have been anger, he couldn't tell. But her eyes went flat, and Beck felt the wall go up between them, invisible and absolute.

Topher's hand tightened again. Harder this time. Almost painful.

Aurora's silence stretched, a thing with weight, filling the room until Beck felt like he couldn't breathe. He didn't look away. He'd learned a long time ago that looking away was the same as surrendering, and he wasn't going to surrender this. Not this. Not his mother.

The fire crackled again, a single pop that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet.

"He took her choice," Aurora said.

The words were flat. Deliberate. Each one placed like a stone in a wall. And Beck felt them hit him, felt the floor drop out from under him, the shape of his entire life shifting into something he didn't recognize.

"What does that mean?" His voice was steady. He was proud of that. "What does that mean?"

Aurora's hands moved, unfolding from their careful clasp, and she pressed her palms flat against the desk, as if she needed the solidity of it. "It means your mother didn't leave because she wanted to. It means she didn't leave because she stopped loving me."

"She left because of my father."

"Yes."

"Because of what he was." Beck's voice was harder now, the edge of it cutting through the quiet. "You said that. Because of what he was, because of what he wanted. But you didn't say what. You didn't say what he was, or what he wanted, or what he took from her." He leaned forward, the photograph crumpling in his grip. "I've been running from that man for six years. I've been running from him my whole life. I think I deserve to know what I've been running from."

Aurora's gaze flickered to the photograph, to his mother's frozen laughter, and something moved behind her eyes. Something old and painful that she buried quickly, like a body in a shallow grave.

"Your father," she said slowly, "is a hunter."

"You said that already."

"I said he was a hunter. I didn't say what he hunted."

Beck's breath caught. He felt Topher's hand on his shoulder, steady, grounding, and he reached up without thinking, his fingers finding Topher's, holding on.

"What did he hunt?"

Aurora was quiet for a long moment. The fire had burned down to embers, and the room was growing cold, but neither of them moved to stoke it. The lamp flickered, casting shadows across her face that made her look older, harder, carved from something that didn't feel.

"People like us," she said finally.

Beck's blood went cold. "People like us."

"The Society. The families. The ones who carry the old blood, the old gifts." Aurora's voice was quiet, careful, each word placed like a trap. "There are people in this world who know what we are. Who fear what we are. And there are those who have made it their life's work to hunt us down and eradicate us."

"My father."

"Your father was one of the most successful hunters in a generation." Aurora's eyes met his, and there was something in them that might have been pity. "He infiltrated this Society. He courted your mother. He made her fall in love with him, and then he used her to get close to everything we are."

Beck's hands were shaking. He could feel it, the tremor running through him, and he couldn't stop it. "He used her."

"He used her. And when she found out what he was, when she found out what he planned to do—" Aurora's voice broke, just for a second, just a hairline crack in the ice. "She came to me. She told me everything. And I—"

She stopped. Swallowed. And Beck watched her rebuild the wall, brick by brick, until her face was smooth and cold again.

"I didn't believe her," she said. "I thought she was lying. I thought she was trying to protect someone, or cover something up, or—" She shook her head. "I was young. I was arrogant. I thought I knew everything about the world, and I didn't know anything at all."

"So she left."

"She had to. Your father was closing in. He'd already killed two of our people, and he was using her to get to more. She had no choice but to run." Aurora's voice hardened. "And I let her go. I told her I couldn't protect her if she wouldn't stay and face the truth. I told her that if she left, she couldn't come back."

The silence that followed was enormous.

Beck stared at her, at this woman who had been his mother's sister in everything but blood, and felt something cold and sharp lodge itself in his chest. "You sent her away."

"I gave her an ultimatum." Aurora's voice was flat. "She chose to protect her child."

"She chose to protect me."

"Yes."

Beck's eyes burned. He blinked, hard, and the photograph in his hands blurred and sharpened again, his mother's face swimming back into focus. "She was pregnant."

"She was pregnant with you." Aurora's voice softened, just barely, the first crack in her armor. "And she knew that if she stayed, your father would find her. Would find you. And he would use you to get to everything she loved."

"So she ran."

"So she ran." Aurora's eyes met his, and for the first time since they'd entered this room, Beck saw something other than ice in them. "And she never stopped running."

Topher's hand was still in his. Beck held on to it like a lifeline, like the only solid thing in a world that had just tilted sideways.

"He's still hunting her," Beck said. "He's still hunting us."

"I know."

"He's hunting Baby." Beck's voice cracked. "He doesn't even know her. He's never met her. But he's hunting her because she's his blood."

"Yes."

"And you knew." Beck's voice was rising now, the control slipping. "You knew who he was. You knew what he was. And you didn't do anything. You didn't help her. You didn't protect her. You just—" He stopped, the words dying in his throat.

Aurora's face was still. "I failed her."

"Yeah." Beck's voice was raw. "You did."

Topher's hand tightened on his, a warning and a plea. Careful. But Beck couldn't be careful. Not now. Not with his mother's face in his hands and six years of running finally making sense.

"I've been hiding my whole life," he said, and his voice was shaking but he didn't care. "I've been moving from place to place, never staying, never letting anyone get close, because I thought if I stopped, if I let myself have a home, he would find us. And it turns out I was right." He laughed, a broken sound. "It turns out I was running from something real. Something that was hunting us all along."

"Beck." Topher's voice was low, careful, the way he'd always spoken when Beck was spiraling. "Breathe."

Beck's chest was tight. He couldn't seem to get enough air. The room was too small, too hot, too full of the weight of his mother's history pressing down on him.

"I need—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I need to know everything. Everything you know about him. Everything you know about what he wants."

Aurora was quiet for a long moment. Then she rose from her chair, moved to the window, and stood looking out at the darkness beyond the glass.

"Your father's name is Elias Beckett," she said. "And he is not just a hunter. He is the head of a family that has been hunting our kind for generations. The Becketts have been eradicating us for as long as there's been an Erro Society."

Beck felt the floor drop out from under him again. "He's—"

"He's a legacy." Aurora turned to face him, her grey eyes hard. "And he's been looking for you for six years. Not because you're his son. Because you're his way in."

"His way in."

"You're the key, Beck." Aurora's voice was quiet, heavy with something that sounded almost like grief. "You always have been. You're the door that leads to everything he's ever wanted."

The fire popped again, a shower of embers, and Beck felt the heat of it against his face, felt the weight of Topher's hand in his, felt the shape of his entire life shifting, cracking, falling apart.

"What does he want?" he heard himself ask.

Aurora's eyes met his, and in them he saw the answer before she spoke it. Saw the shape of it, the weight of it, the impossibility of it.

"He wants the Society," she said. "And he will burn through every one of us to get it."

Topher moved before Beck could answer. One step, then another, and suddenly he was between them—between Beck and the desk, between Beck and Aurora's grey eyes, between Beck and the weight of everything she'd just laid at his feet. His shoulders were broad in the lamplight, his leather jacket creaking as he planted himself like a wall.

"Enough."

The word was quiet. Flat. It didn't ask. It didn't negotiate.

Aurora's gaze shifted to him, and something flickered in it—surprise, maybe, or the first stirring of recognition that the boy she'd watched grow up was no longer a boy at all.

"Christopher—"

"You've given him enough tonight." Topher's voice was still quiet, but there was iron in it, the kind of iron that came from years of learning to stand his ground against people who thought they could move him. "He's been here one day. One day, Aurora. And you've already told him his father wants to burn this place down with him as the match."

Beck watched the line of Topher's back, the way his hands hung loose at his sides, the way his weight sat forward on the balls of his feet. Ready. He'd always stood like that, even at university, even when there was nothing to be ready for. But now the readiness had a shape to it. A purpose.

"I'm not a child," Beck said, and his voice came out steadier than he felt. "I don't need—"

"I know you're not a child." Topher didn't turn around. His eyes stayed on Aurora. "But you've been running for six years, and you just found out the man chasing you is the head of a family that's been hunting people like us for generations. You need a minute. Not a lecture. A minute."

The fire had burned down to embers, and the room was cold now, the kind of cold that seeped through clothes and settled in bones. Beck could feel it in his fingers, in the hand that was still wrapped around his mother's photograph, the edges of it soft and warm from his grip.

Aurora's jaw tightened. "I was answering his question."

"You were burying him."

The words landed like stones in still water. Aurora's face went blank, and for a moment Beck saw something crack behind her eyes—something old and raw that she'd spent years learning to hide.

Topher took a breath. Let it out slow. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, almost gentle.

"I know you loved her. I know you've been carrying this for twenty-five years. But he's not you, Aurora. He's not the one who let her go. He's the one she ran to protect."

Beck's throat tightened. He looked down at the photograph in his hands, at his mother's frozen laughter, and felt something hot and sharp behind his eyes.

"What will he do?" Topher asked.

The question hung in the air, simple and devastating.

"When he finds out Beck is here. When he finds out his son is inside these walls. What will Elias do?"

Aurora was quiet for a long moment. The lamp flickered, casting shadows across her face, and Beck watched her hands—folded on the desk, knuckles white, the only tell she'd allowed herself all night.

"He'll come," she said finally.

"When?"

"Soon."

"How soon?"

Aurora's eyes moved past Topher, found Beck's, and held. "He's been waiting for this door to open for six years. He's not going to wait long."

The fire popped, a single ember landing on the hearth, and Beck felt the sound in his chest like a countdown.

Topher didn't move. Didn't flinch. Just stood there, a solid weight between Beck and the truth of what was coming.

"Then we'll be ready," he said.

Aurora's gaze shifted to him, and something passed between them—an understanding, maybe, or a warning. "You don't know what you're promising, Christopher."

"I know exactly what I'm promising." Topher's voice was steady. "I've been waiting six years to keep it."

Beck's breath caught. He watched the line of Topher's shoulders, the way they squared, the way his hands curled and uncurled at his sides, and felt something in his chest crack open—something he'd been holding closed for so long he'd forgotten it was there.

"Topher."

His voice came out rough, barely a whisper, but Topher heard it. Turned. And when their eyes met, Beck saw everything he'd been too afraid to look for—the want, the fear, the fierce, aching tenderness that had been there since the first time they'd met.

"I'm not going anywhere," Topher said. "Not this time."

Beck's throat closed. He couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Could only stand there, holding his mother's photograph, watching the man he'd loved and left and loved anyway look at him like he was something worth staying for.

Aurora rose from her chair, the sound of it sharp in the quiet. "I'll have the east wing opened. The records there—they may tell us more about what Elias is planning."

Topher nodded, but he didn't look away from Beck. "We'll start there tomorrow."

"Tonight." Beck's voice was steadier now, the word coming out before he'd fully decided to say it. "I want to see them tonight."

Topher's brow furrowed. "Beck—"

"I've been running for six years." Beck looked down at the photograph, at his mother's smile, at the crease that divided her face in two. "I'm done running. I want to know what I'm facing."

The room was quiet. The radiator clicked once, then fell silent. And Beck felt the shape of his life shift again, settling into something new, something he didn't have a name for yet.

Topher studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded, slow, like he was making a decision he'd been holding off on.

"Okay." He stepped closer, close enough that Beck could feel the heat of him, the steady certainty of his presence. "But I'm coming with you."

"I know."

"And if we find something—"

"We'll face it together." Beck's voice cracked on the last word, and he saw something move in Topher's eyes—something raw and unguarded that made his chest ache.

Aurora moved toward the door, her heels clicking against the floor, and paused with her hand on the handle. "The east wing hasn't been opened in years. Whatever's in there, it's been waiting a long time."

She looked back at them, and Beck saw something in her face he hadn't seen before—something almost like hope, buried deep beneath the ice.

"I hope you find what you're looking for," she said. "Both of you."

The door closed behind her, and the silence that followed was enormous.

Beck stood in the middle of the study, his mother's photograph still in his hands, and felt the weight of everything he'd learned pressing down on him. His father was a hunter. A legacy. A man who wanted to burn through the Society and everyone in it. And Beck was the key—the door that led to everything Elias had ever wanted.

Topher's hand found his. Warm. Steady. Real.

"You okay?"

Beck laughed, a broken sound. "I don't know what okay means anymore."

Topher's thumb traced across his knuckles, a small, grounding motion. "That's fair."

Beck looked down at their hands, at the way Topher's fingers curled around his, and felt something loosen in his chest. "You didn't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"Step between us. Protect me."

Topher was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I've been looking for you for six years, Beck. I'm not going to stand there and watch someone bury you with the truth."

Beck's throat tightened. "I'm not—"

"I know you're not fragile." Topher's voice was low, rough. "I know you've survived things I can't imagine. But that doesn't mean you have to carry it alone."

The words hit Beck like a physical blow. He blinked, hard, and felt something hot slide down his cheek—a tear he hadn't even realized he'd shed.

"I've been alone for so long," he whispered. "I forgot what it felt like."

Topher's hand came up, cupped his jaw, and Beck leaned into the touch without thinking, his eyes closing, the photograph pressed against his chest.

"You're not alone anymore," Topher said. "You're not going to be alone again."

Beck opened his eyes. Topher was close, so close he could see the faint scar on his brow, the way his dark eyes held a quiet intensity that made Beck's breath catch.

"Promise?"

"I promise."

The word hung between them, heavy and bright, and Beck felt something shift inside him—something that had been locked away for six years, waiting for this exact moment.

"Okay," he said, and his voice was steadier than he felt. "Okay."

Topher's thumb swept across Beck's jaw one more time before his hand dropped, and the loss of contact was a small, sharp thing Beck felt in his teeth. He watched Topher turn toward the desk, toward the lamp that was still burning low, and the silence between them stretched into something almost comfortable—almost safe.

"The east wing," Beck said, and the words came out rougher than he'd meant them to. "You said it hasn't been opened in years."

Topher nodded, his hand resting on the edge of the desk, fingers tracing the grain of the wood. "Aurora keeps it locked. Says it's been sealed since before she took over."

"But you know what's in it."

It wasn't a question. Topher looked up, and something flickered across his face—a hesitation Beck had never seen him wear before.

"I know what she's told me. Records. Photographs. Things the Society didn't want anyone to see."

Beck's fingers tightened around the photograph in his hands, the edges of it soft and warm from his grip. "And my father."

Topher's jaw tightened. "I didn't know about him. Not until tonight. I swear."

"I know." Beck's voice came out steadier than he felt. "I believe you."

Topher's shoulders dropped a fraction, and Beck watched the tension leave him in a long, slow exhale. It was strange, seeing him like this—not the boy from university who'd laughed too loud and kissed too deep, but a man who'd learned to carry weight without letting it show. Beck wondered how much of that weight was made of six years of searching.

"You should sleep," Topher said, but his voice didn't carry the weight of an order. "We can go in the morning."

"I won't sleep." Beck's eyes stayed on the photograph, on his mother's frozen smile, on the crease that divided her face in two. "Not until I know what's in there."

Topher was quiet for a moment. Then he moved, crossing the room until he stood in front of Beck, close enough that Beck could smell the leather of his jacket, the faint trace of smoke from the fire.

"If we do this now, you need to be ready." Topher's voice was low, almost a murmur. "Whatever's in that corridor, it's been waiting a long time. It might not be kind."

Beck met his eyes. "I stopped expecting kind a long time ago."

Something moved in Topher's face—a flicker of pain, quickly buried. "That's not something you should have had to learn."

"But I did." Beck's voice cracked on the last word, and he saw Topher's hands clench at his sides, like he was physically holding himself back from reaching out.

"Come on," Topher said finally, and his voice was rougher than before. "I'll take you there."

He moved toward the door, and Beck followed, the photograph still pressed against his chest. The study felt smaller now, the fire burned down to ash, the lamp casting long shadows that stretched and curled like they were trying to hold onto something.

The corridor outside was cold, the stone floor sending a chill through Beck's thin shoes. He'd been so focused on the study, on Aurora, on the weight of everything she'd laid at his feet, that he hadn't noticed how the rest of the Society moved—the way the walls seemed to breathe, the way the torches flickered in the draft, the way the silence felt less like emptiness and more like waiting.

Topher walked beside him, their shoulders almost brushing, and Beck found himself leaning into the proximity without meaning to. Six years of running, of looking over his shoulder, of sleeping with one eye open—and here, in this ancient hall, with a man who'd promised to stay, Beck felt something he hadn't felt in a long time.

Safe.

The word felt foreign in his chest, too big for the space it was trying to fill. He pushed it down, focused on the sound of their footsteps, on the rhythm of Topher's breathing beside him.

They passed a window, and Beck caught a glimpse of the night outside—a sliver of moon, low and pale, hanging over the treeline. The grounds stretched out in shadow, and Beck wondered how many eyes were out there, watching, waiting for a door to open.

"This way." Topher's voice pulled him back, and Beck followed him down a narrow corridor that branched off the main hall. The torches here were fewer, the shadows deeper, and Beck felt the temperature drop as they walked.

The corridor ended in a heavy oak door, banded with iron, a single symbol carved into the wood at eye level. A circle with a line through it. The same symbol from his mother's letter. The same symbol from the watermark.

Beck stopped. His hand reached out, fingers hovering over the carving, the wood cold and rough beneath his touch.

The wood held the cold the way stone holds the night. Beck traced the circle with his fingertip, felt the groove where generations of hands had worn the line deeper than the rest. Whoever had carved this symbol had wanted it to last. Wanted it to be found.

"How long has this been here?" His voice came out quiet, absorbed by the shadowed corridor.

Topher stepped up beside him, close enough that the warmth of him registered against Beck's shoulder. "Longer than the Society's been in this building. Aurora said the east wing predates everything else—the main hall, the study, all of it."

"Predates it how?"

"It was here first. The rest of the Society was built around it."

Beck's fingers stilled on the symbol. A circle with a line through it—a door that was also a denial. A threshold that said no. His mother had pressed that same mark into the bottom of her letter, small enough that he'd almost missed it, small enough that it might have been a crease in the paper.

It hadn't been a crease.

"She knew," he said. "My mother. She knew this door existed. She knew what was behind it."

Topher didn't answer right away. His hand came up, not to touch the symbol, but to rest flat against the doorframe, as if testing the weight of the wood. "She knew a lot of things she never told you."

"She told me to come here." Beck's voice cracked on the last word. "She told me you'd protect me. She never told me why."

Topher's hand dropped. He turned to face Beck fully, and in the low torchlight his eyes looked almost black, the scar on his brow a pale seam against his skin. "Maybe she thought you'd run if you knew."

"I did run."

"You ran from your father. Not from me."p

The words landed somewhere deep in Beck's chest, in the space that had been hollow for six years. He looked down at the photograph still clutched in his hand, at his mother's frozen smile, and felt the edges of it soft and warm from his grip.

"I ran from both of you," he admitted, and the truth of it burned going down. "I told myself it was to protect you. But I was scared, Topher. I was scared of what I was, scared of what my father was, scared that if I stayed you'd see the part of me that came from him."

Topher was quiet. The torch on the wall flickered, sending shadows crawling across his face, and Beck watched him process the words, watched him weigh them.

"I've seen the part of you that came from him," Topher said finally. "I saw it the night you left. I saw it in the way you wouldn't look at me, in the way you wouldn't let me touch you, in the way you said goodbye like you were already gone."

Beck's throat closed. "Topher—"

"I've spent six years thinking I did something wrong. Thinking I pushed too hard, or not hard enough, or that I wasn't what you needed." Topher's voice was rough, scraped raw. "And now you're here, and you're telling me you left because you were afraid of what you might become."

"I was afraid of what he'd do to you."

"I know." Topher stepped closer, and Beck felt the heat of him through the cold air. "But I needed to hear the other part. The part where you were scared of yourself."

Beck's eyes burned. He blinked, hard, and looked away, at the symbol carved into the door, at the line that divided the circle in two. "I've spent six years trying not to become him. Every time I felt angry, every time I wanted to hurt someone who threatened Baby, I'd hear his voice in my head. I'd see his hands. And I'd tell myself I was different. I'd tell myself I wasn't him."

"You're not."

"How do you know?" Beck turned back to him, and the words came out sharp, desperate. "How do you know I'm not just him with a better mask?"

Topher's hand came up, cupped Beck's jaw, and Beck felt the calluses on his palm against his skin, the steady pressure of his thumb sweeping across his cheekbone. "Because I know what he is. And I know what you are. You're not the same."

"You didn't know him."

"I know what he did to you." Topher's voice was low, fierce. "I know he made you run. I know he made you afraid. And I know you've spent six years trying to be the opposite of everything he is. That's not the same blood. That's the same wound."

Beck's breath caught. The photograph in his hand trembled, and he felt something hot slide down his cheek—a tear he hadn't even realized he'd shed.

"I don't know how to stop being afraid," he whispered.

Topher's thumb swept across his cheek, catching the tear. "You don't have to stop being afraid. You just have to let me be afraid with you."

Beck laughed, a broken sound that was half sob. "That's the worst proposal I've ever heard."

"It's not a proposal." Topher's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "It's a promise. There's a difference."

Beck leaned into the touch, his eyes closing, and for a moment the cold corridor, the symbol, the weight of everything his father was—it all fell away. There was only Topher's hand on his jaw, the steady rhythm of his breathing, the solid certainty of his presence.

Then Topher's hand dropped, and the cold rushed back in.

"We should open the door," Topher said, but he didn't move toward it. He stood there, watching Beck, his eyes dark and unreadable.

"You don't want to."

"I don't want to see what's behind it." Topher's voice was quiet. "I don't want to know what your mother was hiding from. Because if it's as bad as I think it is, I'm going to have to watch you carry it."

Beck's throat tightened. "You don't have to carry it with me."

"I know." Topher's hand found his, squeezed. "But I'm going to."

The words hit Beck somewhere deep, in the place that had been empty for six years, and he felt something crack open in his chest—something he'd been holding closed for so long he'd forgotten it was there.

"Okay," he said, and his voice was steadier than he felt. "Okay."

He turned back to the door. The symbol stared up at him, a circle with a line through it, a denial carved in oak. He pressed his palm flat against the wood, felt the grain rough against his skin, and pushed.

The door didn't move.

Beck pushed harder. Nothing. The wood was solid, immovable, as if it had been sealed in place for decades.

"It's locked," he said, and the word came out flat, defeated.

Topher stepped up beside him, ran his hand over the door's surface, searching. "There has to be a mechanism. Aurora said—"

"Aurora said it's been sealed since before she took over. She didn't say how to open it."

Topher's hand stopped. His fingers found something—a small indentation in the wood, hidden in the shadow of the iron band. He pressed, and there was a click, soft and mechanical, like a lock turning over.

The door swung inward.

Cold air rushed out, carrying the smell of dust and old paper and something else—something metallic, like blood that had dried a long time ago. Beck's breath fogged in front of him, and he felt the temperature drop by degrees as he stepped across the threshold.

The corridor beyond was dark. Not the warm dark of the main hall, with its torches and shadows, but a deep, absolute dark that seemed to swallow the light from the doorway. Beck's heart hammered in his chest, and he felt Topher's hand find his, warm and steady in the cold.

"I'm right here," Topher said, and the words were a lifeline in the dark.

Beck stepped forward, into the dark, and felt the weight of six years of running settle onto his shoulders like a coat he'd never been able to take off.

Then the corridor lit up.