The cobblestones of Toledo wept.
Clara pressed herself against the shadow of a crumbling archway, her fingers numb around the bone needle. Ahead, the Catedral Primada loomed, its Gothic spires clawing at a moonless sky. The cult had lit braziers along the processional route— not with fire, but with severed hands , their fingers curled into guttering candlewicks. The stench of burning flesh clung to the back of her throat.
Zenko crouched beside her, his scars dimmed to ember-glow. "They're waiting for us."
She knew. The empty streets were too still, the silence too orchestrated . Every shop door hung ajar. Every window was a black mouth , hungry.
A rustle of fabric. Clara spun—
—only to find a line of children's shoes , arranged in pairs leading toward the cathedral's side entrance. Each held a folded slip of paper .
Clara bent to the nearest. The note read:
"For the Keeper's eyes only: The truth is in the bones."
Zenko snarled. "Don't touch—"
Too late. The moment Clara lifted the paper, the shoes burst into blue flame , revealing a tunnel beneath the cobblestones—a centuries-old crypt entrance, its stairs slick with moss and something darker.
The singing swelled from below.
"Sangre y ceniza, llama y dolor..."
Clara's amulet pulsed in time with the chant.
Zenko's claws flexed. "Trap."
"Only one way to find out." She descended into the dark.
The crypt was a cathedral in reverse —its vaulted ceilings carved with inverted saints, their faces screaming. The air hummed with the aftertaste of old magic : iron, myrrh, and the sweet-rot stink of preserved organs floating in glass jars along the walls.
At the center stood a reading desk , its surface inlaid with a mosaic of human teeth . And behind it—
A woman.
Her skin was parchment stretched over birdlike bones, her nun's habit moth-eaten but unmistakable. She didn't look up as Clara approached, her quill scratching across a ledger filled with names in black ink .
Clara's breath hitched. "Sister Inés?"
The woman's quill paused. "No. Merely her scribe." She lifted her head, revealing eyes stitched shut with gold wire . "I am La Anotadora—the Record Keeper. The cult's victories and failures live here." She tapped the ledger. "In blood and ink."
Zenko stepped forward, his scars flaring. "You serve them?"
"I serve the truth." Her stitched lips twitched. "And the truth is, little demon, you were never meant to exist."
Clara's pulse spiked. "What does that mean?"
La Anotadora slid the ledger toward her. "See for yourself."
The page showed a woodcut illustration :
- Sister Inés , kneeling before a pyre.
- A shadow with Zenko's scars , emerging from her mouth.
- And a note in the margin : "The seal requires balance. For every demon bound, another must be born—a twin flame to keep the darkness in check."
Clara's hands shook. "Zenko is... Zarzenki's shadow?"
"His leash," corrected La Anotadora. "Carved from Inés' own soul-fire. But leashes can snap." She turned to Zenko. "How many have you killed to keep her safe? How many more will it take?"
Zenko bared his teeth. "As many as necessary."
"Even her?" La Anotadora pointed a bony finger at Clara. "When the time comes?"
Before Clara could process that, the scribe flipped the ledger to a newer page— a family tree , its branches ending in Clara's name .
And beneath it:
"Montoya line extinguished in 1936. All descendants purged to save one—the Keeper. Awaiting final harvest."
Clara's blood turned to ice. "My parents—"
"—were no accident." La Anotadora traced a line to two names: Luis and Marisol Montoya . "They hid you. They died screaming for it."
A new sound cut through the crypt— a child's whimper .
The scribe stiffened. "Too late. The aria begins."
The ledger snapped shut on its own, its pages bleeding ink. The glass jars shattered one by one , their preserved organs slithering toward the cathedral above.
La Anotadora's stitched eyes split open , revealing hollow sockets. "Run, Keeper. Or join your parents in the chorus."
They fled up a spiral staircase that unspooled like a spine as they climbed. The higher they went, the louder the singing grew— not just children now, but adult voices , their harmonies warped by pain.
Clara gripped the needle tighter. "Zenko. The ledger—"
"Lies." His voice was gravel and smoke. "Mostly."
"What part wasn't a lie?"
A muscle jumped in his jaw. "I was made from Inés. To counter Zarzenki. But I'm not... complete." He touched his chest, where his scars pulsed darkest. "Something's missing."
The staircase deposited them in the cathedral's choir loft , overlooking the nave below.
Clara's stomach dropped.
The pews were packed.
Not with worshippers—with corpses , propped upright in their Sunday best, their mouths stitched into smiles . At the altar, the black-eyed girl conducted a choir of children , their throats slit to harmonize with the violin's shriek.
And at the center—
Don Javier , now unmasked entirely .
His face was a porcelain doll's , the features painted on, the jaw unhinged too wide. From the gaping maw, a familiar voice emerged:
"Clara."
Her father's tone.
"We've been waiting."
Her mother's lilt.
The bone needle burned in Clara's grip.
Zenko's claws dug into her arm. "Don't listen. That's not them."
Below, Don Javier raised his arms. The choir's song crescendoed—
—and the altar stone split open , revealing a pit of churning shadows .
Zarzenki's voice boomed from the depths:
"BRING ME THE KEEPER."
Clara's amulet screamed .
The bone needle twitched , as if pointing—
—not at the pit.
At Zenko's chest .
La Anotadora's words echoed:
"Leashes can snap."
The cathedral trembled as Zarzenki's voice shook the foundations. The stitched corpses in the pews began to twitch in unison , their gold-threaded mouths straining to sing along with the butchered choir.
Clara gripped the bone needle so hard it drew blood. The drop sizzled as it hit the floor.
"Zenko—"
But he was already moving, his body flaring white-hot as he vaulted over the choir loft railing. He landed amidst the children, scattering them like frightened birds. The black-eyed girl hissed , her violin bow raised like a dagger.
Don Javier's doll-face cracked into a grin. "Ah, the watchdog arrives!"
Zenko didn't speak. He struck , his claws raking toward Don Javier's throat—
—only for the cultist to dissolve into moths again, reforming three paces away.
"Tsk. Still predictable." Don Javier snapped his fingers.
The choir children screamed in unison , their slit throats spraying arcs of blood that hung in midair , forming a grotesque chandelier of crimson droplets.
Clara's amulet yanked her forward , dragging her down the stairs toward the altar. She fought it, but the pull was inexorable—
—until a small hand caught hers.
The black-eyed girl stood beside her, no longer smiling. Up close, her eyes weren't just black—they were voids , pits into which the candlelight vanished.
"You don't have to die," the girl whispered. "Give me the needle, and I'll make it quick."
Clara recoiled. "Who are you?"
The girl's head tilted. "Don't you recognize me? You played with me in the convent garden. Before the men came. Before the fire ."
A memory surfaced— a friend, imaginary, always singing that damned rhyme—
"You're not real," Clara breathed.
The girl's smile returned. "Neither are you."
Then she plunged her bow into Clara's ribs.
Pain exploded through Clara's side—but when she looked down, there was no wound. Only a black thread , stitching itself through her skin in intricate loops.
The black-eyed girl yanked , and Clara's vision doubled—
—she was both in the cathedral and somewhere else , a place of smoke and screaming. A man in a Guardia uniform held a match to a convent's thatched roof. The children inside wailed. And there, in the center—
Herself, as a child , clutching the hand of a black-eyed girl who looked just like her.
"They're coming for the box," whispered the memory-girl. "You have to forget me."
Then the flames took them both.
Clara wrenched back to the present, gasping. The needle in her hand glowed , its tip burning through the black thread. The girl shrieked and melted into shadow , reforming on the altar beside Don Javier.
Zenko was losing ground. The blood chandelier had hardened into spears , harrying him from all sides. One had already pierced his thigh, leaking liquid fire instead of blood.
Don Javier spread his arms. "Enough stalling! The finale approaches!"
He brought his hands together with a clap like a gunshot.
The corpses in the pews stood as one , their stitches bursting, their mouths unspooling gold thread that snaked toward the pit . The altar stone crumbled fully, revealing—
Zarzenki.
Not fully formed, but close—a towering figure of smoke and ember , his crown the shattered remnants of Clara's amulet, his eyes the same void-black as the girl's .
"Keeper," he rumbled. "How kind of you to deliver yourself."
Clara's legs gave out. The second box slipped from her grasp , popping open to spill its contents—the lock of hair crawled toward the pit , the photograph of her parents burst into flames , and the bone needle—
Leapt into her palm, pointing straight at Zenko's heart.
Zenko went still.
"Clara." His voice was raw. "You know what you have to do."
The black-eyed girl giggled. "The leash must be broken before the wolf can run free!"
Don Javier bowed. "All this time, we weren't trying to kill you, Clara. We were trying to make you choose ."
Zarzenki's laugh was the sound of a forest burning. "The seal requires balance. To lock me away, Inés created him ." A clawed hand gestured at Zenko. "Her last descendant must unmake him. Only then does the amulet reset."
Clara's breath came in shallow gasps. The needle burned , not with heat, but with recognition —it wasn't a weapon.
It was a key.
Zenko met her gaze. "Do it."
The choir swelled. The corpses swayed. The black-eyed girl hummed that cursed nursery rhyme.
Clara tightened her grip—
—and plunged the needle into her own chest.
The cathedral screamed.
Not just the stones—the air itself , the shadows , the blood still hanging in droplets. Clara's vision whited out as the needle unraveled her , stitch by stitch, memory by memory—
—her mother's laugh, burned away.
—her father's hands, unspooling into thread.
—the convent's ashes, stitched into her veins.
And then—
A door.
Not a real one. A thing of fire and shadow , etched with the same crest as the box. The bone needle clicked in an invisible lock, and the door swung open, revealing—
Sister Inés.
Not the warrior from the prologue. A wounded, weary woman , her robes bloodied, her hands clasped around a tiny flame.
"Clara," she whispered. "You came."
Clara tried to speak, but her voice was threadbare.
Inés smiled. "You always were the strongest of us." She pressed the flame into Clara's hands. "Now finish it."
The door slammed shut.
Clara woke on the cathedral floor, the needle embedded in her sternum , the amulet pulsing like a newborn star.
Zenko knelt beside her, his scars fading.
"What did you do?" he rasped.
Clara touched the needle. It wasn't hers anymore.
It was Inés's.
And it was singing.