The morning after the ritual dawned gray and slow, as though even the sun hesitated to touch the Hollow. The air hung with damp, carrying the smell of scorched incense, wet earth, and old stone.
Lyra hadn't slept. She had barely moved.
She sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the mirror across the room—the same one that had once reflected not just her face, but Elira's eyes. Now, it held only her reflection. Dim. Hollow-eyed. Real.
Behind her, a knock sounded.
"Come in," she said quietly.
Elias entered, carrying a silver tray with tea and something warm wrapped in cloth.
"You didn't come down," he said, setting it beside her. "I figured you wouldn't."
She didn't answer right away. Her voice came small. "She's really gone?"
He hesitated. "She let go. That's not the same as being gone."
---
Later, Lyra wandered the halls alone. She moved through each room like someone searching for proof—of absence or of presence, she wasn't sure. The Hollow was no longer whispering. No more voices in the vents. No shifting shadows at the edge of the candlelight.
Only silence.
Yet the silence had changed.
It wasn't empty. It was watching.
She ended up in the garden, her boots sinking slightly into the softened earth. Where the cradle tree had once grown, something new had begun to bloom—small, silvery shoots curling from the dark soil. A single bud, pale as bone, had opened under the weak light.
A tear slid down Lyra's cheek.
"She was trying to protect this place," she murmured. "Even when it broke her."
---
By dusk, Lyra had lit every candle in the front hall. The Hollow, despite its silence, didn't feel any less alive. Only… still.
She stood at the base of the grand staircase, staring at the tall, gilded mirror above it—the one that had once shown her another version of herself. She stepped toward it, half-expecting something to stir behind the glass.
But it only reflected what was there: a girl in a worn sweater, eyes rimmed with tiredness, a cut still healing on her palm.
No Elira.
No visions.
Just Lyra.
Then, faintly, Elias's reflection joined hers.
"I saw her," he said softly. "In the vault. Just before it closed. She was smiling."
Lyra didn't speak.
"She passed it to you. Whatever was bound between her and the Hollow, you carry it now."
She nodded. "I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse."
"Both," he said.
---
That night, before sleep finally claimed her, Lyra opened the last of the journals hidden in the study. Her mother's words spilled across the pages—half spells, half confessions. Apologies written in ink so faded she had to tilt the paper to read it.
I couldn't save her. But I tried to love her. That's something, isn't it?
Lyra touched the page. "It is."
A breeze stirred the curtains. The house, for once, said nothing.
And somewhere in the roots beneath the Hollow, something old shifted in its sleep.