The North Tower's door hung loose on rusted hinges, and the moment Serena stepped through it, the air itself felt wrong—cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.
"Structural warnings," Cassian muttered, running a hand along a wall that hadn't crumbled despite decades of supposed instability. "This place isn't falling apart. Someone wants people to believe it is."
"Same trick as the Elder Oak," Kael said grimly. "Keep everyone away with a lie boring enough that no one questions it."
They descended through a stairwell hidden beneath a collapsed section of floor, Mira's lantern casting long shadows across walls that grew progressively older, rougher, until the modern stonework of Mooncrest gave way entirely to something ancient and far more foreboding.
---
The stairwell ende
