Ivy stepped back, almost stumbled over Ethan. "No, you're not real."
Thalia's smile was elaborated. "Don't look so surprised, little wolf. You always knew I would be back."
Ethan drew a blade from his belt. "Stay back."
Thalia tilted her head, unconcerned. "Oh, you brought him? A scared boy who still dreams of fire?"
"Shut up," Ivy snapped, voice shaking with disbelief.
But Thalia's eyes were locked on her. Not Glowing. Not threatened. Just ... watching. As if seeing every piece of her.
"Ivy," Ethan whispered immediately, "We need to move. This place is wrong."
Thalia did not block the road. She stepped aside her fingers brushing the bark of the glowing tree. "You think this is rough, but it's just the beginning. A memory etched into the root and the stone."
"What do you want?" Ivy asked, her heart hammering.
"I want you to remember who you are."
"I want you to remember who you are."
"I know who I am," Ivy said, insisting.
Thalia's expression softened. "No. You only know the version they let survive."
The room trembled. Small rocks fell from the ceiling. Cracks were spread through the stone.
"She's destabilizing the roots," Ethan warned. "She's going to bury us alive."
Thalia smiled and said, "You can't bury what's already planted."
Gone. Just like that. Curl away in the dark as haze.
Ivy turned around. The shiny tree is now red, sickly and alive.
"We need to get out," Ethan said, holding her hand. "Now."
They ran through a side corridor and drove a shadow behind them. Dust fell with each step. The wind thickened - with a lousy, sour, rot and burning sap.
A stone -carved door appeared further, the symbols of the moon were deep in the surface.
Ivy opened it with both hands, her shoulder catching the edge as they burst through.
They stumble into a new chamber-smaller, colder. Only a shelf was at the center. On it lay a book tied in dark, veined leather. It breathed.
Ethan froze. "Is that-?"
"The Hollow's heart," Ivy whispered , and went closer.
"it's real?"
"She told me stories about it. Thalia. Thalia said it held every truth, every lie we believed."
"Then we destroy it."
"No." Ivy shook her head. "We read it."
"You can't be serious." Ethan seemed to have gotten angry. "That thing can curse you."
"I'm already cursed."
Before he could stop her, she stretched out and put her hand on the cover.
The book gasped.
It opened quickly, pages flipping like wind tearing through the past. Flickering on the Ancient language surface. Ivy understood it. As if it was buried in her blood.
A voice echoed- not high, but inside her.
You were selected. Not made. Not broken. Born.
Her eyes were struck with vision like lightning.
A white wolf under the moonlight. A child wailing around. A pair of arms—Thorne's—cradling her. Blood was smeared on his hands. Thalia's voice echoing spell around her.
"I wasn't abandoned ," Ivy whispered. "I was stolen."
Ethan went closer. "By Thalia?"
"No." Her neck tightened. "By Thorne."
The book closed, its breath was expelled like a dying thing. Shelf cracked under it.
Then - one growl.
Low. Furious. It is too real to ignore.
They turned.
Thorne was in the doorway.
alive.
covered with blood.
Breathing like a corner animal.
"You were never suppose to find this place," he said, a sound like grindstone against stone.
Ivy could not breathe. "You lied to me."
"I protected you."
"By erasing who I was?"
"I saved you from her."
"I'm her!" Ivy shouted, the word tearing from her.
silence. thick. unforgiving.
Ethan stepped in between them and pulled out his blade. "What the hell is happening here?"
Thorne's eyes never left ivy. "She was dying. Thalia signed a compromise - she gave her soul to the hollow, and it binds itself to her bloodline."
"She put it in me," Ivy whispered.
"She needed a vessel. You were the only one who could hold it."
"I was a child."
"You were dying. So she was. The hollow bounded you together."
"I had the right to know."
"You had the right to live."
The room trembled again. But it wasn't Thalia.
Roots above were moving—tearing stone. Searching.
"She's coming," Thorne said, backing away.
"She's already here," Ivy replied. "And maybe ... I want her to be."
Thornes face went pale. "You don't know what she's done."
"I know what you've done."
Suddenly Ethan cried and fell on his knees.
"No!" Ivy ran to him, catching him before he hit the stone.
The dark smoke coiled from his back, like a snake.
A sigil burned through his shirt—blazing red.
"She marked him," Thorne said. "She's inside him."
Ethans's eyes went open.
But they were no longer his.
They glowed with terrible light.
And when he spoke, it wasn't his voice.
"Hey again," said Thalia.
Through Ethan's lips.