The door yielded without protest.
That was the first warning Luna ignored.
Beyond it lay a circular chamber open to the night sky, its ceiling torn away to reveal a moon drowned in slow-moving clouds. The blood altar stood at the center, carved from obsidian veined with pulsing red light. Sigils crawled endlessly across its surface, reforming as soon as they were broken, fed by something deeper than spellcraft.
Rosemund waited there.
She was seated at the edge of the altar as though it were a throne, one leg crossed over the other, posture relaxed, elegant. Her hair spilled down her back like liquid shadow, her skin pale and unblemished, untouched by the corruption that stained everything else in the manor. She looked less like a monster and more like a noblewoman awaiting a late guest.
Behind her, bound within a lattice of glowing runes, lay Baroness Martha.
She was alive.
Barely.
