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“And you, my dear Cassia, seem to be closer to answers,” he replied, his voice soft. “I heard you’ve already made it to the city. I came to ensure you find what you were looking for.”

Remiel stepped between us then, a protective gesture. His hand hovered near his belt, a subtle but clear warning to Valden.

Valden only smiled, a flash of white fangs in the gloom. “Relax, Guard Dog. I’m not here to steal your precious leash.”

Ouch, the shadows quipped.

“You do not need to monitor,” Remiel growled.

“No,” Valden said, tilting his head toward me. His eyes gleamed beneath his mask. “She found this place on her own, didn’t she?” His gaze lingered on me. “That’s the thing about bloodlines, Guardian. Instinct always leads you…home.”

I didn’t flinch, but the words hit deeper than I wanted to admit.

Valden stepped closer, just enough to make Remiel tense again, and reached into his coat pocket. He withdrew a small black box, simple and square and bound with a silver ribbon. He extended it toward me, his palm up. “A token.”

“I’m not in the mood for your games, Valden.”

“This isn’t a game.” His eyes, darker than usual, flicked over my face. “It’s…a remedy. For the noise.”

I frowned. “Noise?”

“The dreams. The voices you hear when the silence gets too loud. The mask…opened a door, didn’t it? This will help you control who walks through it.”

I stared at the box, neither taking it nor walking away.

“You’ll like it,” he whispered. “It’s old. And it’s yours.”

I reached out before I could stop myself, my fingers closing around the cool velvet box. The moment I touched it, the air shifted, a subtle tightening. The surrounding shadows rustled against my skin. Remiel said nothing, but I felt him coil behind me.

I opened the lid.

Inside sat an elegant silver ring—ancient, unmarked by time. No inscription. No stone. Just a smooth, glinting band that looked as if it had been poured from moonlight and tempered in celestial fire.

It shouldn’t have meant anything. But it did. The moment I looked at it, I knew with a certainty that resonated in my very bones that it had once sat on a hand that had commanded monsters. I didn’t know how I knew, but I did. Something in my blood sang to it, and my fingertips tingled.

“I don’t wear gifts I don’t understand,” I murmured, my voice barely a whisper.

“Don’t wear it then,” Valden said, smiling faintly.

Remiel moved then, not fast but with a protective urgency, and reached for the box, but I snapped it shut first. He froze. “Cassia.” His voice was a low warning.

“I’m fine,” I replied.

“You’re not.”

I met his eyes. They were gray, but the golden swirls stirred. “Go back to Heaven, Remiel, if you want clean lines and unwavering obedience.”

His face cracked. Just slightly. A flicker of pain, of betrayal, perhaps. He then turned and walked away without another word.

Valden watched him go, an unreadable expression on his pale face. He then looked back at me. “Well,” he said, his voice too gentle, “you always knew how to wound the faithful, didn’t you, my dear?”

I stared at the space where Remiel had stood, the air still humming with the ghost of his presence.

My fingers curled around the silver ring in the box. I hadn’t asked for it and hadn’t wanted it. But it called to me like a whisper along the inside of my skin. When I finally slid it onto my finger, it wasn’t relief I felt. It was silence.

Absolute, suffocating silence.

The faint, frantic buzzing that had plagued me since the mask—the screams of Lysanthe in my head—cut off. But so did the warmth. And so did the light.