I creep closer. Kai’s bow no longer rattles, and I glance back to see she has her weapon already drawn. Hugging the wall, I peer inside. The hinges whine as I nudge the door open wider.

Kai lowers her bow. My breath punches out of me as the red light of the hall washes over the room.

I step into the smell of chalk dust and the faint remnants of Lyon’s cologne. The orb and its bronze pedestal are gone. His desk lies on its side, the drawers emptied and their contents strewn. The spines of his favorite books are splayed wide, their pages torn, tossed in piles on the floor.

I turn his chair upright. Broken glass crackles under my feet. The shards are curved and thick, and I sink down into the chair with my head in my hands, staring at the remains of the shattered orb.

My smaze is gone.

How much had Doug seen in Lyon’s and Gaia’s eyes before he killed them? Did Doug break the orb while they were ransacking the room searching for something else, or did he know the smaze in the orb was mine? I rock back in the chair, my throat thick, as I imagine all the things Doug could have done with it.

“We should go,” Kai says gently, her tone less urgent than before, as if she knows how close I am to breaking. As if she understands a piece of me died the minute I walked into this room. “We can go back and hide in the catacombs until we figure out what to do.” She touches my shoulder.

I lift my head, giving myself one last look at the room. A reflection above Lyon’s desk catches my eye, the wink of light on glass over the faded poster of Cuernavaca that always reminded me of Fleur. I spent countless hours sitting in this chair staring at it over the past three decades. It’s always hung in the same spot, the adhesive so old, it may as well have been cemented to the wall. Strange that Lyon suddenly decided to frame it.

The leather groans as I rise to my feet, remnants of the orb crunching beneath them as I cross the room and pluck the frame from the wall. I hold it in both hands, my eyes tracing its edges. Kai gasps as I smash it against the wall.

Glass rains over my shoes. Shaking the loose shards from the frame, I lay it facedown across the arms of the chair, peeling back the edges of the poster inside. A folded piece of paper is taped to the matting. I set the frame on the floor, unfolding Lyon’s letter as I drop into his chair.

Jack,