Lira had spent three years diving deeper than anyone, selling shards to afford a single ticket to the upper city. Not to find him. Just to stand where he had stood. Pathetic. Pure. And utterly hungry.
At the end of the corridor was a single empty pedestal. And on it, a note:
She pressed her palm to the brass door. Whispered, Kaelen.
She walked out into the cold fog of the lower city. Her hands were still scarred. Her hair still white. She had nothing but her name and her aching lungs.
She understood then. The Jewel House didn’t show you your desire. It showed you every possible version of it, every hungry angle, until the wanting became a kind of horror.
The House sat at the city’s crooked heart, behind a door of tarnished brass that had no handle. To enter, you had to place your palm on the cold metal and speak the name of the person you desired most—someone you had never touched.
