Lyra's POV
The pistol was still in my lap when the fire burned low.
I hadn’t moved in hours. I wasn’t even sure my legs still worked, or if I’d become part of the chair. Like one of those cursed paintings in haunted mansions, the kind you see in black-and-white horror films: still, silent, pretty, and doomed.
The letter sat on the end table like a dare. The words haunted me more than Leo’s silence ever could.
Burn everything down.
Yeah. Easy for a dead man to say.
Because here’s the truth no one warns you about when they glamorize rebellion and revenge and righteous rage: when you’re surrounded by monsters, sometimes the only way to survive is to become one.
And even then?
You better pray you're the bigger beast.
The knock at the door never came again.
But Leo?
Leo didn’t need
