The wound on Lira’s palm burned.
Not like a cut.
Like a seal reawakening.

It was night. But the sky above Blackglass felt closer, heavier, lower.

Lira was alone.
And yet… not alone.

In the window’s reflection, something was watching her.

A version of herself.
Younger.
Wide-eyed.

The voice that came from it was childlike.
And familiar.

“You promised me…
you’d never open the door.”

The memory crashed into her.

**
Winter forest.
A ring of masks.
Ritual voices.**

She — small, trembling — knelt on a symbol carved into the ice.

The Harlequin wasn’t there.
But he was felt.
In the words. In the whispers.

“The Heart trembles.”
“The Eye is blind.”
“The third path… must be born.”

A pregnant woman, masked, wept.

A light.
A scream.

Then only darkness and blood.

**

Lira woke.
The sheet where her hand had rested during the dream was now filled with random words.

But one sentence stood out.
Written in her own handwriting.

Though she had no memory of writing it:

“It was never planned.
It was a response.
A sacrifice.”

Edrick stood beside her in silence.
He’d seen the paper.

“What did you see?” he asked.

Lira looked up.
Eyes cold. Clear.

“The Son isn’t a legacy.
He’s vengeance made flesh.
He wasn’t born of a mother.
He was born of us.
Of what we broke.”

In Jorren’s abandoned refuge, they found one final canvas.

Hidden.
Unfinished.

They unrolled it with hands that already knew they’d tremble.

Two children.
Sitting before a coffin.

Inside… a newborn.

A mask sewn to its face.

On the back, a phrase:

“Those who break the Pact, birth Shadow.
Those who reject blood, give birth to Mask.”

Edrick ran a hand across his face.

He didn’t speak.

He couldn’t.

Elsewhere, the Son watched Blackglass from above.

His eyes were no longer curious.
They were aware.

In his hand: a letter.
Sealed with the mark of the old Cult.

He opened it.
Smiled.

Then he spoke.
But not aloud.

Inside their minds.

“It is time the Heart truly sees.
Time the Eye truly hears.”

A new act was ready.
Not written.

Drawn in blood.