Jace didn't sleep.
Not after the ritual. Not after the way his body still hummed with residual heat, like coals buried under skin. His vision came in flashes now—not his own. He saw things through other eyes.
Woke up breathless with names on his tongue that weren't his.
That morning, he stood shirtless at the edge of the rooftop, staring at the city's skeleton. Sunlight pushed through the clouds in pale, guilty streaks. Cars below. Horns. Laughter. Death.
The city didn't know a god was waking up in its veins.
And somewhere beneath that noise, he felt her.
Jace closed his eyes.
And she opened hers.
—
The world was wet.
Not with water. With rot.
Moss clung to the walls like cancer. Chains stretched from floor to ceiling, clinking in the dark. Something massive shifted in the background, breathing low and long—like a creature submerged in tar, dreaming of fire.
The girl sat in the center of it.
Pale.
Barefoot.
A torn grey dress hung loose around her thin frame, soaked through and sticking to her skin. She was bruised, but not broken. And her eyes—her eyes—were galaxies held hostage. Stars spinning in void. Beautiful. Unnatural. Wrong.
She tilted her head.
Smiled.
"You finally found me."
Jace couldn't move.
He wasn't physically there—just… present. In her head. Or maybe she was in his. He couldn't tell anymore.
"Who are you?" he asked. His voice sounded distant, like it was dragging through water.
The girl stood slowly, her chains rattling like bones grinding against each other. She walked toward him barefoot across stone slick with ancient blood.
"You know who I am. You've seen me. In pieces."
"You're in my dreams."
"And you're in mine." She reached out. Not with her hands—with her mind. A soft touch brushing against the inside of his skull. It made him shiver. "You're the vessel. The one who cracked the seal. I've been waiting for you."
Jace's throat tightened.
Her eyes caught him again—those endless voids of swirling light—and he saw flashes:
A field of broken moons
A boy torn in half by a creature made of mirrors
The Hollow God sitting on a throne of ribs, whispering her name—
He staggered.
She caught him without touching him.
"They chained me here because I remembered." Her voice trembled now. Not with fear. With something worse. Hope.
"Remembered what?"
"What we are." Her fingers twitched. "You're only now waking up, Jace. I was born remembering."
The darkness behind her rippled.
Jace narrowed his eyes.
Something… massive shifted just outside his perception. A claw scraping stone. A mouth breathing heat that wasn't fire.
"What's behind you?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
She just looked over her shoulder—then back at him. Her voice was a whisper now.
"My past. Your future."
Suddenly—her chains snapped taut. She gasped, doubling over.
The shadows surged toward her, yanking her back.
"NO—!" Jace lunged instinctively, even though his body wasn't there—
But before she disappeared, she screamed one last thing into his mind:
"FIND ME! Beneath the oldest church! The one with no name!"
Then—
Darkness.
Silence.
His body snapped back.
Jace fell to his knees on the rooftop, coughing, eyes wide, gasping like he'd just surfaced from drowning.
Below, the city moved on.
No one noticed the glowing sigils slowly bleeding down his arms.
No one saw Lena behind him, hand hovering over her gun, her voice quiet and shaken.
"You felt it too," she said.
He nodded. "There's someone else."
"She reached into me, Jace. Just for a second. Like she was trying to warn me."
"She did."
"About what?"
Jace stood slowly. The light in his eyes hadn't gone away. If anything, it burned brighter now—like something inside him had been confirmed.
"She's chained underground," he said. "And whatever's holding her there… it's not afraid of me. Not yet."
Reya's voice called from the stairwell.
"They will be."
Jace turned.
She walked toward him barefoot, still glowing faintly from the ritual.
"There are churches beneath this city," she said. "Older than memory. Some are just stone and sorrow. Others…"
She looked toward the skyline.
"…are prisons."
Jace clenched his fists.
"She told me where."
"Then we go," Reya said. "But we don't go alone. And we don't go unarmed."
Lena stepped up beside him, already loading silver bullets.
Her smile was thin. Sharp.
"About time we picked a fight with something that doesn't bleed easy."
Jace looked back toward the horizon.
The Hollow God stirred inside his bones.
And far below the city, a girl with star-eater eyes screamed into her chains—waiting.