The house felt... different.
Not lighter. Not heavier.
Just watchful.
The cracked mirror in the hallway was now empty of reflections that didn't belong. It no longer pulsed in Sarah's peripheral vision, and when she looked into it, all she saw was herself. Pale. Tired. But real.
Still, something about the house's stillness pressed against her ears, like a held breath.
She and Ace had showered and changed. The rain had dried from the porch, but a faint residue clung to the windows, streaks like veins etched across the glass.
Neither of them spoke much that night. They didn't need to. The battle with Sarai hadn't left wounds—but it had left echoes.
Sarah wandered into the basement before bed.
Not intentionally.
Her body had moved before her mind caught up. As if drawn.
She stood at the top of the stairs, staring down into the dark.
They had salted the foundation after Volume One. Burned the altar Sarai had hidden. Cleaned the rot from the corners.
And yet…
The air still hummed.
She flipped on the light.
It didn't turn on.
No click. No buzz. Just silence.
"Ace?" she called softly.
No answer.
Her fingers tightened around the railing.
Don't be ridiculous, she told herself. The bulb's probably out.
Still, her feet crept down the steps like they had minds of their own.
Halfway down, she stopped.
Something was breathing.
She couldn't see it. Couldn't hear it, exactly.
But she felt it. The press of it, heavy and low, like lungs beneath the floorboards.
The basement floor had been poured with new concrete two months ago. Nothing should have been beneath it.
And yet, when she stepped onto the cold floor and crouched low…
She felt it. A pulse. Slow. Rhythmic.
Alive.
She bolted.
Upstairs, Ace was in bed, reading. He looked up the moment she entered the room.
"Something's wrong," she said.
He put the book down. "Basement?"
She nodded.
He was on his feet before she could speak again.
"What did you hear?" he asked.
"Nothing," she said.
Then added, "That's the problem."
They returned together—this time with flashlights and salt and iron.
But the basement didn't feel like Sarai's darkness.
It was colder. Older. Less personal, more... primordial.
Like the house had been built on something that never wanted to be known.
Ace knelt near the spot Sarah had crouched.
He pressed his palm to the floor.
Froze.
His eyes widened.
"What is it?" she asked.
"There's something beneath the foundation," he said. "Not a room. Not air. It feels... hollow. Like the ground was layered over it."
"Could it be a cellar?"
"No. It's too deep. Too still."
Sarah looked around the room, scanning the cement, the walls, the corners where dust no longer gathered but where silence waited.
"What if it's not just the house," she whispered. "What if it's the land?"
Ace didn't answer. He reached for his phone, flicked on the flashlight, and began inspecting the far wall—the one closest to the field.
The light caught something.
A faint impression in the concrete.
He scraped at it with his knife, and the surface flaked away.
A symbol revealed itself.
A spiral made of interlocking circles, like an ancient fingerprint pressed into stone.
Sarah's heart stuttered.
"I've seen that before," she said.
Ace turned. "Where?"
She knelt beside him, hand hovering over the carved mark.
"In one of Hal's books. Not the ones he read. The ones he hid."
Ace stared at the symbol. "What does it mean?"
Sarah closed her eyes.
"It means gateway."
Upstairs, the mirror cracked again.
But not down the center this time.
From the bottom.
As if something were trying to crawl up.