Havana stood before the cracked mirror in the corner of the room, breath misting the glass in slow, shallow gasps. Her reflection fractured between girl, demon, something hell created.
Behind her, Ten loomed.
Not like a man. Not like a lover.
Like a god admiring the final tremor in his collapsing cathedral.
“You see it now, don’t you?” he murmured, his voice coiling around her like smoke. “What you’re becoming.”
Her lips parted, trembling. Her pupils had swallowed the colour of her eyes, vast, ravenous, lost.
“I don’t recognise myself,” she whispered, almost ashamed.
Ten chuckled low in his throat—a sound like something snapping under weight.
“You were never meant to,” he said. “Recognition is for the living. You’re shedding that skin, sweet girl. We just gave shape to what your su
