"Welcome back, Seraphina."
The name settled into the damp vault like a bell tolling beneath the earth. It didn't echo. It lingered until it sounded less like a greeting than a sentence already passed.
Every instinct I'd spent fifteen years sharpening took over. In one fluid, practiced motion, my pistol was clear of its holster, leveled squarely at the old man's chest.
"Don't call me that," I snapped, my voice a jagged blade in the silence.
The man didn't flinch. He didn't raise his hands, didn't recoil, didn't even blink. He leaned on his silver-headed cane, his posture relaxed, his expression carved from a sad, ancient empathy. He looked at the gun as though it were a toy, something utterly incapable of harming him.
"I never stopped," he said softly.
Damien lay unconscious behind
