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“Yes.” Hope flares sharply. “He’s my brother. He—”

My throat tightens. I’m not ready for him to become past tense.

Tears sting, but I refuse to let them fall. “He gave me a medallion and told me to find the Serpents. Right before he was killed.”

Edwin’s hand drops away.

Losing his touch leaves me hollow. I’m alone again, except for the knowledge of him still standing there. Quiet, unreadable, and dangerous.

“Who killed him?” he asks.

I hesitate, trying to decide if he’s a threat or a lifeline. All I know is I’ve run out of other doors to open.

“I don’t know.” Panic sneaks into my voice. “I was taken from my bed and he saved me.”

I reach into the dark until my hands find his chest again. He’s tense now beneath my palms, rigid with restraint, but my body reacts to him like finding shelter in the middle of a storm.

“Can you help me?” I ask. “Do you know where the Serpents are? I heard they might be here. You said your great-grandfather made the medallion, right?”

I sound desperate because I am. I’m grasping at anything. Any thread that could lead to safety. Or answers.

He doesn’t speak. The silence curls around me, heavy with too much thought.

Then his hands settle over mine where they rest against his chest, covering them completely. He holds them there to steady me, as if he knows I belong in his care.

A sudden blaze of light blinds me.

I jerk back with a startled gasp.

The door swings open, and a woman in a housekeeping uniform marches in, already annoyed. I squint through the brightness, disoriented.

She reaches for the cart of supplies with a muttered sound of irritation. Edwin’s expression smooths into controlled politeness.

“Terribly sorry about the mess, Sandra.”

She doesn’t look surprised.

“Again, I deal with this, Edwin.” She pulls cleaning bottles from the shelves for her cart, one of them a large jug of bleach. The chemical scent drifts through the cramped space.

Again?

To her, a dead man seems little more than an interruption to her shift.

Edwin reaches into his pocket and takes out a thick stack of cash. A thousand dollars, maybe more.

“It was necessary,” he says, offering it to her.

Sandra counts the bills with a sigh. “No more.” She jabs a finger at him threateningly, and it shocks me that she doesn’t seem remotely afraid.

“No more this week, I promise.”

She gives him one last exasperated look, then pushes the cart into the hallway and disappears.

The silence after she leaves is stranger than the interruption itself.

Edwin turns to me, and all the softness he showed Sandra vanishes.

“Someone took you from your bed?” His voice goes cold, laced with anger. “Who?”