Lyra hadn't slept since the Rite.
Elias sat by the window, arms resting on the sill like someone remembering how to breathe again. He was whole now—no longer flickering, no longer fading. And yet, the house was restless.
At night, Lyra heard scratching beneath the floorboards. Not rats. Not wood settling. But a deliberate rhythm. A heartbeat.
"Something else was buried here," Elias said. "Below the chapel."
Lyra didn't want to ask how he knew. His memories were returning in fragments—images of torches, weeping, and a voice always humming just out of reach.
They descended through the west stairwell, past doors that hadn't opened in decades. Dust choked the air, and cobwebs hung like lace. At the end of the hall was a door she had never seen before—black wood with a single symbol carved into it: a circle with thorns.
The same as the rite.
"It wasn't meant to free just one soul," Elias whispered. "It was a gate."
Lyra hesitated. Her hand hovered over the doorknob.
And then it turned on its own.
---
The room beyond was cold and round—stone walls, no windows. Candles flared to life without touch, revealing what lay in the center: a cradle.
It was wrought from dark wood, lined with red velvet. Inside lay a doll made of wax. Its face was blank, but someone had stitched a smile across its mouth.
Lyra stepped closer, and the room shifted.
Voices rushed her ears—her mother crying, a man shouting, and beneath it all, a lullaby, sweet and haunting.
She fell to her knees.
The doll opened its eyes.
Two black pits stared back, and Lyra couldn't move.
"Lyra—don't look at it!" Elias shouted.
Too late.
The floor cracked. Vines burst from the stone, wrapping around her legs, dragging her toward the cradle. The house was no longer hiding its hunger.
"You broke the chain," a voice rasped from the walls. "Now something must take its place."
Elias drew the dagger from his coat, the same one used in the Rite. He sliced the vines clean and pulled Lyra to her feet.
"We need to leave—now," he said.
But Lyra turned toward the cradle one last time. The doll had dissolved into ash.
And in its place, a name burned itself into the stone floor:
Elira.
---
They ran.
Up the stairs, through the chapel ruins, past the garden of stone-eyed statues. The house groaned behind them, every door slamming open, every window breathing out fog. The Hollow was waking fully now.
Outside, the air was thick with mist, but it wasn't natural. It clung to them like fingers. Lyra collapsed near the east wing steps, gasping for breath.
"She's not gone," she whispered.
Elias nodded, eyes full of dread. "Because she never died."
Silence.
Then Elias spoke again, slower this time. "The Hollow didn't just bind souls. It hid them."
Lyra looked back toward the house.
And somewhere deep within, something watched her—something wearing her face.