The storm was unrelenting.
Wind hissed through the Haveli's broken shutters, like whispers from the past clawing to be heard. Somewhere in the distance, a tabla echoed faintly—too faint to be real.
Riaan stood barefoot on the cold marble floor just outside Devika's locked wing. The trail of blood had stopped at her door.
He hadn't knocked.
He hadn't dared.
Instead, he waited until the house fell into sleep—if it ever truly did.
Then he moved.
---
The music room had been sealed for over twenty years. The door was carved rosewood, but one hinge was rusted through. Meher had told him where to find the old iron key — hidden behind the fifth mirror in the south hallway.
It worked.
The door creaked open into darkness.
Dust choked the air. The scent of sandalwood had faded, replaced with something more primal—metallic, earthy… human.
He lit a single candle and stepped inside.
There were broken sitars on the floor. An overturned tanpura. Stains that didn't belong to time.
And then he saw the trapdoor.
It wasn't hidden well.
Just heavy.
He pried it open and descended into the crawlspace below, the flame flickering against rough stone.
That's where he found it.
A wooden box.
Locked.
Scratched with marks like someone had tried to claw their way out.
Inside, he found:
A worn photograph of Devika in her twenties—smiling beside a man who wasn't Nikhil.
A ring with blood still crusted in its grooves.
And a tape recorder.
He pressed play.
At first, only static.
Then:
> "My name is Aarav Mehta. If you're hearing this, I didn't leave. She kept me."
> "She calls it love. It's not. It's possession. She wants to fill the hollow her husband left—but she doesn't love. She devours."
> "If you look like him, speak like him, touch like him… she thinks you are him."
> "…and if you stop being him—she'll bury you here, too."
---
Riaan dropped the recorder.
He turned to leave—and saw a figure at the top of the stairs.
Not moving.
Watching.
Devika.
Barefoot.
In the same red saree from the night before.
"You weren't supposed to come here," she said softly.
He stared up at her, heart pounding.
"Who was Aarav?" he asked.
She didn't blink.
"Someone who loved me wrong."
Her hand gripped the rail.
"Do you love me right, Riaan?"
His voice was ice.
"I don't know what right means to you."
She smiled, slow and terrifying.
"Good," she whispered. "Then maybe you'll last longer than the others."